Hourly high hand promotion of $400 to best hand, $200 to second-best. A player tables QT on Qxx-T-T and the dealer announces it as "Queens full of tens!", kills the board, and puts the deck in the shuffler for the next hand.

It so happens that the current 2nd place hand is someone else's actual QQQTT, so this mistaken reading of the hand would give the player half of the 2nd place prize. Would you speak up? How?

I would say something to the dealer. Hopefully as soon as he makes the mistake, but even after the cards are gone. I would think everyone at the table would remember the hand, and realize the error. I just don't believe in letting false info win prizes. Plus, as the RROP and most house rules state, players have an ethical obligation to correct misread tabled hands when they realize it.

I'm surprised though that at that casino the floor isn't required to come over and verify the hand before the dealer kills the hand. That's how I've seen it done.

This one isn't hard.

"That was tens full of queens."

I haven't played somewhere with a high hand jackpot in a while but I'm surprised that a hand can get put on the board without being seen by a floor.

That said, speak up.

Add me to the 'surprised it wasn't floor verified' list...

Make me first on the 'letting a reg steal from a tourist' list...


Yes, you should speak up right away. Golden Rule. Protect the other guys money like you want them to protect yours.

I have a history of chiming in impulsively about minor irregularities in ways that end up leading to conflict and destroying good games. Therefore, although I felt it was unethical to let the guy win a prize unfairly, I thought it advisable not to point it out at the table.

Instead I pointed it out to the floor. The dealer still thought it was queens full (which is the problem with waiting until afterwards), but somehow they were able to subtly corroborate it with someone at the table.

I agree with you. Since the cards were already in the shuffler and no one else noticed it I'd just shut up and assume I misread the board. Otherwise you make one player at your table angry with you. It's just an hourly thing anyways.

Two places I play in FL that have high hands every half hour on Saturdays just take what the dealer yells out as high hand. Floor never verifies.

In general, I'd find it to be a waste of time to have a floor verify every potential High Hand, unless there's an abundance of floor people standing around. It slows things down, big time.

I definitely think you should've spoken up immediately. The earlier you say something, the easier it is to piece together the correct information.

Doesn't matter if someone doesn't think it's a big deal to "let one go." That's money the person doesn't deserve, and it is stealing from the person who really had QQQTT. Period.

I would've said something..I mean why not.

Practically it tends to hurt you more than it helps you. Ethically, well...if you have to ask you usually know what the answer is.

I don't want them to protect mine. So, what do we do now?

We follow the rules. You know, the ones that say that everyone has a responsibility to speak up when a hand is misread at showdown.

"Hmm... a mistake is being made. One that is costing someone money. And the person who's money is being stolen isn't even able to protect themselves. This is easily correctable. Gee, what should I do?"

I wish I could say that it's surprising that there's a question about what to do in this spot. But yeah... poker players. GG.

It's unclear whether this is intended to slam me for starting a thread on this topic, but if you read down a bit you'll find that I felt a clear ethical obligation to not keep quiet. Given my track record of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and pissing other players off by accident, it seemed wise to handle this as discreetly as possible.

Yeah... this doesn't surprise me. If it's a daily high hand thing I can see the floor looking for verification, but if it's every hour or half hour, they probably let it slide - presumably he has other things to do than constantly having to verify high hands? Especially if it was every 30 minutes they'd practically have to hire a floor to do nothing else.