Dealers make mistakes sometimes and this is one of those times. If the dealer was paying attention they should have blocked the player from mucking their cards.
I tend to disagree here. I think there is a lot to go off of in the deception factor of the game, and also the roles and responsibilities of the dealer. They are a neutral entity. It is their job to deal hole cards, deal community cards, then out of the cards that make it to showdown, they are to decide who wins according to rules.
One thing I hear at poker tables is "It takes two face up cards to win a pot at showdown." Now, this may be a house rule, an actual rule, or something a curious guy made up once in order to get all the information he paid for. If a player doesn't realize he is in a split pot, and he mucks his cards, that is his decision. He knew his hole cards, the board, and what his opponenet had.
It is not the dealer's job to prevent people from making bad plays. How would you feel if you had the KQ, got counterfeitted on the river, then your opponenet foolishly mucked his hand and then the dealer chopped the pot? It is merely the dealer's job to make sure that the best hand at showdown gets the pot. And the hand that's face down in the muck is never best unless it won by default.
Once they make it to the muck it is up to the discretion of the house. Cards can be retrieved from the muck if the floor person deems it fair (FAIR being a key point here).
While people go to
casinos and card rooms for fair, legal, and safe play (as opposed to backs of warehouses and clubs and bars without security, etc), I do not believe that it is fair to protect people from their own mistakes. While yes, the house can dig the cards out of the muck, I believe they should only do it when they have made an error. In my experiences, it has only been in cases where it was the house's fault, and even then I don't think anybody's hand came out of the muck. They just fix the mistake to the best of their ability.
But yes, it depends on where you play and their rules.
The board played so it was pretty obvious to all it should have been a split pot. Small tournament or not the rule of cards hitting the muck is NOT black and white.
This also brings attention to how important using a card protector can be and the responsibility of players at the table to pay attention to their hands.
It is btw the responsibility of ALL players at the table to point out errors if observed.
Yes, the board played, but an Ace beat the board. The mucked hand could say one of their hole cards, then pick an ace. If the picked ace was in the muck, they effectively cheated the pot (Provided nobody watched their mucked hand, and the named whole card found it's way to an ace). Once a hand is in the muck it loses it's integrity, which is why it's called the muck, and not "the second place you keep your hole cards".
As far as pointing out observed errors, this is a very touchy subject. I believe it applies to house errors only. Not player errors. It's not my job to watch out for your chip stack, except for making it become a part of my chip stack.
Some people will hold a vendetta if you cost them a large pot by pointing something out. If you are not involved in the hand, then it's none of your business. Remember, these are dollars and cents up for stake here, not hershey's kisses and post-it notes. If you say something and somebody who was about to rake a $1200 pot instead doesn't rake the pot, well, you could have just cost him next month's rent (assuming under basic principal that he's not playing with this month's rent because he is a responsible player).
The rules are different wherever you go, however I would be pissed to be in the counterfeited 2-pairs shoes, have my opponent muck the hand, and then not get the entire pot. If he wanted the pot he should have turned his face cards over. He had his chance, he blew it.
Now, from other guy's shoes, my opinion would be the same. "Oh, the board played? I guess I'm dumb for mucking my hand. I'll have to not do that next time."
The house game I play at has on the table, in writing: "Pay attention." It's a basic rule of cards.
Of course, these are all my opinions and come from my experiences and where I play cards. I may be wrong, you may disagree with me, but that's where I stand on the matter at hand.