This happened last night playing 1/3 at one of the cardrooms I play at a lot. A notorious whale is playing 1/3 and is on the main game shipping blind a bunch of hands and running up a stack and getting pretty drunk while doing it. I have played with him before and he makes it pretty clear he is there for fun and doesn't care about the money, he often tries to just give people money.

I eventually get over to the main and he is sitting on about 1.1k, i have about 430 or so. The floor has already come over a couple times to talk to him, some of the dealers had been complaining about his behavior. So it gets to a point where the floor pulls him outside and when he comes back he has to cash out his chips because the floor is afraid he will bust and not pay his $70+ tab. So he gets cashed out, pays the tab and then just remains there. Eventually he wants to rebuy and the dealer tells him he has to rebuy for 1.1k, which is fine with the drunk guy so he gets dealt in. Im UTG and i dont even look at my cards yet because a player wants the floor to come over and make sure it is ok. So the floor comes and after some talking he says if its the 1.1k he can rebuy and checks with the table if we are ok with it, we agree.

So the floor announces he is playing 1.1k. I have KQhh and raise, knowing there is a great chance he just puts in a ton of money blind. He obliges and announces all in blind and throws his cash in. Then things get crazy. As soon as he said all in blind, the floor immediately says that he has had enough and grabs the cash back. Meanwhile, one of the guy's friends comes over and starts yelling at the floor about how irresponsible he is being by letting him rebuy and he should be looking out for him. Now the drunk guy is absolutely furious and picks up his cards and his screaming at the floor to let him play his hand. Then the floor just takes his cards and puts them in the muck and pulls him off the table. I didn't say a word but I feel like I got pretty screwed here.

So was the floors decision completely out of line, and what would you do in that situation?

Cliffs:
-drunk guy shoves blind and runs up 1.1k stack
-floor has him cashout to pay for tab
-guy wants to rebuy, dealer says if he rebuys 1.1k he can play and deals him in
-floor comes and asks if we are all ok with im rebuying 1.1k, we agree and floor announces drunk guy is playing 1.1k
-hero has KQhh utg and raises, drunk guy announces all in blind and puts money in middle
-floor tells him mid hand he has had enough and needs to leave
-drunk guy gets mad and causes scene
-floor mucks drunk guys hand and takes the player and money off the table

I don't know where to start with how this should be rectified. Really, they should have let his all-in bet stand, kept his hand in play, and run the rest of the hand out. He had made an action already. It's not up to the dealer or the floor to decide that a valid action just gets to be taken back and the hand mucked because of some judgment they made about the guy's behavior. People are allowed to get ****faced and bet like fools at the poker table. If they want to eject him, they should wait until the conclusion of the hand.

However, since they did muck his hand (assuming it's irretrievable and unidentifiable), his hand is dead via dealer error. So does the action stand? That's a tough call. It's a little like that WSOP hand with the woman who shoved in the 9 seat and then had her hand mucked by an absent-minded dealer. They took away the amount of the call but let her keep the rest of the chips, if I remember correctly. But then again, I thought that was a terrible decision.

I don't know. Maybe, since no one else has acted and their behavior has so badly disrupted play and changed the landscape of the table, you should be able to take your bet back and re-decide what to do. It's not the greatest option, but they can't very well penalize Mr. Whale by taking his chips away with no chance to win. He has to be treated as if he had a heart attack mid-bet or something; it's like he wasn't there in the first place.

This is all some bull****, though. That's for sure. That dealer was way out of line.

Couple of things that stand out to me. First, I doubt that the floor made the guy leave the table with 1.1k on the table simply because he was worried about the guy paying a $70 bar tab. That doesnt make sense. He could have just asked the guy to pay his tab out of his stack, and keep playing plus, why would he assume the whale didnt have $70 in his pocket?

So I think the floor actually removed him because he thought he was too drunk to play. Casinos are responsible for monitoring that kind of stuff. But then the floor screwed up by letting him back in the game. As to the whale coming back with the 1.1k, I dont see why the floor would bother to see if the other players were OK with it. He would be required to come back in with all of it or else he would be going south.

My guess is that when the whale shoved over 1.1k blind, the floor realized his mistake about letting the guy play again, and decided it was better to invalidate that bet and remove the whale. This way the whale couldnt come back and say, WTF, you removed me for being too drunk, and then let me back in to lose my stack on a drunk decision? Not saying the whale would do that, but that's the liability.

It's sort of like if he took the car keys from a drunk guest, but then gave them back. But sees drunk start to drive on wrong side of road, so stops him and takes keys away again.

So really, while unusual, I'm OK with the floor's decision. No player was actually harmed other than the possible lost opportunity to win money from a drunk guy. But that's no guaranteed right in a casino.

Thanks for your input. I'm sure you're right and there was more to him being pulled out at first than just the bar tab.

For what it's worth, the floor was asking us if 1.1k was ok because he had actually had slightly more money than that when he cashed out but no one was sure of the exact amount so the floor proposed he just rebuy for 1.1k even.

Floor goes through that whole process to rebuy? Sounds lime a dumb floor.

Definitely strange. Sounds like the $70 tab was just a ruse to get him off the table (just ask you guys if it okay to pay from his stack). Probably has instructions from Above to play nanny (see Whale's friend's reaction).

Nothing you can do about it. I would insist that I have the right to reconsider my action.

This room sounds horribly run and managed. They're interfering way too much with the flow of the game here. It also does not fall within the floor's purview to suddenly decide that they don't like that he shoved blind despite putting him on the table with that stack seconds before.

Also, the guy's friend should go to hell. These are grown men we're talking about. The floor isn't responsible for his financial decision making because he made a voluntarily decision to drink.

They are absolutely responsible for allowing an intoxicated player to gamble. That's a matter of law.

I am also guessing that there was more than one floor involved here, and probably a lag in communication between the two as to why the gentleman was leaving.

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q/q

Making him leave because he is drunk, I'm ok with. Making him leave because he is shoving blind every hand, that's over the line. He has the right to play however he wishes.

if they let him back in the game, checked with the table that 1.1 was OK and then started a hand, the money stays in the pot and the hand is played out. wtf.

Remember, if your daughter gets wicked drunk and blows a bunch of dudes, it's okay because she knew what she was doing when she drank that first beer. None of the sober guys should have any qualms about taking advantage. After all, everybody else is doing it, right? The girl said she likes to party, and she seems to be having a good time.

At some point we have obligation as society to look out for each other. Poker blurs these boundaries considerably.

This is a terribad ruling. If he was too drunk to play, they had several chances including after they made him leave and pay his bar tab to stop him from playing. Waiting until he goes all-in during the hand. That's grade A dishonesty protecting a regular.

Does the floor go back and pay the other players back when he played the exact same way before? I would probably not play at that location ever again if I had any choice.

This seems right to me. The floor is trying to make the best of a bad decision - the one that let the player buy in again.

Obviously it could have been handled better, but I can understand the invidious position that the floor is in when the drunk blind-shoves hand one. He's acting to protect the incapable drunk, this is his obligation and I've no real issue with it.

They don't have a breathalyzer. They're establishing how badly his judgment is impaired by his behavior.

There are situations where I would agree with you, but this:

is not a guy who needs your protection. Not even close.

Setting aside the question of the floor call, I'd say look at the big picture. The whale escaped with his stack this time, but you'll most likely have a crack at it again in the future. Just take the long view...

Oh, I'm sorry. I must have read it incorrectly. Please consider everywhere my post says "dealer" in reference to this action to say "floor" instead.

I think the dealer is partially at fault here for dealing him back into the game without first consulting the floor.

Well this might not be true because he was pretty pissed about the floor touching and mucking his hand and was saying he was never coming back to this card room.

We don't know that. Lots of reckless gamblers adopt a persona that they are wealthy and out for fun and just don't care but are in fact problem gamblers in debt. OP's judgement could be quite biased or he could be right, but his description is nothing but just that. Instead, the friend of the drunk is the guy everyone should be looking toward.


Lol at banishing the friend to hell for an eternity because he was looking out for his friend. Likely, he knows the drunk's situation better than anyone else in the place, so I'd defer to his judgement here. I'd also go as far as to say he was the one that had his friend pulled from the game in the first place.

Also, the drunk could have told him to stop him from doing stupid **** on the car trip there. Maybe, maybe not, but 100% there was a reason he was getting him pulled from the game that no one knew about.

Just like every drunk getting tossed from someplace.

He'll be back. Just say, "Hey, good to see you again" and don't attempt to clear the fog in his head from last session.

A big LOL at this nonsense. I wasn't there and I don't have any experience with this guy. Neither do you. If we're going to debate the matter, we all have to start with the assumption that the OP is telling the truth, and is correct in his judgment. Otherwise you can bring up any hypothetical or possible situation you want to make your case:

"It's possible that the guy is Warren Buffett in an elaborate disguise and he has made a $100,000 bet with his friend that the friend can't get him cut off."

See how easy it is? While that scenario is far more ridiculous than yours, both stories have equal factual basis. The most outlandish thing in your post is your use of "100%" to assess the probability that something you hypothesized is a fact. Just stick to the facts (and subjective judgments) that are described by the OP.

If the guy is described as "a notorious whale" whom the OP has "played with before and he makes it pretty clear he is there for fun and doesn't care about the money," then as far as you and I are concerned, that's exactly what he is, until the OP says different.

OK

We blur the line of responsible gaming so hard, it's a gray field. Regardless, the casino has a legal obligation not to let obviously drunk people gamble. It's a huge liability for everybody involved. Outside of that, there's a social obligation not to rape each other, regardless of how much the other person is asking for it.

Many people get tipsy or a bit goofy at the table, but when that becomes a person's defining characteristic, it's time to go. Based on OP's description, referring to this player as "the drunk guy" and not "the whale" or "the happy gambler" I say he should most definitely be pulled from the table. It was a mistake to let him sit down again, and he was pulled before any damage was done.

Would you rather they let the guy double up and THEN pull him from the table? No harm no foul. It's too bad OP didn't get a shot at a big pile of free money, but let's wipe the drool from our chins and look at the bigger picture here.

Rofl.

I don't think you read the 100% part closely enough. I said, "100% there was a reason he was getting him pulled from the game that no one knew about." Since he didn't list a reason, then I think it's pretty clear.

There was something there that only the drunk and his friends know about. Him telling the floor they are irresponsible by letting him play strongly indicates this. What exactly is the reason? We don't know, but there is one, if even it's a 'can't 86'd me' prop bet.

Yeah, I knew a whale that had the same persona as the drunk in the OP. He lost 3 successful restaurants all with a gregarious smile on his face. That's one thing and his choice, but I can do fine without taking advantage of incapacitated drunks.

I think this has been more of a problem the last 10 years or so -- since the NL boom.
Many of the young kids with hoodies and sunglasses think skillful poker play means taking advantage of drunks.
Maybe they could use their skillful play to win in a game with junior high school students, or maybe at a mental health hospital.
Are you a skillful poker player?

I don't have any comment on this specific incident, but just wanted to comment on the posters who don't think it is fair to 'take advantage of' drunk players.

IMO, this idea is ridiculous. It's exactly the same as taking advantage of the bad play of players who misread their hole cards, are on tilt, or simply don't know how to play poker well.

Presumably no one forced this guy to get drunk. Definitely no one forced him to come to the casino with money, and that decision was likely made when sober. People do stupid things all the time. Other people are put in the position to profit from it.

For the vast majority of people (not just drunks), even coming to the casino is a poor decision. If you don't take advantage of others"s poor decisions, you are not a winning poker player; that is the definition of winning long-term in poker.