MGM National Harbor 1/3 last week.

Seat 2 is BB. It's late night (2 am) and no one appears drunk so this doesn't seem alcohol induced

Seat 3 limps.
Seat 4 ($350-ish stack) raises to $25. (We never get to see his hand)
I fold.
Seat 6 ($500-ish stack) raises to $55 with AA.
Seat 7 folds.
Seat 8 ($120 stack) goes all-in with suited JT.
SB folds.
BB ($680 stack) goes all-in. Seats 4 and 6 call.

The BB immediately tables his hand: 79 offsuit.
Flop is 568 rainbow. BB scoops it all.

A little over an hour later, that guy loses the last of his stack, complaining that he hadn't won any pots since that all-in.

This happened at Horseshoe Hammond, IN. I'm playing PLO for a few hours next to this guy. We are going to name him Mike. Mike decides to go to lunch. After about an hour an a half, some players complain that he's been gone much longer than an hour and he needs to be picked up. The floor agrees and they pick up Mike and put his chips behind the desk. He had around $800 in red chips.

Next player sits down in the same seat. We will call him Tom. He plays for about 30 mins before he decides to go to dinner as well. Tom also has around $800 in red chips.

So, Tom leaves and goes to dinner. Not too long after, Mike comes back to what he thinks is his seat. None of us realize that he is about to sit down in a seat that was no longer his. He begins playing with Tom's chips assuming they are his own. About 45 minutes go by, and Tom returns from dinner. He tells Mike, "hey, you're in my seat." Mike says "no, you're confused, this is my seat." They argue for a minute about who's seat it is and the floor is called. Floor comes over and tells Mike "this isn't your seat. We have your chips behind the desk."

Well, Mike has won around $400 playing with the Tom's chips. Then Mike says "well can I keep what I won?" The floor says "no, anything you won has to stay on the table. They stay with the second player." Mike is obviously PISSED. He starts cussing out the floor saying he won the money. That should be his. They messed up not telling him that he had gotten picked up. All the meanwhile everyone at the table is dying laughing and how hysterical the player is, and how stupid of a ruling the floor made. Hilarious, sh*t show.

Damn, that's a bad situation all around, but I'd be pissed if I was Mike too. I don't see a good reason the chips have to stay at the table, people can always leave with their winnings. I'd let Mike keep at least most of the winnings, maybe rounding down a bit to make sure that Tom doesn't lose any money in the deal.

Did they just let Tom keep all the chips?

What if he went busto?

If I'm Tom I treat it like a staked arrangement and give him $300.

Thats the question that should be asked because the answer would solve both problems.
The player who left their chips on the table should be made whole, no more, no less.

Unfortunate reality: you leave your chips on the table at your own risk. The house is not going to reimburse you for any theft or issues like this.

If another player sits in your seat and goes busto with your chips, the house may assist you as far as demanding the player repay you or be banned (just like any other overpayment problem or betting issue), but they generally won’t go past that.

Luckily in this case the player didn’t go busto, he actually made a little. He should leave exactly as much as was there when he arrived (check the cameras to determine the amount), and then no harm no foul.

Floors ruling to leave the excess there is lol.

Players should not be laughing. Every one of them somehow missed that original player came back. I’m sure a number of them were instrumental in him being picked up in the first place, and surely noted the new player who was seated there.

In this case, if he lost the chips, I hope / assume they would give the lost chips back from the $800 in chips they picked up from the table when they gave his seat away.

Yup I agree with this

I would be laughing too, but wow. That's what hit me first. How can people not be aware enough that a player change has happened? Did no one not pause to consider their read on the player? That's a table I want to be on.

Did you read the whole scenario? Sounds like it could have happened very easily. That guy had been playing in that seat not all that long before.

I'm certainly not the most aware poker player ever. I can often get lost in my phone or watching a college football game and not be aware of what happened in a hand, but no, that scenario can't happen. People can't come and go that I don't look at them to get my reads per the "player types" thread elsewhere. If I make a head call, I'm going to look at everyone when I return to see if chip stacks changed significantly or a player was replaced.



You can't blame the dealer in that set of circumstances but I am surprised that no one at the table was paying attention.

The guy had been gone at least 2 hours, if not more.

Eh, I think you guys are way overestimating how easy it is to tell these things. I've played at a table where the same thing happened, except the new guy had never been at our table, he was stopped to be at the same spot next table over. Still nobody noticed. Even the new guy himself didn't notice that ALL the other players were different.
If you're playing in Las Vegas or somewhere with mostly tourists and you don't know the other guys personally, most people just don't pay attention to who they're playing with.

Years ago was playing low stakes (fixed) limit at the Commerce in Los Angeles.

A seat comes open. I think it was seat 6. A guy comes over and drops a rack of dollar chips in the spot and walks off. Not sure where he went. Maybe to use the washroom or whatever.

No one pays attention to the guy who left the chips.

A couple of minutes later, this really drunk guy comes to the table. He sits down at seat six and starts playing. Turns out he was one table off from his "home" table and didn't realize that he was playing at the wrong table and with another person's chips.

Also, no one at the table realized what had happened. The original guy had never played a hand. It's low stakes and basically bingo.

Original guy returns and everyone is all confused. It gets cleared up. I don't think that the drunk guy had won or lost any of the original player's chips. So no harm. But it was rather interesting.

Closest I've seen to this was in an MTT when an old man came back from break and sat at someone else's seat and played a few hands before the actual player returned. Lots of yelling. No idea how nobody at the table didn't notice. (I was at a nearby table.)

This same old man was sitting next to me a different time, and just started casually eating/drinking my food thinking it was his.

Yesterday at Orleans playing O8, 3 players in the hand. Seat 9 bets and others fold when river 3 pairs the turn 3 and completes the flush draw. Then seat 1, who wasn't in the hand, realizes turn and river are both 3 of clubs. No one in the hand had realized.

The shuffler was causing issues. They replaced it but the lid was slow. I thought earlier the decks might get mixed up and it did. So for the deck mate 2 conspiracies, it didn't even know a card was missing/extra

Wow, I wonder how much rake went into the needless "upgrade" of the new shuffle machines. Did they give everyone their chips back from that hand?

I leave for bathroom in a 5/10/25 game at mgmnh, I return a few hands before the straddle is on me so I tell the dealer I'll sit out until the straddle gets to me. A few days prior, this dealer misdealt and decided to tell me that I probably would have had pocket kings, so you can probably tell what I think of this dealer already.

Hand before the straddle is on me dealer deals past me and as he does says (referring to me), "he's waiting for aces." He had been blabbering on earlier during his down, unsolicited, about how he thought that three players who were aught colluding a couple night earlier were not actually cheating. After the aces comment, I've had enough and I tell him "you know, you talk a lot." His response, "Well I have a beautiful girlfriend." ...?

I tell him dealers should focus on dealing and less talking and he shuts it.

Sounds like he isn't a very good dealer. Not particularly weird or funny though.

Fair enough. I thought the girlfriend response was weird enough.

That dealer's response was weird if indeed true.

"Is she deaf?"

Blinds are $1-$2, but the game is $2-$100 spread-limit, where the most you can raise is $100 over the previous bet.

80-year-old guy in sunglasses who looks like he’s been playing all night just won a big pot against an Asian dude by cracking his Aces by flopping two-pair with Qs6s. Asian dude is steaming and steps away from the table for a minute but returns for this:

Asian opens UTG to $15, only Old Guy calls from the Blinds.

Flop Th7d3c. Old Guy donk bets 40, Asian calls.

Turn 8s. Old Guy donks 75, Asian calls.

River 3s. Old Guy donks 100. Asian raises to 200. Old Guy reraises to 300. Asian reraises to 400. Old Guy calls. Showtime:

Asian: J9 for a straight.
Old Guy: Qc4c for queen-high.

Did the old guy say anything about it?