Hand happened last night at 2/5. On the turn, P1 bets, P2 calls, P3 goes all in for $500, P1 calls, P2 calls. First two players have about $800 more left. Board runs out:
A7J3J
Before the river is dealt, dealer says "Everyone, protect your hands, protect the remaining action"
The second the river hits, P3 flips his hand face up: J7o, dealer quickly grabs it, flips it face down, and says "I said protect the action." I point out that flashed cards need to be shown to all remaining players, dealer says "No, if you saw it, you saw it"

I am not in the hand. Do you call the floor?

P1 clearly saw the cards, not sure about P2. P1 checks, P2 moves all in, P1 says "You know he has a full house right?" Looks annoyed and folds.

Yeah the dealer should have made sure the cards were seen by both P1 and P2.

But this looks like a situation where it likely made no difference. What was going to happen different here if dealer made sure that P2 saw the cards? (keep in mind P2 might have seen them anyway).

If I'm positive about the cards which were shown, I'm stating them out loud so there is no chance that P2 is going to be at an unfair advantage to P1.

No I just announce that J7 was shown.

That is not really a solution because players cant be sure you are both honest and accurate.

Certainly call the floor if you can before there is action. After the action it doesn't matter beyond trying to get the dealer trained properly so you can raise that with the floor later.

No. Let the players in the hand worry about what they want to do.

I know it wouldn't truly be right, but such a big part of me would love to see P3's hand killed for any possible reason whatsoever that could be found in the book. Showing cards in a multiway pot with action remaining is against the rules, right? People are so ignorant...

This is part of the reason I did not call the floor - I'm pretty sure the correct ruling is to kill P3's hand, and if that happens P3 will be QUITE unhappy with me. Though I had seen P2s hand before the river (he showed a folded neighbor while considering calling the turn bet) and knew he had P3 beat.

Not in any decent cardroom.

lol no

It doesn't sound intentional

Sounds good to me. But not likely to become the norm.

No, they just don't care about anyone but themselves.

im going to assume p3 didnt understand what protecting the action ment or something like that, but if its anyone with anysort of knowledge of the game, id love to find a way to kill their hand.

Not sure I'd ever call the floor for a hand in which I wasn't invlolved.

Ignorance = deliberate stupidity/selfishness. No, he didn't intend to mess up river action, just so self-absorbed that he didn't follow dealer's specific instructions. And a dealer saying that is pretty rare...my guess is he saw this player do the same thing previously. Happy to find out he lost the pot anyway, though he might have cost the other guy a lot of money on the river.

My ideal "fair" ruling - if P2 doesn't get paid off on the river, P3 has to pay him. No more playing in the room until paid.

There are players who do things out of not caring about others in the hand .... but this really just sounds to me like the player was so excited by his boat he lost track of the action.

Yes I hate players who ignore the dealers instructions. But I also understand that in many cases not disrespect or malice driving them ..... and I think that is the case here. That doesn't solve the problem ..... but since I make mistakes, I should probably stop expecting everyone else to not make mistakes.

In a tournament the hand MIGHT be killed. Not in a cash game. It sucks, but ppl are stupid.

I guess I'm in the minority but I don't think it's the dealer's place to tell a player(s) to protect anything. Pots are won/lost due to player error, but hey, ***** happens. That's poker.

And who made you table captain? P1 clearly saw the cards but you're not sure about P2? How do you know who saw what? And why should P3's hand be declared dead, exactly? Not in a cash game and not in a decently ran room.

If you are going by Robert's Rules of Poker, showing your hand before the betting is completed is an etiquette problem. You're leaving it up to the highest authority there to make a ruling. Exposing your own cards only penalizes yourself. In this case, it doesn't even do that because P3 doesn't have stake in what will happen next. As a dealer, I would tell P3 not to do it again at the risk of being ejected from the room. However, I'm not going to protect him by trying to turn his cards back over. Both players now have the same information. P1, the action is on you.

Agree with steamraise about the punishment for the dealer.

It is certainly not true that showing your own cards in a multiway pot can only hurt yourself; this hand proves it! Very good chance it made P1 not pay off P2. The same thing could have happened even if P3 had more money behind when he prematurely showed. This kind of situation is exactly why the rule against showing one's cards exists.

It doesn't matter if player 1 or 2 or neither saw the cards. Once the cards are faced up, they stay that way just to be safe because one of the players still yet to act could lie and say they didn't see anything.

From the post, player 1 clearly saw player 3 cards. Player 3 cards should have stayed faced up and let player 1 and 2 finish acting the river.

After the hand is over, I will put on a disguise as a floor and give player 3 a KITN. Player 3 should know better. This isn't $1/2NLH or $3/6 limit... This is the big boys game, how could you not know the rules.

I agree with Psandman that player 3 got too excited and couldn't hold it in any longer so he had to let it out.

Still, player 3 should get a warning, next time it's a week banned or month or w/e but at least some ban.

Also, we don't kill player 3's hand, although we should right but we don't. It is what it is in most rooms.

My local charitable calls the hand dead if showed out of turn. I once called a shortstacked allin with a player yet to act, showed my hand out of turn. The allin player starts screaming that my hand is dead (I had him beat), There was only one other player and I had given him all the info he needed to call me or not. Floor ruled me dead,the other guy got confused and felt bad winning but he had me beat anyways.

Showing your hand with action left should not be dead in any decent card room. All that should happen is you play your hand face up and when the hand is over, you get:

a. a warning not to do it again;

b. if you've already been warned, you get to sit out an orbit or two; or

3. if you've already sat out, you get 86'd for the night.

Killing a hand for exposing it prematurely is atrocious. The punishment simply doesn't fit the crime.

Actually I think it is the exact opposite. In a tournament(TDA rules) it should never be dead, but in a cash game you are at the mercy of the rooms ruleset which may or may not say the hand can/will be ruled dead.

Chillrob, you should, uh, chill. As stated, neither near-universal ruleset (RRoP or TDA) call this a dead hand. If you read them carefully, there are very few infractions that result in a dead hand *.

The guy's obviously an inexperienced player, he's playing trash like J7o, and he just tripled up. Do we really want to take away his fun, piss him off, and encourage him to go play blackjack? Clearly he should be admonished and educated on rules and etiquette. But kill his hand? Thats borderline robbery in a cash game.

(Having saud this, I DID play a tourney at the Daytona Greyhound that killed exposed hands, btw).