So I was at my local casino playing some 2/5 when this interesting hand occurred.

I was at the table for about 30 minutes and go dealt 55 in the SB. 5 limpers to me and I raised it to 30 dollars where 4 people called. Flop came out 3 4 6 rainbow and I cbet 80 and get one caller. Turn is a 5 and I check called his 150 dollar bet knowing he had a straight, but would get paid if river pairs as we were both 100BB deep. River is a 7 so the final board reads 3 4 5 6 7 rainbow. It goes check check and I table my pocket fives.

Dealer announces straight for me and villain hems and haws for about ten seconds, says " straight" as to acknowledge that there is a straight on the board and then mucks his hand. As soon as he mucked the dealer basically says that he had to open his hand for it to be a split pot. Villain gets really angry and says obv he had a straight etc etc.... Pot gets shipped to me and villain says that I should split the pot out of etiquette. I tell him no and that his hand was mucked and all he had to do was open his cards etc... Villain gets vivid and extremely pissed off at me saying I have no etiquette, and am scum for not splitting there.

The whole table then actually sides with him saying that everyone would have split and that I should split out of etiquette. I ended up keeping the pot and for the remainder of the session villain would keep bad mouthing me and being up that hand to each new dealer. So my question is, should I have split the pot? I don't think so as a mucked hand is a mucked hand and if the roles were reversed I would not expect to be given half the pot. However everyone else disagreed with me and said that I should have split the pot as there is this unspoken rule of common etiquette among players and got treated as being greedy and havin no etiquette. So, again, did I do the right thing or should I have split the pot?

Would never split this pot with him.
Unless you have some history or something, I wouldn't do it.

If the rule to chop the pot is unspoken, how were you to know about it, and how can you confirm it, and why were they speaking it?

I guess the guy mucked his cards by accident as he forgot to open his cards I guess I don't know. They were saying that I should have chopped the pot as that was the right thing to do as he was obviously playing the board and just had a brain fart for whatever reason and mucked his hand.

I never told him that I would chop the pot. They were speaking about it because to them, I was in the wrong in all of this and was seen as scummy or whatever.

If in this scenario the player had indicated that he he understood it was a chop before he mucked his cards .... I would be incline dto tell the dealer to chop the pot. But as you describe it appears to me tghis player may not have realized it would have been a split pot until after the dealer said something (which came after he mucked) and in that case I am not very inclined to split it.

I am not sure if he realized that it was a split pot before mucking his hand. I don't really know what or how this guy was thinking. He was around 55 years of age and terrible at the game; a complete station

You did just fine. Players, show your hand if you want the pot. It's not rocket science.

Honestly, I would cut the guy some slack and chop the pot.

If he is a weak player, you will have plenty of time to get his money straight up. This is simply exploting a technicality to win a pot which you didnt really win.

Yeah, the rules are written in your favor in this situation, so it is your right to keep the pot. I would just be concerned more long term. Id rather keep the table happy and not run the risk of making this guy angry and scare him away.

He doesn't get to hide his hand and get half the pot.

Some rooms allow you to declare that you are playing the board, muck your cards and split the pot. It would seem that this room does not have such a rule. Or if it does the dealer didn't think that villain was declaring he played the board.

Pushing an opponent off a chop pot is a legit move in my mind. I have no problem with betting with the nuts on board. In this case though given that the river was checked around I'd be willing to chop if I was pretty sure that villain knew he was playing the board for a chop. If he didn't know until players started chirping I'd gently ask the dealer if OPTAH applied in this room.

OPTAH is pretty much irrelevant here as the chirping all occurred after the hand.....

I had something simular happen at foxwoods, it was about 15 hours in for me and about 5 am, i had pocket kings, not sure what he had, or how exacally it went down, but the pot got big until it was all in before the river, the river completed a straight on the board, i said kinda frustrated "straight" and flipped over my kings (kings werent part of the straight on the board). He took a few seconds and mucked his hand. then a few seconds later someone brought up that theirs a straight on the board. This started a discusion with the reg's their and they were saying nothing was wrong. He got up and left, told the reg's i felt a little bad about it, and they just said don't worry about it you did nothing wrong.

So I don't know was a simular situation to you, he didn't ask for a split he just got up and left so didn't have to face it really. If I did something like that personally i wouldnt ask the person for a split, would realize i made a mistake in readng the board prolly feel crappy about it and move on.

So for your question about if you did the right thing, its really only for you to decide, imo he made a mistake. Like if your playing football and false start, theirs a 5 yard penalty, its part of the game to pay attention.

We also had a similar situation a couple of days ago. 2/5NL, raises preflop, lots of betting on each street, so a really large pot was built. Board was all low cards. River completed a straight. One player tabled his QQ; the other guy looked at them and then mucked without saying anything.

When asked, he said he had JJ and didn't realize there was a straight on the board. Everyone felt bad for the guy, but no one suggested the pot be split. It was just like "too bad--you need to pay more attention next time."

Tough lesson to learn.

He got it straight up. The dude threw away his cards. That isn't a technicality. That's what happens on every single hand of poker.

**** him. **** scaring him away. He obviously didn't get scared off according to the OP. Let him tilt his money; I get it faster then.

He'll be back. Lesson learned.

I'm not your friend at the poker table. I'm trying to bankrupt you. Let's be clear about our intentions here. There may be some examples of where it is better to give up on a battle to win the long-term war, but I see that as weak thinking. The war is won by winning the battles, and we overthink things sometimes like "omg omg what will fish do if I don't be extra nice" **** that

Depends on the size of the pot :P. Do you care about what people think, or about the amount of EV+ of keeping the pot? I dont think you did anything wrong, but if it were a $40 pot or something, id probably split it just so I dont have some moral dillema later thinking about it.