Quote:
Originally Posted by donkatruck
How hard would it be for the dealer to look at him point at him and say "The action is on you, the bet is xxxx." instead of slowly pulling his cards into the muck.
I've asked a few dealers about the hand and this is the most common and I think best solution.
It is somewhat of a tricky spot, as the dealer does not want to coach one of the players. This triggered a memory of a Commerce dealer costing me a pot by pushing a guys cards back to him because he folded a flush face up. (Or something like that. 100 years ago.)
It's different from blackjack because that is against the house and the house can caution someone against doubling down on hard 20, because they are the ones giving up the EV. They need to be more neutral when the money is going between two customers.
Think of a case where the board is 2345A. Bet call. Bettor shows AK. Caller ruefully holds up his cards, which are AQ. After a minute he folds. Clearly, nobody should say a word, except the bettor if he so chooses.
Everyone misreads hands and stuff, and I think the fairest thing is that you just eat it when you make mistakes, as opposed to sometimes the dealer bails you out, or another player speaks up. Then you wind up with players who lose when they make an error, but then when their opponent makes an error it's a different dealer who helps the opponent get the pot.
Again, I agree that in this case, it would be best for the dealer to say, "action is on you, sir." But less because the dealer should help out a newb, than because it was an ambiguous situation and the player had not taken a definitive action. Therefore it would not be inappropriate to ask what he wanted to do.
But, I can see why he froze up a little. If the guy had misread his hand and wanted to show everyone his bad luck and then the dealer says something and the guy says "oh crap, I have a royal, thanks dealer!" then that could be a bad situation. Dealer also might have had his mind kind of blown due to the fact that it was a RF. While he didn't make any kind of folding motion, the player had released his cards into an ambiguous place on the table. Dealer probably just thought, "surely if I wait, he'll say call. OK, surely if I start pulling in the cards, he'll say something..."
Another issue is, what if you are the other player? Do you give V back some or all of his money?