K-K beat quad aces - huh?

I started out playing on the Give Face, er, I mean Face Up Gaming network Saturday in a blogger's free roll. That was a giant fiasco that you can read about on 88 Key's site here or Waffle's site here.

It was too frustrating, and I gave up and headed to the Horseshoe Casino where I played in the weekly 4 p.m. tournament along with 110 other runners. I made a min-cash in 9th place. That wasn't too exciting, but the hand I'm about to describe was.

After a player limped, a short stack moved all in from the button for about 2750 when the blinds were 600/300/50 (or something like that). The small and big blind called, so the limper called, too. The tournament starting stack size was 12,000, so this qualified as a giant pot in the making.

Four players, one all in, saw the flop which was: A-4-4. It was the small blind's bet and he said "I'm out." He didn't throw his cards in or anything, but rather (as became obvious later) had meant to say "Check."

"Floor," called the dealer. (By floor, he meant Tournament Director.)

The TD came and, after he heard the dealer describe what happened, ruled the SB's hand was dead.

"But I didn't fold!" the SB kept exclaiming.

At the SB's insistence, the head TD was called. He heard the same story, and also ruled that SB's hand was dead.

"When you say 'I'm out,' that's considered a fold. Your verbal statement is binding," explained the head TD.

The turn was another ace and the river was an 8, so the final board was: A-A-4-4-8. The guy who went all in turned over K-K and won the pot. In the confusion, the dealer had not collected the SB's cards. The SB now turned them over: A-A.

I just wrote that he turned them over. Actually, he slammed them over. He had flopped aces full and improved to quads on the turn.