Controversial Floor Ruling - Do you agree?

In a casino tournament, the following happened...

Background: ~190 person tournament, down to final 3 tables. Casino has a rule that cards must be shown for All-In showdowns.

Player A is cheap leader, Player B has a stack about 2/3 that size.

After the river, Player B goes All-In, Player A says 'call.' Player B shows a flush, Player A tosses his cards face down onto the middle of the table in front of him (seat position 1), not close to any other cards or chips. Dealer (asian) picks up cards, turns them toward the player such that others could see the pocket pair, and asks, "did you muck?" (or similar), Player A answers yes. Player A does not realize that he made a full house (think he only had trips). Dealer starts to count out chips for the payoff, and Player A realizes he had a full house and asks for a call from the floor.

The floor rules Player A's hand dead when it hit "the muck" and Player B was awarded the pot.

Do you agree with the call?

Points of discussion:
1. Player should not be allowed to muck. The purpose of the "show your cards on an all-in" rule is to prevent collusion and an unfair or pre-arranged chip transfer. Allowing a player to muck his cards rather than show avoids the intent of the rule and would essentially allow a chip transfer to occur if players were indeed colluding.

2. The dealer probably should have enforced the "show your cards" rule and the whole thing would have been avoided - or - the dealer should NOT have had his cards exposed. It seems to me that the dealer really screwed player A because neither did she enforce the "show" rule nor did the player actually get the "benefit" of mucking his cards which is to keep them from being revealed to the table.

Before I answer the actual question, I have to know - what possible relevance does the dealer's ethnicity have to anything?!?

Umm, player A screwed player A. Yes there are a lot of silly things about the story like the dealer being incompetent (player A has mucked, why is the dealer asking hiim if he's mucked?) and the cards must be shown rule being stupid, but player A (a) mucked and then (b) actually said he mucked, so, umm, he mucked and his hand is dead.

The word 'mucked' has now lost all meaning after re-reading this post.

Very good question. Would there be a difference if say the dealer was white or Canadian, or how about Hispanic?????

Probably not that relevant except it explains why the question to the Player A wasn't structured correctly. I probably shouldn't have mentioned it.

proper ruling, one error

A) idiot player clearly attempted to muck his hand which he couldn't read.
B) Confirmed that with the dealer.
c) Error by the dealer IMO. Dealer should have confirmed the muck before turning the hand up - dealer basically gave the player a second chance to read his hand.
D) as soon as dealer confirms them mucked (or judged them mucked as the case may be, if the house rule says you need to show then I see no problem with flipping over the guy's cards and showing the table.

The rules in poker is, once a hand hits the muck, the hand is mucked. Even if the dealer accidentally takes your cards and mucks them, thinking you had folded. It's a players own responsibility to protect their cards at all times.

It's crummy he folded a full house, but c'mon, thats like beginning beginning beginner poker stuff.

Agree entirely. The dealers hand is an extension of the muck. Player A concurred when dealer asked about the action.

I think it was an Asian gang or something... There was this guy, he looked Asian... and he was speaking another language, I'm pretty sure it was... Asian.

What does it matter that the OP mentioned the dealer was asian? It's a detail. To read racism into this is just begging the question. I know of no stereotypes about asian card dealers that OP could be implying. People are way too touchy about race IMHO.

As to the question... Floor is right. Dealer did a strange thing. Player A is likely pissed off. Cards that hit the muck are dead cards. It is a fairly universal rule that make great sense.

Player A's hand was mucked (twice, apparently). Player B wins the pot. Next hand.

As for players not being allowed to muck, I believe they can muck their hand at any time. I may be wrong on this as I have not played live for some time now, but still, once a hand is in the muck it is dead. Dead hands cannot be awarded the pot.

Now the HOUSE rules where ever you play. If you don't know learn them first.

race doesnt matter

know the rules

mucked means mucked....he's f____ked!

Player A sounds a tosser and im glad he had the winning hand but lost. First of he "calls" n all-in then realises he lost so he mucks. Then he realises he won, so calls over management?

I'd of taken all this guys chips of him the cheating bastard.

People who muck their hands and can't work out if they are beat shouldn't be playing. Or accept the fact it was their mistake no one elses and realise they messed up.

A few things went wrong in this case. The dealer half-arsed the solution - either turn the hand face up for all to see and then award the pot accordingly because that's what the house rules require (the preferred action) or muck the hand without another word because the player has made their intention clear. You just don't second guess on whether the player has made a mistake or not because you end up putting yourself in idiotic situations like this one.

Also, once other players have seen the cards they have an obligation to point out that a mistake is being made. That's a rule by the way, not just some vague matter of principle (Roberts Rules Section 3 - General Poker Rules, The Showdown, Rule 3)

...except what everyone chooses to ignore is that pretty much every version of the rules of poker you care to look at gives tournament directors and floor managers latitude to bend the technical rules in cases where it's in the interest of the game. Robert's Rules (General Poker Rules, Dead Hands, Rule 2) specifically allows for a hand to be retrieved from the muck if the cards are identifiable and it's in the interests of the game so the whole "mucked is mucked and that's the end of it" argument doesn't provide a complete solution.

The question in this case is whether it's really in "the best interest of the game" to retrieve this hand. I'd say the floor got this one right since the player is the victim of nothing other than their own stupidity. They had all the relevant information available to them as well as the option of just turning their hand over and letting the dealer read the cards. 100% aviodable and 100% their fault - the dealer and other players just compounded the error after it was made.

An interesting case, brought about by the interesting house rule regarding showing your cards in an all-in showdown.

Since showing the cards is mandatory, it could be argued that mucking is not allowed in this case. The dealer should have returned the cards and said, "I'm sorry sir, but according to house rules you cannot muck in this situation."

And even though it could be argued that way, I still tend to agree with the ruling.

OK, I agree with most of the commentary here. Obviously most of the blame belongs to the player.

However, why have the "show your cards" rule if a player can still muck his cards?

Most of us have seen a situation where one play mentions he is gonna raise, then decides different before his money got in the pot. Just saying 'raise' might get an excited opponent to flip over his rockets and say 'All-In' before the 'raisers' money goes in. Floor decisions are that he must raise regardless. So the raiser must raise (usually a min raise) before he can fold to the shove.

Point being the verbal confirmation of the question dealer posed is binding.

More than once I've seen a situation where someone has misread their hand and mucked it (I can recall one situation where I certainly did), but unlike something like football where a referee can 'blow a call,' it's the player's responsibility to read his hand correctly, protect his cards, and show when necessary. One thing that is a constant - if your cards hit the muck, they are dead. I've definitely seen a certain 'unspoken' rule about how this sort of thing differs in cash vs. tournament games. It's a lot more likely for a dealer to be lenient at showdown in a cash game as opposed to a tournament game. However, at a recent cash game at Harrah's, a woman requested to see every mucked showdown hand, even if she wasnt in the hand, and the dealer acquiesced every time. Sometimes I don't think it is dependent on the casino - dealers sometimes play by their own rules and unfortunately it can be really arbitrary.

For example, some dealers rigidly enforce the 'last aggressor' rule when showing at showdown, and some don't. I once sat at a table for several hours and heard three different rules uttered by three different dealers about who should show - last aggressor, first aggressor, earliest position...it ran the gamut. It would certainly be helpful for casinos get together and just solidify the rules, but we all know that won't happen - so, to coin a metaphor, if you come for a football game with a pigskin and everyone else is playing soccer, drop your ball and adapt!

Funny how you put Candians in a class of their own.
I guess Candians are a seperate ethnic group.

yep hand was mucked

Both player A and dealer made mistakes.

So, player A loses pot for being stupid for mucking, and dealer gets punished for ignoring house rules, allowing (asking!) the muck.

As Simple as that.

But still, why not get rid of the "show your cards" rule? Why have it?

yes the hand should hav been ruled dead when the dealer touched the hand....as far as i know every live tournament ive ever played in ruled the hands dead when A) the hand touches any other cards on the table wether it be community cards or another players hand B) if the dealer touches the hand when it is kicked into the muck C) if another player touches the hand so yes the correct rule as far as i know would to have been to rule the mucked hand dead and honestly the dealer actually flipping the hand up should have never even happened especially after the guy said himself he mucked

and as far as the show your cards rule ....the only time i have ever heard of a hand having to be shown was when there was an all in and a call with cards to still come on the board in that case yes the cards have to be tabled but in a situation such as an all in after the river if the caller sees hes beat he doesnt HAVE to table his hand

Should and have to be shown during all-ins only IMO.

It was. It's the whole point of this thread...

House rules are implemented because of situations like these,you should know them,I play in a bar league that has the same rule,and there are players of all skills that play,I think this type of rule is more helpful towards a novice, to bad but house rules come first!!!

lol

It's there to prevent collusion.

If it weren't there Player X and his friend Player Y could make an agreement before the tournament that if they get seated at the same table, when they get the chance Player X is going to shove and Player Y is going to call regardless of their cards. Player X will show their hand and Player Y will muck, even if they have the best hand, because the deal was that Player X is the one that gets the chips. This gives Player X an unfair advantage in the tournament.

Forcing hands to be turned face up when there's an all in and a call isn't a complete solution to this problem but it certainly goes some way to discouraging it and forces people determined to collude to at least do it in more subtle and less effective ways. At the very least it forces Player Y to actually have the worst hand and if the cards show something suspicious (like Player Y made an insane call with absolutely no hand) it can give the tournament director some kind of cue to investigate and maybe take action against one or both players.

This was my entire point. In the scenario described by this thread, collusion could have been a possibility for what happened (although I personally doubt it was). By allowing Player A to muck his cards the tourney director could have (and may have) allowed collusion to take place amongst two of the biggest stacks in the tournament.

I believe I understand the spirit in which the "asian" comment was made. My daughter inlaw is Thai. Many times her frasing on sentances in english are very different than ours. I have to ask for clarifications often. So no offence taken on the reference.

As far as the ruling, it is spot on. The house rules are in play, know them, obide by them.

This ruling is correct. The player said he mucked. The dealer touched the cards and asked if he mucked. therefore the hand was dead. he lost.

Read what Oz has to say--he's a professional and knows what he's talking about. I always appreciate his thorough explanations of rulings and have learned a lot from him.

Re ethnicity, what were Players A and B? I mean fair is fair, right?

True - but by the time a tournament director arrives at a situation like the one described in this thread he's really just making the best of a bad situation. If he rules the hand is dead then what seems to be the worst hand is dragging a monster pot. But if he rules it live then he's rewarding stupidity and there might be controversy over exactly which cards are supposed to be retrieved.

Long story short, the fact that this situation ended up a complete mess doesn't mean the rule about having to show both hands at an all-in showdown is any less effective at preventing collusion. It just needs to be enforced.