Final table of tournament.
Player A raises, player B shoves.
Player A then turns his cards over behind the betting line showing 77 and stares at player B.
Another player says that hand is dead. Player A disagrees, saying he was looking for a read.

Ruling?

Hand not dead in real casinos. Penalty for exposing hand in a tournament (missing X number of hands, depending on the house rule or TDA rule).

Not sure what they do in the UK. They seem to execute hands for strange reasons there.

Yeah thats what I thought. A friend of my asked me about this, and I was pretty sure it was just a penalty.
What happened was the floor was called and ruled the hand dead.

Most, if not all, English casinos will rule an exposed hand during play as a dead hand.

It's strange that a country that abhors the death penalty for humans will gleefully execute poker hands at the slightest provocation.

Player earns a penalty, not a dead hand in a well run casino almost anywhere except in the UK.

The fact that English rooms choose to kill exposed hands does not mean they are not well run otherwise. Room rules do take precedence.

House rules apply.
Casino I regularly play at will issue a warning the first time a player does this, then kill the hand the next time. Another across town will kill the hand immediately, which causes some angle problems when players conceal their cards on the river, wait for someone to show, then pipe up and say "I still have cards and haven't acted, thats a dead hand".

I much prefer a warning first, and reasonable floor intervention to prevent angling.

LOL killing a hand for this. Warning then penalty if it's early in the tourney, maybe directly to a penalty if it's the final table.

Douchey move to intentionally bend the rules by the guy who exposed his cards. But not a death sentence for his hand.

It is in England...

I've never understood the difference in this rule between cash and tournament games.

Why does tournament play induce a penalty whereas in a cash game the player can "get a read"? What's the difference?

I suspect only the fishiest of fish are going to react significantly enough to an exposed hand that beats them / they have crushed. I put this play in the same realm as "Do you want me to call? If you do, just say so and I will.."

The difference is that in a tournament there is a finite sum of chips that one person must win in order to win the event. Therefore if I am player A, I have an interest - limited as it may be - in the outcome of player B and C's hand. Hence there are some lines that are drawn that aren't relevant in cash games. Showing a hand may be done for many reasons - one of them being for player B to prove to his buddy player C not to make the terrible call he's about to make. For the same reason there are clearer limits on talking in tourneys than in cash games.

Exactly. It's the same reason that you MUST show your cards in an all-in situation. In a cash game you can wait until the board is run out, and if you're beat you can muck your cards. In a tournament, all players are required to show cards immediately when there is no further action.

Primarily the idea that everyone in a tournament has an interest in every hand. But also what kind of penalty can you impose in a cash game? Sitting out an orbit and being binded/anted off in a tourney can be horrible but sitting out an orbit in a cash game is something people chose to do on a regular basis so they can grab a smoke or a bite to eat.

Although stupid, the ruling I have seen in every casino that I have played at in England is what everyone else has said - Hand is declared dead (at cash).

I have argued with more floor managers than I care to remember about this but it's always been this way.

Oh well, at least we don't have to pay tax

I was talking to the floor who made this decision and I asked him what would he have done if player B had just reraised and A had turned his cards over.
He said he would have ruled it according to the room rules, which are he would have ruled player A's cards live, but he would not have been able to make any more aggressive action in the hand, i.e., he could only check and call.

He told me that he made the original decision based on the interests of the game.

Thoughts?

Inconsistent.