You Can’t Be Nice All the Time in Poker

{Re-write by Faldo - Story is now correct. It was an obvious collusion situation, and not a collusion and dealer error situation that I originally wrote. The Premier Poker Lounge dealer was innocent. Faldo's error on that.}

Yes, take bad beats gracefully. The money will return with interest eventually.
NEVER berate a bad play by a player that costs you a pot. You want to chase Faldo away and have Boother36 or LittleRedElf fill the seat? Yeah – real smart.
The dealer screws up the deal and starts over ….and you had AA. Shut up and throw them in without any whining. No need to embarrass the dealer. It happens.

However, there are times when you have to stand firm and stick up for yourself and what is right. Here is a debacle at Premier Poker Lounge that needs to be reviewed. I will let Boother36 tell it.

“This is a situation that happened to me on Saturday night – the big Saturday weekend at PPL - that I wanted to share with the NPP crew so it doesn’t happen to you!!

Here are the facts; a $110 buy-in tourney, 28 players to start, we are down to the bubble with 4, they pay thru 3rd ($1250, $775, $520), antes/blinds = $400/$2K/$4K, average chip stack is $87,500, all 4 players are between $60K and $95K in chips.

The 2 big stacks clash on a hand and leave the loser with only $1K. I am sitting good with around $75K, so it appears that I am a lock to cash.

The next hand, the short stack who I will call Yappy (he is a dealer in another local charity card room, a twenty-something self proclaimed poker expert-just ask him, and he NEVER shut his trap once during the entire tourney!!) is UTG and calls for his remaining chip.

The button folds. The SB (who happens to be Yappy’s buddy!!) [Ed. Note: Red Flag!] goes all in for around $60K. I’m in the BB and can’t believe this move. I would have expected him to simply flat call so we could check-it down and have 2 shots at taking out bubble-boy. I fold in disgust, to see the SB w/ As7s and Yappy with 85 off suit. [Ed. Note: Ok, not smart, but not the worst play I have seen in this situation.]

Now for the nutty part. The flop comes 8-5-3. Yappy's buddy picks up his cards (As 7s), turns them over, says “I fold” and throws them into the muck. No one at the table, including the dealer, can believe this move. Then the dealer deals the turn (A) and the river (A) and shoves the pot to Yappy, as he has to.

Everyone, except for Yappy and his buddy, can’t believe what happened. [Ed. Note: I would like a little more info on who "Everyone" was. How many people saw this - and why didn't they call the Floor Supervisor? This is obvious collusion between Yappy and YB.]

The Floor Supervisor is no where to be seen (which is odd for the PPL). And after some small talk along the lines of WTF….play continues.

Here is where I made my mistake. I decide to let it go. I don’t want to delay the game, make waves or be a “bad guy” to wreck my karma. I decide since Yappy only has a few thousand in chips, he will be out in the next hand and all will be back to normal.

Wrong!! He proceeds to double up and take down the next few pots. Soon we find ourselves at break and Yappy has around $30K!! (Never doubt the old saying “a chip and a chair”!!)

When break is over, the table starts chatting about chopping ($1K cash for the chip leader and $500 of the other 3 of us). I say “I’m not comfortable with Yappy getting any cash, since he should be gone”, so we don’t chop and play continues.

The first hand after break, I have A9 and move all in. Yappy calls with A7 and the others fold. Now I am feeling comfortable that all is well in the world – I will bust Yappy and things will be back to normal. Well, as you guessed it, a 7 comes on the river and now Yappy has more chips than I do!! Talk about WTF!!!

I decide to suck up my pride and agree to chop. I walk out the door with $500, basically 3rd place money.

After spending time lying awake in bed early on Sunday morning thinking about what went wrong….next time, I will ask to stop play when the “collusion” situation happened, regardless of who it pissed off or how much time it would have taken to get things straightened out.

But I guess I’m too much of a nice guy to do that. So the moral of the story is don’t be a nice guy and let something that is not right, slide by…it could come back to hurt you!!!”

Boother, glad you are a nice guy. You are too big (size and heart) to be otherwise!

What is wrong with the guy on the Button? I would have reported the collusion to the Floor Supervisor myself! The missing Floor Supervisor is another concern. That just should not happen. It's the final table and pay time!

I like everyone at PPL, and it is still my local poker room of choice, but I hope we can get the House and the Dealer side of this collusion story. I will ask.