Four Dogs
Legend
Silver Level
An interesting situation came up last weekend at Foxwoods and I'm not sure how it should have been ruled. There were three players to an AQT flop. The BB checked and a player in EP bet. The button and BB both called. The Turn was a 9 and it checked around. The river was an 8 and again it checked around. The player in EP said, "I have AK". The button also showed AK. The BB said, "I just have a Jack" and mucked his hand but as he did so the cards bounced and the mucked Jack was unintentionally exposed. A player not involved in the hand said "Hey, you have a Straight. You win!". At this point the dealer exposed his other card which was a blank and awarded the pot to the mucked hand saying that the cards speak.
Neither of the other players disputed the pot but I'm not so sure they shouldn't have. Under normal conditions if you table your hand face up then the cards do in fact speak and any observant player can and should bring it to the attention of the table. In this case however, only one card was exposed and as you need to show two cards to win it is my understanding that his hand should have been declared dead. The dealer had no right pulling the other card out of the muck even if it was obvious which card belonged with the Jack. In addition, the player who spoke up should have kept silent.
Now this was a cash game and the pot was small so nobody asked the floor for a ruling, but imagine if this was in the late stages of a tournament. I'm not so sure I would have just let this go. How would you handle the situation if you lost the hand and how should this have been ruled?
Neither of the other players disputed the pot but I'm not so sure they shouldn't have. Under normal conditions if you table your hand face up then the cards do in fact speak and any observant player can and should bring it to the attention of the table. In this case however, only one card was exposed and as you need to show two cards to win it is my understanding that his hand should have been declared dead. The dealer had no right pulling the other card out of the muck even if it was obvious which card belonged with the Jack. In addition, the player who spoke up should have kept silent.
Now this was a cash game and the pot was small so nobody asked the floor for a ruling, but imagine if this was in the late stages of a tournament. I'm not so sure I would have just let this go. How would you handle the situation if you lost the hand and how should this have been ruled?