I could've sworn...

A fouled deck occurs any time there are more or fewer than the standard 52 cards, or if there are 52 cards but not 52 different cards. It's a pretty rare phenomenon. In fact, I've only seen it once. In a tournament at Caesars Palace about a year ago I was dealt two cards with different backs. Oops. It's a huge problem when it happens, because the entire hand gets voided, no matter what action has taken place, and people who had put a lot of money into the pot--and especially the winner, if one has been determined before the fouled deck is discovered--tend to get upset at having a "do over" called on them. (See http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2007/07/clonie-gowen-is-cheater.html for a story of how Clonie Gowen illegally and unethically used a fouled deck to her advantage.)

At the Rio tonight I was in the big blind with Q-3 of spades. I was thinking that it's not a great hand, but it's about as good as you can hope for in the blinds. I was hoping to get to play it for free. But there was a substantial raise, then a reraise, so of course I had to dump it. I kind of zoned out of the action at that point, listening to my music.

I was quite surprised, then, when after a little while I looked up and noticed that the flop included the queen of spades. I thought maybe my mind was playing tricks on me, but I thought back and distinctly remembered seeing the Q-3 of spades and thinking that it was a decent big-blind hand. I didn't want to say anything, and hoped that maybe a bet would take down the pot and I could ignore it. But then I realized that if there really was a problem with the deck, it would be better to have it discovered now than to continue to play. There was a bet and a raise, followed by an all-in. So when the action paused while the original bettor pondered what to do, I walked around the table and whispered to the dealer to check the discards before concluding the hand, because I was pretty sure I had folded the Qs.

The hand played out and the dealer pushed the pot. He then turned the discard pile face up. There were two red queens in it, as well as a red three, but no black queens.

Wow. I wouldn't quite have been willing to go to court and swear under penalty of perjury that I absolutely did have the queen and three of spades in my hand, but I was highly confident of it. Had I not been, I wouldn't have bothered the dealer about it. It's something I've never done before.

I apologized for my memory glitch. To his credit, the dealer was absolutely perfect about it. He said, "Not a problem. It wouldn't be the strangest thing I've ever seen happen. I'm happy to check and be sure. Thanks for mentioning it." He almost made me feel like a hero instead of a dork--even though I'm pretty sure I was a dork.

Strange how memory errors occur. I could remember clearly the visual image of the queen and three--distinctly black, and complete with the spades symbol--as I had seen them when I peeked at my cards a couple of minutes before. But it was a false memory. I've had a few other occasions in my life when something I remembered with perfect confidence was proven not to have been as I so clearly remembered it. I don't think, though, that there has ever been such a short time interval between forming the memory and having it altered by subsequent events and/or by the passage of time and/or by a brain short-circuit.

Gotta start taking those memory-enhancement pills....