Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 478
This hand went down a couple days ago at the Commerce. I’ll skip most of the exact details as they aren’t relevant to the situation.
10/20 NL Cash game.
UTG raises to 70 or 80, gets called in several spots, maybe 4 players see the flop.
Flop comes something like J 5 4, two diamonds. UTG bets something like 250, and it folds around to the last guy left in the hand, on the button, who then raises to 600. The UTG announces “all-in” (he has something like 2000 behind), and the button calls (he has the UTG covered). Now the fun begins. (Disclaimer- these many not be the exact lines, but it represents the gist of the conversations).
Before the dealer turns any cards, the button looks at the UTG and says, “Wait! Do you want to run it twice?”
UTG: “Uh, uh, what?”
Button: “Run it twice, you know. Do you want to run it twice?”
(The UTG in now looking sick to his stomach, knowing he must be behind in the hand right now).
Then, the button looks straight at the Dealer and says, “Hey, we can run it twice, right? Just deal out the Turn and River cards twice, OK?”
The dealer, a middle-aged Asian guy, was doing his best impression of a wax statute. He did not blink nor say a word.
Button to the UTG: “So are we going to run it twice?”
UTG: “Uh, well, uh, yeah I guess, OK, run it twice”.
Button to Dealer: “OK, you can run it twice, OK?”
The dealer then throws the “all-in” button in front of the UTG player and deals out the Turn and River.
The Button now tables his hand and shows pocket 4’s, for a flopped set. The UTG hasn’t yet shown his hand so we’re left to assume the turn and river didn’t improve him to beat a set. The Button now reaches to the center of the table and pushes down the Turn and River cards so the dealer can run it a second time.
Now, and only now, the dealer speaks and declares to the table that he can’t run it twice. He says it’s against the rules. Temperature index at the table is starting to rise. The floor is called over for a ruling. For those that don’t know the rules at the Commerce, listen up to this one:
The floor ruled that despite the dealer being fully aware of the negotiated and agreed upon understanding of both players at the table to “run it twice”, and despite the fact that the dealer never spoke up during that conversation to inform the players that it was against the rules, no exception would be made to allow the players to run it twice, so they awarded the pot to the button. However, it was then brought to the attention of the floor that at the table right next to ours, the 20/40 NL cash game, they did allow the players to “run it twice”. The house said, “Yeah, well that game is different. We do sometimes allow the “bigger” games to run it twice. But never the 10/20.”
