"Does Three of a Kind Beat a Straight?"

The other night at BSC I had the misfortune of initially taking a seat right next to a guy who was stoned.  Not just drunk, but stoned.

He smelled of weed. That’s according to my pal Abe.  I had never smelled weed before, so I wouldn't know.  And he was practically in a comatose state.

When I got to the table, sitting immediately to his left, I noticed that it took him forever to make any decision whatsoever.  How long?  Well, longer than it takes my readers to read one of my blog posts (particularly the guy in the comment here, who apparently needed 20 minutes to read that post about Kaley Cuoco).

He was slowing up the game big time and at one point, one of the dealers actually asked him if he was awake when he was waiting for him to act.  I thought he might have dozed off—or passed out—myself.  He said no, he was awake, he was just thinking.  Most of these decisions involved small pots and small bets.  It wasn't like he was tanking over a several hundred dollar decision.

Soon after I got there, he was in a hand with one other player.  It was a decent sized pot, not huge.  There was an obvious straight on the board, let’s say there was a Jack, a 10 and an 8 out there.  No flush possible.  There was also a 4, and the river card was a second 4.  He was in early position and had been check/calling the entire way. 

The action was on him.  He was not (yet) facing a bet.  He thought and thought and thought, and then finally, after about a minute, asked the dealer, “I forget.  Does three of a kind beat a straight?”

The dealer replied that he couldn't answer that question.  The guy wanted to know why not.

“Because there’s only one player to a hand, sir.”

The guy was not at all happy about that.  He had a cell phone in his hand whenever he wasn’t in a hand, and had put it down for now.  So at this point he said, “What, I have to Google it to find out?  Ok….”

And with that, he picked up his phone and started typing into.  Presumably he was going to type—if he was even capable of typing—“Hand rankings in poker” or some such.  Maybe he was actually going to type, “Does three of a kind beat a straight?”  Who knows?

The dealer said he couldn't do that either and immediately called the floor.  The floor was nearby and the dealer said, “Can a player use his cell phone to during a hand?”

The floor person said he could talk on the phone but not text.  In other words, he couldn't use his phone to find out if trips beat a straight.

The guy bitched and moaned and said why not.  Then he said he just wanted to know if three of a kind beat a straight, and the dealer wouldn't help him.

To my surprise, the floorperson said, “No, three of a kind doesn't beat a straight.”

I was shocked, I was sure that the dealer had been correct and that a dealer or a floor person couldn't help him like that.

Anyway, the guy was disappointed, groaned and then suddenly just mucked his cards.

I want to reiterate…..he was not facing a bet at the time.  He could have checked and decided what to do if he faced a bet.  But that was clearly too much for him to comprehend in his current state.

The dealer pushed the pot to the other player, who showed one card in his hand.  It was a 10.  The guy had a pair of 10’s, no straight.  With that board, he could not have had a straight with a 10 in his hand.

I don’t think the guy even saw that the guy had shown a 10.

It was obvious that the guy had a 4 and mucked it when he realized that his trip 4’s couldn’t beat the straight that the other player didn't have. 

It was one of the weirder things I've seen at a poker table, to be sure.  I was reminded of the story I told here about the Crib Sheet.  And in that post, I did mention other times players asking what beat what when facing a bet at a Vegas poker table.  But it was worse because of the guy being stoned, him trying to google the right answer, and then his folding the best hand without even facing a bet!

I later asked the floor person about it.  He wasn’t clear about the rule and said he would check if he had made the right call.  He never got back to me, leading me convinced he knew he had erred.

But it worked out for the guy who only had a pair of 10’s and won a pot he probably should have lost.

Later, after Abe had the stoned guy removed the table because of his religious beliefs, I told the story to all the players at the table who had not seen it for themselves (including Abe, who I had actually texted the story when I first saw him there).  The player who won the pot was still there.

“Yeah, that was me in the hand with him.”  He said he was going to bet if the guy hadn’t just mucked.  But I’m not clear if he meant he was going to bet after the guy had asked that question, of he was going to bet in any case.  Big difference.  Once that guy asks the question, making it clear he’s worried about the straight, it’s pretty easy to try to bluff there.  Otherwise, I’m not sure..

Anyway, there’s a lot more from this night that will eventually be blogged about.  This stoner guy had a hand in me losing a big pot—very indirectly. And I will eventually have to explain the strange reference I made a few paragraphs ago to this guy’s religious beliefs and how Abe had him moved because of them.  Heh heh.  That’s a teaser, folks.

But that’s all for now.  I don’t want to take another 20 minutes out of that commenter’s life that he’ll never have back.  I’m such a giver.