Loser refuses to accept his fate at Rivers

Played $1/3 NLHE for a couple of hours at Rivers after the Buccos game Saturday night. (Finished at +$105 for my third straight win!) Session was relaxed but not quite controversy free, thanks to some guy who just couldn't accept the fact that he didn't make money on trip aces. Here's how it went down ...

The dude in question was large -- perfectly round body and head -- with undersized spectacles sitting beneath his bad hair cut. We'll call him Dudley, since he could have passed for a grown-up version of Harry Potter's Dudley Dursley. He was pretty much a non-entity at the table, both quiet and unwilling to enter many pots. I wasn't sure if he was a nit or a newbie, but he clearly wasn't a player to fear.

Dudley was involved a limped pot where four players went to the flop, which came A♦-8♥-2♠. The foursome checked around. Turn came the A♥. Dudley bet it, and a guy in a Pirates shirt called. The river brought the 6♥. Dudley went all-in, and Pirates Fan called again.

Dudley rolled over A♣-7♠ for trips. Pirates Fan flipped 3♥-5♥ for a runner-runner flush. The pot was pushed to Pirates Fan. End of story, right?

Wrong.

Dudley couldn't grasp the fact that he had lost the hand. Actually, it was worse that that. He couldn't seem to grasp how he had lost. First, he asked the dealer, "Didn't I win that hand?"

"No," the dealer told him, already shuffling all the cards back into the deck. "He showed a heart flush." The table nodded in agreement, eager to move onto the next hand.

From this point on, I can't be sure of exactly what Dudley was saying because he was at the opposite end of the table from me and mumbling to the dealer. I do know he continued asking for clarification on how he was beat. And, at one point, he actually started arguing that if there were hearts on the board, then he must have made a flush too since he had the ace of hearts. Which was supremely ridiculous because (a) his ace was black, (b) the ace of hearts was on the board and (c) there were only three hearts on the board, so you'd need two of them to make a flush.

Finally, with the next hand already underway, he appeared to give up and walked away from the table. Those of us still playing laughed about it for a while, wondering what in the world this guy's deal was. Was he a complete noob playing in his first casino poker game? Did he realize a flush beat three of a kind? Did he even know what a flush was?! The whole thing was incredibly bizarre but seemingly finished.

Until 20 minutes later, that is, when I decided to cash out for the night. As I turned from the cage to head out of the poker room, I noticed that Dudley was a short distance to my right chatting to a room manager. I took a few steps closer, with my back turned to them, and pretended to count money so I could eavesdrop. Dudley was still complaining about the hand!

"So what did you have in your hand, sir?" the manager was asking him.

"I had ace-nine," he told her. (He didn't; he actually had A-7.)

"And what were the cards on the board?" she asked.

"There were two aces."

"Do you remember any of the other cards?"

"No, but I know that I had three aces."

I was positive Dudley was going to demand she check the security-feed footage of the hand. I dashed back to my table and said, "You guys aren't going to believe this ..."

I filled the rest of the players in on what I had seen and heard. They could barely believe it. The same dealer who dealt the hand was still at our table, and he started complaining that he was now going to be pulled to explain what happened.

Well, the manager didn't pull him. Not immediately, anyway. But she did come over with pen and paper and had the dealer recite exactly how the hand went down. It was two in the morning, and funny though the situation was, I decided it was time to head back home. So I'm not sure how things worked out, whether Dudley continued to insist that his trips had won the hand or whether the room manager had finally talked him into letting it go.

For that guy's sake, he may want to think twice before returning to a poker room. At the least, I'd advise he flip through the poker section in a Book of Hoyle first.