That raises the question - does showing cards just to the opponent qualify as "tabling"?

No, but if you know what his cards are and it is showdown without any more bets then saying "well tough luck buddy" is pretty much the same as keeping a pot where someone makes a mistake and you know he has you beat. They both made a mistake, it seems weird to me to make such a distinction in what the moral thing is.

I would punish both of them by the way.

Kelvis, I disagree with you.

Oh not about the pot - about what qualifies as tabling. The disagreement is based on the spirit of the rule, vs the word of the rule.

In a HU pot situation, there are exactly two players who matter - and if both of them know what the cards of one of those players is then I would say that the cards are effectively tabled.

If you and I are HU and you show me the winning hand then fold, your cards are known to me, so they speak - in the spirit of the sense at least. Further if I then take the pot I feel that's breaking the spirit of the misrepresentation rule.

Are you claiming that you'd give the pot back to someone who misread their hand? It is generally accepted that reading your hand is part of the skill element of poker. It should be a clue that the dealer will protect you from mucking in one case but not the other.

In one case the pot is won through the natural course of the hand. In the other it was won by a technicality when OP had absolutely no chance of winning through the natural course of the hand.

Taking a pot like this is not just unethical. It is bad for the game and could make newer players that are still learning the rules leave feeling cheated.

The importantly distinctive difference here between one and the other is - are the cards known?

Misread your hand and muck, can't prove it? Sorry bud.

Show your hand to opponent who realizes you actually win? Cards exposed to another active player should speak. Just as in the spirit of fairness if you see an exposed card you should announce it so the rest of the table has the same info.

I just think that if you morally object to taking a pot from someone that mucked his hand on accident while you had no chance of winning the pot you should also object to taking the pot from someone who you know had a better hand on showdown.

I am not talking about rules here.

Isn't it also generally accepted that poker is a visual game and you are to protect
your action at all times?

Easy question...no. Long settled.

Seems to be a totally morals/ethics question. Certainly not a rules, structure, angle, or cheating matter. Folks will do what they think is OK in a situation like this. Other folks can agree or condemn. In the end the result will stand with whatever the player decides. To me poker is a game of exploiting mistakes made by other players. Personal relations and other table dynamics could sometimes lead me to make some kind of deal with the guy I suppose. To me that's cool too if you want to do it. Likely most of the time I would not.

Mistake, please delete

Hey Jer, can finish these (pointing at the half smoked foils on the ground by the hotel bed)

I'll vote 50/50 splitting pot, as it's the GTO answer. The pot is technically yours at the moment, but it rightfully belongs to the true winning hand. One could argue importance of rules or one could argue spirit of game. Some places, like the Commerce, let you look in the muck and pull out a winner if accidentally mucked.

Honestly, it's an error in game play order(mucking a strong hand before everyone has shown/anyone has shown a winner). Allowing the winning hand to forfeit the pot is welcoming future slow rolling and hand concealing.

It's an outdated rule to have a mucked hand instantly and forever dead, IMO. Rules are rules, yea, but sometimes rules should be changed when they no longer make sense.

I like this response. I think the more I play the less likely I'm going to take the 'higher' route. That sounds sad and I hate to be in the 'well, nobody's doing me any favors at the table' realm of thought but I think the more you are exposed to this type of event the 'shock' value diminishes. I've been involved in various versions of this ...

1) I was first to show and said "2-pair" laying down my AK on A6J86. Opponent was all-in and flashed A8 to his neighbor and mucked. Dealer pulled them in quickly. Opponent admitted his mistake and 'let' me keep the pot without too much fuss.

2) I missed an OESD with 45 but was in position. River goes c-c and my opponent moans and groans about missing a flush draw. State's 'You got it' and waits for me to show. I wait. He gets even more frustrated and flashes the high-end OESD and mucks. I wait for the Dealer to pull them in and accept the pot without showing.

3) I'm all-in and don't see that I've made a straight on a paired board. Opponent shows trips and I 'half' table my JT (just the top edges of the cards touched the felt) and turn the cards back over but not towards the muck. Dealer and players tell me I tabled a straight and point to my cards to 're' table them fully. Opponent hems/haws but I keep the pot and go on to recover my losses instead of heading home.

4) I table an Ace-high flush and a player tables their cards. Dealer flips and mucks them, pushes pot to me. While I'm stacking 2 other players at table insist that opponent had a straight flush. I remember cards and board and now realize he did. We re-create the pot and I let him take it. GL

In the rooms I've played in, players have no option to overrule a floor decision. So if the floor rules it goes to player A because he has the last live hand, they don't allow a player to ship chips (whether half or all) to another player just because they don't like the floor ruling. Plus, transferring chips between players is not allowed. Giving chips back after the floor decide you won them would be seen as no different than giving some chips back to a player you rivered with a one outer because you felt bad for him. So while it seems unfair, the floor decision dictates what happens. It's not a home game.

Now if you want to cash out of the game, and give the player the cash amount of the pot, that's your business. But from a poker room perspective, you won the pot and the money is yours and you can't just pass chips to another player.

How do you believe a properly mucked hand isn't instantly dead? I am not saying touching the muck is magic. But if the two cards are quickly and completely shoved into some random positioned positions in the muck pile, how can you retrieve them.

Also how can Commerce or anywhere low you to look through the muck to resurect a hand? No one except the floor in certain instances should be looking through the muck for a mucked hand.

Now if you are referring to retrieving a properly tabled handle that inadvertently got pulled in, remember a properly tabled hand wins. It can't subsequently be mucked. If it can't identifiably be retrieved without rooting through the muck, I would not bother. Just pay the winning hand and if the guys who lost but still has cards complains, then let the floor retrieve the cards, give that biatch complainer a good KITN and hand him a rack for the night. Once tabled a winning hand wins I don't care what happens to those two cards once they are tabled properly. If we have to use the tapes to confirm it, fine.

Btw this should be the rule everywhere. If the cards subsequently touch the muck, I don't care if the muck is magic and touching it kills a hand, once properly tabled no one, not even the player himself can't kill his hand. Maybe the floor as a penalty in some few rare situations, but cards speak once properly tabled.

Good points. In my situation the hand was tabled and on camera, so I guess that's the difference. Some dealers/players can remember how cards were mucked, and reverse this if caught quickly enough.

While it is true that by rule you cannot kill a properly tabled hand, one issue is that "the cameras" are not always available (either because the room won't bother looking, or because of a technical deficiency). So if there is a discrepancy about what a player tabled, and it gets accidentally mucked, there may no effective way to investigate the issue in this case. The floor will be put in a spot where he has to either give the pot to the last live hand, or trust his dealer, or put it to a table vote, or some other less than satisfactory outcome.

This is why we commonly tell people here to protect their hands, and if you think you have a winner, do not let your hand go until the pot is pushed to you, even if it's already been properly tabled.*

*Do as I say, not as I do. I never bother with this, especially because my room has/had some weird rules about needing to put the winning hand up by the board.

In the OP's instance, it's a mistake by the player and the dealer that led to a floor decision. I think your examples are a little different.

1) You table your hand then the other player shows one other player a hand that should have won then mucks. That one is hard to fault you for keeping the pot.

2) Again this one is not the result of error but of stubbornness. Why someone goes through the theatrics of verbally talking about a missed draw then not show his missed draw kind of eludes me.

3) Standard

4) Dealer error was corrected on properly tabled cards. It worked out exactly as it should have, it seems.

Keep the pot, how do you get to the river without villain knowing you are in the hand

Eh. I don't think this is nearly as black and white as people are trying to portray. The obvious answer of "traditional" ethics would be to give him to pot.

But we're playing with a very blurry line.

We're giving him the pot based on our holdings and our perceived decision? (which in this case is obvious because we have 8 high, but we need to apply it to all scenarios).

So what if we were at the middle of our range and we were only 10% likely to call? Do we still capitalize on his mistake and take 100% of the pot even though we were very likely to get nothing back?

What if we had top pair but had already made up our mind that we were 90% sure we're folding?

Better yet, maybe we were near the top of our range and were prepared to snapcall, and V tells us he had the nuts. If we're assuming he's 100% telling the truth (via others confirmation or cameras etc), do we now give him the pot + an additional $200 out of our stack?

Morality is an infinitely complex philosophical subject, and over-simplifying doesn't help.

I'm not quite sure what the "correct" answer is here. Giving the pot back obviously seems preferable, but I can't say that you were necessarily obligated (morally or technically).

So, even though we had junk and were 100% sure we were folding, because we might have had a very good hand and were 100% sure we were calling, we should keep the pot?

The line might be blurry, but OP's case is clearly on one side of it.

That's not what I said. I didn't give an answer because there isn't a clear one. Don't put words in my mouth and act sanctimonious.

What I said is if we decide to give the pot back based on our holdings and perceived decision, then we should be consistent and apply it to each scenario, in which case I gave a few examples of more ambiguous decision points which question the legitimacy of basing it off that.

Yeah actually that settles it. Does villain think he is playing solitaire and the dealer is there to run boards for him?

you are in a contest for money and you make money by your opponents mistakes whatever they are. if he has not tabled his hand and folds, his hand is dead. if you want to give him the pot without even seeing it and assuming you had the worse hand go for it.

and how do you know he didnt bluff with a 3 high flush draw. he folded out of turn in the pot. you didnt plan on calling should that mean that you lose the pot before its over. what if instead he turned his hand up to show the table and laugh at them with a bluff you could beat. would you not now call while sitting there with a live hand.

most places have a rule if you drop a card on the floor your hand is dead. so do you also give him the pot if he does this and reaches down and comes up with the winner, even though you are sure he didnt cheat. no he dropped his card on the floor and killed his own hand. that is part of the rules of the game you are playing.

I would give up this pot every time because I was always folding to his bet.

However, if I had a solid read on this player and knew he was bluffing and I was considering calling because he was the type of player who would muck his cards after I called, then I would keep the pot.

Similarly if the river had been checked and he mucked his cards without realizing I was in the hand, I would take the pot.