Last night at the final table of the Commerce Hold Em Series $100 Rebuy event with nine players left: All-in player has KJ up against deep stack's 6-8. Flop is 9-6-x. Turn Q. River 10.

All in player stands and walks off as dealer picks up his already opened hand and tosses it into the muck.

One player not involved in the hand says, "I think he had a straight." No one else, including me, says a thing.

The guy walks to the tournament director desk and collects his ninth-place payout. Ninth paid like $2k. First paid $34k. If he won the pot, he would have moved into about seventh in chips and would have been a double-up away from contending. But no one told him he had the winner.

My thinking is: With those stakes, he should have paid attention to his hand. It's not right for me to interfere in hand I'm not involved in. The dealer runs the game, she should have noticed. And she didn't respond to the one player who said the guy had a straight.

What would you have done? What's the protocol?

Wait.

Are you telling me, that at the final table of a tournament with a prize pool of over one hundered thousand dollars that all of the following happened:

[x] Player doesn't know what his final hand was
[x] Entire table didn't notice
[x] Dealer was too incompetent to notice, yet was chosen to deal at a high stakes final table.
[x] Floor watching the table didn't notice

And you, the person who noticed, came on here AFTER the fact to tell the story when you KNOW that EVERYONE is going to quote these rules AGAIN? I hope to god you were a railbird, but even that doesn't excuse you.

RROP:
Any player, dealer, or floorperson who sees an incorrect amount of chips put into the pot, or an error about to be made in awarding a pot, has an ethical obligation to point out the error.

TDA:
Dealers cannot kill a winning hand that was tabled and was obviously the winning hand. Players are encouraged to assist in reading tabled hands if it appears that an error is about to be made.

The hand was tabled. My only real reaction is that the dealer is terrible at her job.

thinly veiled brag...?
if someone else already spoke up and the dealer didnt do anything, im not sure if i would make a scene

You are under no obligation to do anything and I can understand why you didn't if you can move one spot up on the payout ladder. Still I point it out. This isn't the case of a guy mucking his hand in a cash game, he flipped it up and the dealer made an obvious mistake. what happened here was effectively an angleshoot done by the entire table

I go with the rules, which state that it's on all of us to ensure the pot is awarded to the best tabled hand.

Congratulations, you and 8 other people stole money from this person. I hope you feel it was worth it. I'm glad at least one person made a token effort to stop it.

Ethics don't have a price tag. If it's a scummy thing to do for $1, it's a scummy thing to do for $10,000.

My 2 cents: you're obviously a greedy d-bag who just wanted to move up in guaranteed money and you KNOW it was wrong. I don't really believe in karma, but stories like this make me want it to be real just so it bites you back someday.

Also, not surprised this happened at commerce. Angles are a dime a dozen there

Wow.

Seems like this should almost be a Sticky Topic. We get this just about on a daily basis.

Also, Dealers sometimes make mistakes. She misread a Board. Bad, but not "terrible". If you're good enough to place in the money for several grand, you should be good enough to read your hand.

Sorry - if the above story is true - this isn't a difficult triple draw or split pot situation. This is a hold em hand where the cards were presumably turned up before the board was dealt. This should be a trivially easy situation for a dealer to correctly determine which hand wins. The only excuses for a mistake in this spot would be incompetence or laziness.

OK, but now consider a different situation: At the showdown, there are two players left. Both of them turn their cards up, without any prompting from anyone. Player A has a low and Player B shows a set. The dealer grabs a stack of chips with his left hand and another with his right, preparing to push one stack to the high hand and one to the low, when suddenly a player not involved in the pot - let's call him Player X - points out that the dealer has misread one of the hands. It turns out that Player A not only has a low, but a straight as well, a fact that went overlooked not only by the dealer but by Player A himself. So, the dealer kills Player B's set and Player A scoops the entire pot. At this point, Player B tells Player X that he should have minded his own business, that it's "one player to a hand" - which brings us to the title of this column.

What Player B fails to understand is this: The moment a player - on his own - lays a hand flat on the table faceup (assuming he's in for the final bet) is the moment when the OPTAH rule ceases to apply and the "cards speak" rule takes over.

But even that distinction requires some explanation, for in many people's minds, the confusion on this subject is more fundamental. Part of the problem stems from a common misconception about the very meaning of the phrase "cards speak." Indeed, many times I've heard a dealer defend the person who made the correction by pointing out to the irate player: "No, sir, you have to understand, cards speak," at which point comes the response: "Yeah, that's my point, the cards speak - the players are supposed to keep their mouths shut! It's one player to a hand!"

This, of course, is a gross misinterpretation of what the phrase actually means. "Cards speak" refers to the principle that the value of any hand is to be found in its face value; in other words, the hand speaks for itself. But that is not to say that it speaks by itself. (The last time I looked, cards couldn't literally talk). The "cards speak" slogan is meant to convey that a hand is what it is, regardless of whether anyone initially misreads what it is. To put it another way: The cards speak, but if the dealer mishears them, anyone who notices the miscommunication has a right to repeat what the cards actually "said."

In fact, in many clubs today, the players not only have a right to do so, but an obligation. While it is not yet industrywide, the following rule is popping up in more and more poker rulebooks: "Any player … who witnesses an incorrect amount of chips put into the pot, or an error about to be made in awarding a pot, has an ethical obligation to quickly halt the action and correct the problem." Clearly, no player should have to take flak for fulfilling what the house defines as an ethical obligation.


from http://www.cardplayer.com/cardplayer...cards-speak-39

There's been a number of similar threads in the past few months. Majority opinion: it is everyone's responsibility to ensure the integrity of the game. A tabled hand plays at showdown. The protocol is to correct the error.

I would have backed up the first person saying he had a straight and, if ignored, "floor".

Or I would sit there and shut up because I don't like to make waves and be the focus of attention.

I failed the ethical challenge recently. I noticed the dealer give someone $105 for his $100 bill. I'm still a little disappointed in myself; I said nothing. I'm the guy who goes back in the store and returns the extra $10 they gave me. If he gave me the extra $5 I am 100% certain I would have returned it. But I didn't want to get involved.

Sometimes brains fart. You're always 100% at your job every second of the day? Yes, it was a mistake, but that's all it was.

Incompetence by a dealer does not excuse blatant theft by a player.

Cash game or tournament makes no difference. If he sees a mistake, he is obligated to speak up.

I agree people make mistakes. That doesn't excuse them, and it doesn't mean the probability of such a mistake shouldn't be infinitesimal for all in show downs at the final table of six figure prize pool tournaments. The players may have an obligation to point out errors when they see them. But they don't have the obligation to pay attention to the pot if they don't want to. The dealer does have that obligation, and in this case, honest mistake or not, she failed.

Edit: What I mean is, it's unfair to say that the 8 players were complicit in stealing from the other, when it's entirely possible that 5 of them weren't paying attention to the hand.

Well, that's fine. The OP at least did cheat someone, however. He remembers the hand down to the final detail, and by his words it implies at least a couple others were aware but stayed mute.

I mean, I know I don't pay attention at all when a pot is being played that means me possibly making an extra 2k or more.

I think the chances of no one else noticing are definitely way less likely than EVERYONE else noticing, looking around at each other and implicity deciding on just being shady and hoping no one says anything. Especially at commerce.

I can't believe that a presumably competent hold'em player (final table) wasn't able to recognize a clear winner. I mean in every live tournament I've participated in, the guy would be standing and saying "King Ten Jack come on!" or something to that effect. And since everyone moves up the pay ladder on each elimination, every player at the table would go OHHHH when the straight card hit. SO basically I don't believe a word of it. If the guy's brain somehow malfunctioned and this did happen, I 100% agree that everyone who saw should say something.

It's not only ethical, if you want to call it that, it's good business. Maybe you get in the habit of being unscrupulous or just trying to get away with everything, and in doing so you screw over some total fish who is a big gambler. Thanks for scaring away a bunch of free money, y'know? Be honest, it just makes sense in this game.

At first I didn't notice where it happened and was wondering how the hell no one spoke up, then I see "commerce" and like lol standard.

+1

Interesting points you all make.

Couple of things:

This really did happen. Why the f would I make this up?

I really wasn't sure of the protocol. I really wondered whether the "winner" of the hand could have had a beef with me for intervening in hand that didn't involve me.

I was unaware of the cited policy that all players have an ethical obligation to point out the winning hand. Now I know.

I'm not perfect. Far from it. The thought of moving up the pay ladder did cross my mind.

And for those haters out there, including the guy who wished that karma strike me dead, here's the good news for you:

I got knocked out after this: I get my AK all-in pre against AQ and we chop; then knocked out with TT<A6.

But you still made an extra grand.

Hey, okay, we can back off now. He wasn't sure and so he came here to ask. I'd be dollars to donuts that if he did speak up others at the table would get upset with him. But they'd be wrong.

In my opinion if someone is too stupid/lazy/etc etc to read the board and claim the pot, then its their own fault. I dont see why other people should do it for them.

[QUOTE=LuckRunsOut8;13305322]I can't believe that a presumably competent hold'em player (final table) wasn't able to recognize a clear winner. I mean in every live tournament I've participated in, the guy would be standing and saying "King Ten Jack come on!" or something to that effect. And since everyone moves up the pay ladder on each elimination, every player at the table would go OHHHH when the straight card hit. SO basically I don't believe a word of it. If the guy's brain somehow malfunctioned and this did happen, I 100% agree that everyone who saw should say something.

/QUOTE]

Actually I can believe that a player failed to see the straight.

I've seen it happen a number of times. Players are looking to hit a flush or they have trips and need a full house to win, miss and never see the straight.

I caution people every day about talking about a hand in progress just because of this type situation.

I recall a hand in a $1 $2 game with a sizable pot at stake. There is a 10 high straight on the board with 3 players left in the hand.

Player 1 bets about half the pot, p[layer 2 calls. Player 3 is in the tank for over a minute when player 2 asks him if he can beat the straight on the board.

Player 3 looks at the board and says.

"I never saw that, I was trying to decide if my two pair were good. I was about to fold."
he calls and i split it 3 ways.

I've had several cases of players flipping their cards over and saying "I missed my flush" and they had a straight they didn't see.

So yes, it is possible for someone to be so intent on making one hand that he lisses another.

OP appears to have gotten the answer he was looking for and much more.

It's called integrity and fairness. It's how the game of poker should be played.

I'm assuming you're perfect and never make a mistake while playing.