This is a LHE game.

Three players to the flop: Hero in small blind, with villains in early position (EP), and late position (LP). It's a fairly big pot at this point.

Hero has AQ, and the board is AA2r. Hero bets, EP raises, LP calls, hero re-raises, and EP calls. At this point, before LP can call my re-raise, the dealer burns a card and puts out the turn card: 5. I say "WHOA!" but it's too late. LP sees the 5, and mucks.

What should happen at this point?

EP insists that the 5 cannot play -- that there has to be a new turn card. I stupidly think, "Well I've got this won, it probably won't make any difference; don't call the floor, just let it go." And so the dealer mucks the 5, burns another card, and puts out a new turn card: J.

Now I bet again, EP calls. Dealer burns a card again, and then puts out another J on the river.

Turns out EP had A8, so the second J on the river counterfeited my Q kicker, and we split a pot that I would have won in whole.

Was that right? I later asked a more experienced dealer about it, and she said the original turn card should have been put back in the deck, and the deck re-shuffled before the river was put out -- in which case I likely would have won in whole.

If so, my mistake for not calling the floor I guess, but goddammit was I pissed...

No. Dealer should have called the floor.

Floor would have told him to put the 5 aside and burn and turn what would have been the river card.

Complete action on the turn and shuffle the 5 with the stub and bring the river with no burn.

Steamraise is right. When the dealer burns and turns improperly, the floor should always be called. This isn't because the procedure is necessarily complicated (although the dealer got it wrong so maybe it is) but so the players will feel confident that the hand is played out properly. Hopefully the floor person would explain the proper procedure and then stand behind the dealer and watch the hand play out.

Just look at it this way, if proper procedure would of been followed the river could have easily been an 8. Two sides to every coin, but next time make sure the floor gets called.

Didn't cost you anything. Still completely random (except the 5 not being included in the deck, so not COMPLETELY random, but negligible.) Dealer should have called the floor though, he was probably worried about getting in trouble for the burn and turn.

EP was lucky enough to split a pot instead of winning nothing. You should be happy for EP instead of being mad at the dealer.

House rules dictate the procedure to follow.

This way, it ended up costing you 1/2 the pot, maybe next time you will benefit.

The way I prefer, shuffling early turn back in and dealing the true river as the turn, probably would have been better for you this time... Like M&B said, maybe the true river was an 8 and you would have gotten nothing.

Floor should have been called routinely.
But stuff like this happens often and eventually evens out.
Just once I'd like to see a thread titled, "Dealer screws up, wins me a pot".

If proper procedure was followed, the first turn card wouldn't have been exposed in the first place, and I would have won the whole pot. That's what really got me pissed. The second error in procedure just compounded it.

Anyway, I let it go after a few hands and told the dealer to forget about it. But next time I'll definitely call the floor.

Why isn't the standard procedure:

Take turn 5 in the deck, shuffle deck, deck is completely random again.

Burn, turn, burn, river.

If you do it like this seeing the true turn (5) has absolutely no meaning and might as well have been a card you saw from another irrelevant deck.
Seems more logical then dealing the true river as the turn and only then do a reshuffle.

Or am I missing something (besides procedures are procedures and messing with them is confusing)

Standard procedure preserves the original river card as a part of the board. This seems somehow to matter a lot to many players. I don't understand this; as long as the cards are random, it shouldn't really matter which one actually comes out, but some people really cling to the idea that the original order of the cards is somehow magical or sacred and ought to be preserved as much as possible.

In the OP he stated that the only player left to act before the burn and turn folded. In which case "most" rooms procedure would be to let the 5 play since the only player left to act is no longer in the hand. If that player had decided to call then the 5 would be shuffled back into the deck after the natural river card replaced the turn. In this case the original turn (5) should have stayed.

OP, I got knocked out of a WSOP event deep because a terrible dealer was too busy talking to pay attention to the action and dealt the turn while a player was tanking on my raise in a 4 way pot. I went from a scoop to getting knocked out. This stuff happens. Over a million hands it evens out even though the memory may last a long time. I have not played a WSOP since because of how awful that experience was but there is nothing you can do about it.

With that said, you should have called the floor there no matter what. If would have at least prevented the runner runner J although the bonus card could have been an 8.

Absolutely not.

A player should never be allowed to determine whether or not a board card stays based on the action he takes.

If he folds then what does it matter unless they are colluding and somehow know what each others cards are. This is the procedure in my card room and many others that I play at.

The exact rule... "If the dealer prematurely deals any cards before the betting is complete, those cards will not play, unless only one person has not acted and that player folds."