A New Low

So I'm playing in the £250 No Limit Holdem game at the Vic when the following occurs. One of those non-pots happens, one where the players check it down and basically there's a bowl of rice out there, or, in this case, the grand sum of £40.

With a final board of K Q J 3 3 a young American kid (good player btw) declares, "Nothing, I have 9 high". His opponent, a middle aged South African gentleman says, "Oh, I have 10 high". They turn their cards over and the dealer pushes the pot to the South African.

Of course all of you lot out there reading this have already spotted that both players are actually playing the board, so therefore it should have been a split pot. Why the American kid didn't notice I don't know, but if you've been playing for a while you get tired. The South African gentleman is one of those types of players who would have to be told. As for the rest of us at the table I guess we weren't paying much attention (any internet players reading have got to love that don't they? So much for live players being such keen observers...)

In fairness to the dealer, who should have noticed immediately, he was actually requesting to be taken off the table as he had already been dealing for two hours without a break in this particular game.

Anyway, as the next hand is being dealt somebody at the table now realises what happened and mentions that the pot should have been split. Everybody else at the table including the dealer realises too and he now informs the South African that he owes the American kid £20. In fact, the only player who is utterly oblivious to what has happened is this South African guy. He says that the hand is all over and that's that. Fair enough I suppose; it was a dealer error and he doesn't have to give the kid any money if he doesn't want to.

In fact, the American kid was kind of taken aback so I told him to get a ruling, because it also seemed like the South African wasn't taking the situation seriously at all. Unfortunately for the Kid the dealer called the wrong floor person over (wrong in the sense that he called another dealer over as opposed to an actual floor person who is properly authorised to give rulings) who then gave a ruling in favour of the South African (probably the correct ruling as it happens).

Anyway, the point is, to me, that it doesn't matter what the ruling would be, but basically everybody else at that table (Russian Alex, Fred, Gary Mills, Rick Gladding, a young Greek kid whose name I can't remember, and of course, myself) would have given the American Kid the £20 without another thought. I mean, maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, but that South African behaved like a total dick, didn't he? (Just to make it clear - there wasn't a huge argument, the South African or the kid didn't make a huge issue out of it, there were no raised voices and all blood pressure remained stable etc).

I dunno, I was dumbfounded that somebody could be such a nit over twenty quid.

On a slightly different note, does anybody out there know why the blinds in the £250 Pot Limit game are £5-£5 with an optional straddle of £10 whereas the blinds in the £250 No Limit are £5-£10 with an optional straddle of £25? How come both games don't have the same structure? I don't get it. As you can tell, the no limit game plays a lot bigger than the pot limit game.