[Mr Rick]

Recently I have been going to play at Foxwoods a couple of times a month, and generally by the time I get there it is a several hour wait for the 10/20 LHE game. So I have been learning Omaha and usually can get into the 4/8 H/L game fairly quickly. On Friday I am in the Omaha game and I am checking my position on the 10/20 waitlist on a regular basis. I start out 7th move up to 4th and then I am 2nd. Then I am 3rd. I don't really think about it and sometime later I am called. I tell them to lock up the seat and I am told it is locked up. I pick up my chips and gather my things and walk over to the other side of the L shaped poker room. I put my stuff down and then buy some chips at the cage,put them on the table, and grab a slice of pizza - thinking I'll get back before I am BB anyway. When I get to the table the floor is seating another person at my seat. I ask what is going on. I am told that this other person was ahead of me on the wait list and is getting the seat. I talk to the floor and let her know I am very upset. I ask how this is possible. She says he should have been seated and its my tough luck but she will accomodate me. How I ask? She will put me at the top of the wait list she says. I ask how it is that I went from 2nd to 3rd on the wait list and she explains that the guy could have been on a dinner re-seating thingamahoogy (i.e. he got up from playing to eat and they reserved him a seat for later when he came back by putting him 2nd on the wait list). So what about the seat I just lost at the Omaha table? She says the other floor over there will accomodate me if I tell him what happened. So I go back and tell him the story and he says, well I can't ask the player who replaced you to get up because he has already played at least one hand - but I'll put you at the top of the wait list...

Some time goes by before I get into the Omaha game again (I use this time to go back to the floor and tell her that I hadn't been accomodated - I had been playing and now I am not playing. Oh yes you were accomodated she told me - you were put on the top of the Omaha wait list...). Then fairly quickly I get called to the 10/20 game and I am sitting close to the guy who had gotten the seat ahead of/instead of me. He tells me that he had been waiting a long time for the seat. I ask him how long. He says over an hour. Now I am steamed and I tell him - you know I was waiting over 2 hours for that seat. He quickly says oh yeah I was here that long. So then I continue to pump him for info over the next few hours. It turns out he drove to Foxwoods that morning - so he hadn't been playing and didn't leave for a meal break.

What I think happened is that somebody slipped this guy onto the wait list ahead of me (and a whole lot of other people) because either they knew him and it was a special favor - or he slipped them some money.

Anyway there are several morals to this story, re Foxwoods:
1) Don't pick up your stuff to move from a game unless you are sure you have a seat.
2) Don't think you have a seat just because you put your stuff down. I will, in the future, play at least 1 hand very quickly and then take a bathroom break or eat after I started playing.
3) Bring plenty of Vaseline so when the floor accomodates you so it isn't so painful.

Also, I was told by a regular at Foxwoods - oh that happens every day here...