Action folded around to a player in middle position, and he opened with a raise. That's where everything went wrong. When the cutoff folded, the dealer made a big fumble collecting the mucked cards, and the whole stub fell out of her hand and onto the table. There were at least a dozen cards face-up, including two kings and two aces. Ranks and suit symbols were partially visible in a sloppy mosaic of failure.

"It looks like that game show Concentration," Mike Sexton chimed in from the adjacent table.

"Floor!"

It took a few minutes to sort it out, but the entire garbage pile was eventually re-shuffled and the hand was played out. The small blind called the raise, and it went check-check through the flop. The small blind bet the turn, and the preflop raiser folded face-up. The small blind flashed his own , and the two men laughed off the fact that they had the case aces in the deck. Onto the next hand, though it looks like there might be a new dealer pushing in.

Tags: Mike Sexton