Let's Go to the Tape

During the session I described in my post (here), I witnessed something I’d never seen before in a poker room, and I thought it was unusual enough to report on it.

Three players saw a flop. Player A, first to act, may or may not have checked.  Players B & C both behind him checked behind him, whereupon Player A moved all in.

Players B & C, almost simultaneously protested that Player A had checked.  Player A insisted he had done no such thing.  The dealer said he did not see the player check.

Now, all three of these players had been playing together for a good two hours.  This had never come up before.  I personally hadn’t seen it, I believe I had my face buried in my celphone putting in a note about a recent hand.

Everyone was insistent on their position.  The dealer said he didn’t see it, but when the other two continued to insist A had checked, he asked if he should call the floor and B & C said yes.  The game was halted, the floor came over and had the dealer explain the issue.

I expected the floor to make a ruling right then and there.  Since the dealer hadn’t seen the check, I would have expected the floor to go with that and say the bet could stand, he has to go with his dealer in this instance.

But no, that’s not what happened.  After hearing everyone’s version, he said, “Well, do you want me to go to the tape?  I can look at the tape right now if you want.”  The players agreed to that.  And so, the floor disappeared, and the game was held up for I guess around 5 minutes.  When the floor returned, he said that there was no check and the bet that Player A made stood.  The other players weren’t happy, but they reluctantly accepted the decision.

Interesting.  Has anyone else ever seen that?  I think there was only previous time I actually witnessed a tape being reviewed during a poker game. And that was a dispute about much the pot should have been in an all-in situation.  The floor tried to recreate the pot, and when it didn’t add up, he went to review the tape.  Meanwhile, the game continued on. He came back about 20 minutes later and confirmed that the person questioning it was entitled to some more money from the player who had lost (it was less than $100 as I recall).  I probably would have blogged about it at the time but I think it came from a session I’d just as soon forget (I wasn’t one of the people in that hand).  I don’t recall if the floor person (who was the shift manager) claimed to have reviewed the tape himself (doubtful) or he was getting word from the surveillance people.

But that was quite different, because reviewing the tape didn’t hold up the game (though the floor trying to recreate it manually before the tape review did).  But in the check/no-check dispute, the game had to be completely held up while the review was being made, We were all sitting there waiting for a ruling, which fortunately, wasn’t too long in coming. 

I wonder if it’s just because PC is so much smaller than a Vegas casino that they could do this so quickly that they even attempted it?  I imagine with all the gazillion cameras that must be going at a big Vegas casino at any minute, it would take way too long to find and the review the tape (assuming the tape was capable of proving whether or not there had been a check).

So that was a first for me.  Anyone else ever seen a tape review of phantom check?