So this is a new one. Low content: mistakes happen.

I win a decent pot, dealer ships it and somehow the chips end up on top of my cards and the dealer and I both miss the fact that I never gave the cards back.

Next hand is dealt and I finally have stacked my chips and uncover the mistake. I say something like, "oops, I forgot to give these back" and push them face down toward the dealer.

Guy on my right sees that I have four cards (yes, they have different colored backs) and mistakenly thinks it's a misdeal. He flips over his cards out of turn and tosses them on the table, then grabs MY cards (the live ones) from under my chip (acting as a card protector) and does the same thing!

Dealer isn't quite sure what to do and calls for the floor. Some other players obviously want to play the hand and have already acted.

Player who screwed up apologies profusely. I keep saying, "don't worry about it" and the floor rules the rest of the hand continues (which seems fine and correct).

Obviously a major screw-up from another player. I was thinking about how I would have felt if my cards had been playable (or monsters) and I've decided that mistakes happen and I couldn't get worked up about it even if he had tabled my AA.

Brings a whole new level to "protect your hand".

Obviously, it was a major screw-up from another player. But to be honest, it was a double major screw-up on your part.

You need to be more aware of what's going on. And protect your hand.

Seems to me that the cards were already protected (had a chip on top). How exactly would one protect his cards further against someone willing to just reach out and grab them? Be a kung fu master? Keep a loaded handgun, visible, on the table at all times?

The guy is just super lucky OP didn't have a hand he was interested in otherwise this would have been a much uglier situation.

IMO the other player should get some kind of punishment (at least sent home for the day). That behavior is unacceptable even if it really were a misdeal. He should never be grabbing someone else's cards, period. If he is not punished, I would be sorely tempted to do some punishing of my own (like showing his hand sometime after he has put in a large raise).

Interesting, and unique, situation. Admirable that you reacted the way you did and didn't make a scene. Seems like no harm, no foul here.

No harm to OP if he was going to fold anyway. 4 exposed cards can still mess up the action for the rest of the players.

It turns out that my fouled cards were garbage, but I hadn't looked and didn't know until it was too late. (It was one of those time-slows-down moments where I'm trying to yell, "n o o o o o!" but am powerless to stop the inevitable.)

My moment of zen was deciding that even if he had turned over AA (or worse, something dirty like 97s or 44 that can win a big pot) I would have to shrug it off. A habitual offender, sure, release the hounds, but this guy was embarrassed and instantly apologetic. I gotta give him the benefit of the doubt, even if my cards had been awesome. It's more about my own mindset than his mistake.

OP, you handled it well. I'd just add, "OK, we're good, but just so you know, you should never touch another player's cards no matter what. A lot of players are going to be angry when you do and some won't just leave it at the table."

Pretty big mistake. Even in a misdeal returning your own cards face up is not usual. Returning another players cards face up???????

Was this guy in the SB or BB?

I don't think telling the player:" Don't worry about it" is the correct thing to say. You need to tell him that touching your cards is not acceptable. Ever! You don't have to be a jerk or raise your voice, in fact, you can be totally zen-like to the guy but you should've explained to him why he was wrong for what he did.

"Please don't touch my cards."

That seems to cut it with most people who weren't doing it to be dicks in the first place.

Don't know what level/stakes this game was but at 1-2 stuff like this is not uncommon. The dealer should admonish him and you can also keep it civil but firm that he shouldn't touch another players cards/chips. Let him get ugly about it (this guy didn't) and get the warning/boot not you!

He flips them up? Wow.

I'm going to say that's a borderline angle - you know when players "want" it to be a misdeal?

I'd be pretty upset if another player touched my cards. Obv think there should be some time of punishment here. At no point should you ever touch someone's cards especially if they are under a chip and if the dealer hadn't actually said misdeal.

Probably would have went and used the bathroom and not washed my hands, came back to the table and gave this man a vigorous handshake while telling him, "It's all good this time, just don't ever touch someone elses cards again, not cool.", then shot him a friendly smile and offered him a Lifesaver delivered into the same hand I shook with him.

Stink palm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfVVjpVZP8I

Sure, but I always hate when this is said in a thread where something totally extraordinary which basically never happens happened.

The reality is, there's no such thing as perfect protection of your hand. And the point of protecting your hand is to make sure really common stuff (like the dealer not realizing you didn't fold and pulling your unprotected cards into the muck, or more metaphorically, a player not realizing there was a raise, calling, and inducing a bunch of calls or folds behind him or her and having to leave the money in the pot) doesn't happen to you. It doesn't mean that a player is responsible for preventing every single bad thing that can ever happen to a poker hand at a poker table from happening.

And overprotection of your hand is actually a bad thing too. For instance, some of the people who keep their hands like a cage over their cards interfere with other players being able to see that they are still in the hand, which slows down the game and causes mistakes. Keeping the game moving smoothly is as important as protecting your hand is.

Take reasonable steps to protect your hand. Sometimes, weird, extraordinary stuff will happen anyway. That's why we give floormen some discretion with respect to what rulings they can make. That's the best you can do.

I agree, which is why I make a distinction between protecting your hand and protecting your cards.

Protecting your hand is protecting your interest in your hand in play. Protecting your hand includes make sure everybody knows you have cards. It includes helping make sure action on the other side of the table isn't confused. It includes knowing who else is in the hand with you, and not insta-mucking just because you think everybody's folded, not even if the dealer thinks so too. Basically, it includes doing everything in your power to ensure the entire hand runs smoothly, because you just never know when something might go against you.

It's good for you, it's good for others, it's good for the game. Be an active participant, not a passive observer.

i think i have only lost my composure at the table one time, but this would easily make a strong case for a second blow up.

Someone else touching your cards is 100% unacceptable.

Did you leave a chip on your Live hand after you finished stacking your win from the previous hand. Villians actions are already bad, but that would make it even worse.

Hard to imagin the floor didnt give him a penalty of some kind.

Of course. The problem I have with 2+2 discussions is that someone will describe some one in a million event that happened in a poker room somewhere, and immediately someone else will say "protect your hand", even if the only effective protection would be to hire armed Pinkerton guards to point Uzis at the person's cards.

You should protect your hand as best as possible. Occasionally bad things will happen anyway. And that's one reason we have floor personnel.

Yea he's way out of line

You can't rely on the floor to do anything meaningful. You also can't go back in time. You can't count on a floor to instantly have a good solution to a "one in a million", but you can protect yourself the same way against thousands in a million. The odds are better if you protect your hand.

Most problems arise from people not adequately protecting their hands. Early in my poker playing, I had a "one in a million" problem happen, and it resulted in my being eliminated from a tournament. In fact, the floor decision was opposite of what most anybody here would suggest. The problem really was that I didn't protect my hand well enough.

In this case, the OP didn't protect his hand because he didn't return the cards from the previous hand. He lost control of his cards in in one hand, and it affected another. He put himself in this unusual situation. He did not protect his hand.

Someday, you will have another one in a million situation, because it's impossible to protect your hand completely unless you completely slow up the game. And yes, you hope the floor makes the right ruling when that happens.

And if you are one of those people who completely slow up games with constant efforts to make sure that not even a one in a million event happens, you are bad for poker and should leave the game.

I think we're talking past each other. Do you have something specific in mind that slows down the game and makes me bad for poker? I'm not really following you here.

My point is that the same basic steps can protect against a thousand different "one in a million" situations. I don't trust dealers or floors to make proper rulings.

For example, having a solid habit of holding onto your cards and releasing them while receiving the pot would have prevented this thread. Since the OP has not trained himself in this procedure, he did not instinctively trade his cards for the pot. That led to an unusual situation and a unique problem.