yes, OPTAH

And again, OPTAH penalizes the person who gives the advice, not the one who receives it.

You'll note there is nothing there about killing hands, but only penalizing players who do these things.

Again, everyone agrees the dealer did something improper (call it OPTAH if you wish). The floor should "penalize" the dealer after the fact, but obviously not in a way which affects the outcome of the hand.

WOW .. and thanks. This one got big in a hurry. Some mentioned that this is a rare event and I would have to somewhat disagree 'in my world'. More on that is a sec ...

1) There are a couple of comments close to this but maybe not exact. Dealers are human, they make mistakes. Typically (if not all the time) in poker when a Dealer makes a mistake we 'move on' with the hand in one way or another.

As has been stated in OPTAH comments, only 'the' Player should table their cards at showdown. In this case they weren't, but The Floor took higher exception that the Dealer was the one who violated that rule AND by taking into account the Player's 'intent' to muck ruled in Player B's favor.

There is no 'winner' here ... If Player A 'now' takes in the pot we will (may) have a very upset Player B, mostly directed towards the Dealer. If Player A ends up on the short side we 'may' have some angst that the Floor didn't rule in favor of the 'right thing' but Player A knows that the Dealer has 'their back' ... even though they aren't supposed too.

2) I have detailed quite often on how charity rooms differ from a casino and in some cases may be worse than a home game. There have been a couple of comments suggesting that the Dealer should've 'verified' the muck. This brings us right back to the Dealer being human and stuck in the middle of the rules and 'customer service' for the regs who pay them tips.

I'm not suggesting that Dealers cheat for regs by any means. But should a Dealer really 'pause' or verify a muck, thus possibly treating one player different than another? IMO it's practically unavoidable and it can really create some tough spots should 'the facts' come into light later either way.

Gotta cut this shorter than expected ... IMO the hand should've been live and let Player B feel free to glare at the Dealer if they so choose. GL

If I were the person who tabled my hand properly, I would feel that the person who got help from the dealer should get the pot. And I would feel that way even if it was the dealer's wife. My poker winrate does not rely on winning pots I don't deserve through technicalities. And I believe insisting on doing so is bad for the game.

It's always good to clarify action. It should be done on an equal basis, but it's not a big deal if it isn't, because the purpose of clarifying action is to ensure that players do what they really intended to do.

Technicalities?

He was throwing his hand away.
If he needs help reading his hand he can just turn it up.

Next time you're about to stack a pot with your top pair on a four flush
board, you ok with me telling your opponent he wins if he has a heart?

Any time you're dragging a pot without the nuts you should be making sure your opponent isn't throwing away a winner.

I agree with this. But it stuns me that people are including this situation under "technicalities".

Much of the confusion over issues like this would be alleviated if we could change the language people used.

My view of the world as it should be:

A player cannot "muck" or "kill" a hand. They can only discard it or throw it away. They can also relinquish any right to a pot by declaring "fold" when facing a legitimate action.

A dealer "mucks" a hand when they physically shove it into the discard pile. Dealers cannot "kill" a hand still in a player's possession.

A Floor can declare a hand "dead" or "killed" for whatever reason may be applicable at the time.


In this world therefore, the hand wasn't "mucked", which makes it live, and having been tabled by an obviously distracted or incompetent dealer, would win the pot.

Jeez, I miss all the good ones since my days off switched.

I would be inclined to call this hand live and the full house wins the pot. The best hand should win at showdown here. The problem is with the dealer. This is a huge dealer error that should never happen.

So you think that me violating OPTAH by reading your hand should kill your hand?

You guys were sure complaining when I suggested penalizing the dealer.

You suggested firing the dealer or making him pay the pot out of pocket. I'm pretty sure you don't need me to explain how that's different and much worse than saying the floor may have to "penalize" the dealer. If you go back and read my responses, you'll probably also see how I said it was a dealer error in pretty much every post I made, starting with post #2.

The topic of how dealers should be disciplined isn't really germane to the forum focus, but firing them when they make a single mistake, even a major one, is not good or sustainable management.

Well obviously I'm not a floor person so I really don't know what an appropriate penalty for the dealer would be, but I wouldn't think it should be small. Glad to see that Suit called it "a huge dealer error that should never happen".

Again, everybody agrees that the dealer is at fault and I am pretty sure most of us would agree that some discipline is in order. But you suggested a measure that's either illegal or would cost the guy his job for something that might be his first punishable offense ever.

I don't know what punishment is appropriate, and that should obviously also consider his history. Might be a stern verbal warning, might be a written (final) warning, might be a loss of some more lucrative shifts. But if you start firing dealers for a (first) offense like that, you might run through human capital quickly and that's something that HR doesn't like because it causes overhead.

OK how about : 1st offense verbal reprimand and loss of rest of day without pay?
2nd time doing the same thing as in OP , dealer gets fired?

A serious warning and a loss of a partial paycheck should eliminate most repeat offenders.

1. To win any part of a pot, a player must show all of his cards faceup on the table, whether they were used in the final hand played or not.

14: Live Cards at Showdown
Discarding non-tabled cards face down does not automatically kill them; a player may change his mind and table his cards if they remain 100% identifiable. Cards are killed by the dealer when pushed into the muck.


I don't see why some believe that these rules don't indicate who must table the hand. They specifically state that THE PLAYER must show his cards face up on the table. The sentence is written in the active voice and the subject is the player, and the action is show the cards. If it were meant to mean that anyone could table a players hand, it would read "cards must be shown on the table" in the passive voice.

Likewise for changing his mind. A player can change his mind and table HIS cards. Seems to me that it is pretty clear that the player must be the person who turns over his hand,or else they are not officially tabled. Nowhere does the phrase "cards must be tabled" appear. Rather it's the player must table. There is a big difference in that wording. So the dealer exposed the players cards, but he didn't table them as tabling is described in the rules.

It is against the law to withhold wages from an employee as a punitive or disciplinary measure.

Can't imagine that every casino has the same employee handbook. And of course, the larger the 'company' the more straight lined discipline needs to be.

Even the court system has guidelines for sentences handed out ... with clauses in there for repeat offenders. And then there's always the 'deal making' with the prosecutor before it even gets to the judge.

In this case here the Dealer 'went human' and jumped out of line for a 'sweet old' reg and got 'caught' (called out) by the other player. This was a casino and it was a 10+ year Dealer in the same room.

Another story from A20 ...

When I worked in the electrical utility industry they talked about the linemen who were most 'at risk' of making a mistake on the job. It was both the rookies (inexperience and/or too anxious) and the veterans (who have a lapse in total focus). That's why when I see a group of guys 'holding their shovels up' I don't get as excited as some who see this as wasted $$$. GL

The player is showing his cards face up on the table no matter who flipped them up. Not too different from you showing your private parts to the public no matter if you or your mom pulled down your pants.

That's why you send him home and/or take away lucrative future shifts from him.

What you are missing is that neither the dealer nor anyone else can revoke THE PLAYER's right to table his hand by beating him to it. You won't find that rule, and for good reason!

"Too late sir, you hand has been tabled by your opponent. Pot goes to him."

You are correct .. The only thing is that the cards weren't fully mucked yet. IMO this rule almost becomes moot when someone else tables the cards.

All we need to do to satisfy 'the player' rule is to turn the cards back over .. they aren't mucked yet .. and now have the player turn them back over to be 're' read by the Dealer.

As you state ... The player can now change his mind, and now he probably wants to change his mind thanks to whomever did turn the cards over for him, and properly table the hand.

As stated on the site pretty much 'everywhere', this is an offense that comes with a warning and the hand continues as if nothing happened. Having the player actually table their cards is semantics. GL

I like the ruling here.

The Dealer was supposed to pick up the hand and put it irretrievably in the muck pile. Once the Dealer has picked up the hand he should not be allowed to table it. And the Floor correctly acknowledged that.

The Floor is also correct that had the dealer just sat there and not mucked the "winning hand" and another player spoke up and told Player B to turn over his hand the ruling is always that Player B wins and the other player is warned not to help the player. If I was the Floor I would reem out the Dealer in front of the players because they need to be assured that this Dealer behavior is not tolerated in this room (i.e., the Dealer will always take a mucked hand and put it in the muck pile quickly regardless of whether or not they have seen the hand). This happened to me once. The Floor refused to educate the Dealer. The Room Manager refused to educate his Floors and I never played in that room again. It also happened twice in one Dealer shift at the Borgota at which point the Dealer was yanked from the box and could be seen pleading her case to the Floors for over 10 minutes.

If the guy actually worked the hours/shift then I think you are right. Withholding legit wages is not legal likely. However if you send him home for the rest of the day as a punishment he loses the hours/downs/tips he would have received. I think this happens a lot and is not against any laws. I have seen it happen. IANAL or expert on labor laws of course.

Yes, technicalities. He certainly tried to throw his hand away, but then he retrieved it. And "help reading his hand" is simply not the biggest deal in the world if, like me, you believe in winning showdowns by having the best hand. On the other hand, if winning pots you don't deserve is a significant part of your poker strategy, then I don't know what to tell you.

I am not "OK" with you violating one player to a hand. But it happens, and I certainly wouldn't try to steal the other player's money because you did it.

And I don't "make sure" of anything. However, when it comes to my attention that the opponent is throwing away a winner, I tell her to turn it up and give her the pot.

I know this is a stretch, but the dealer has most of the deck in his hand. Do we really want the dealer touching live hands in any way? Have you seen what someone with any skill can do if they wanted to cheat?