Live hand gets to showdown. Player A 1st to act had top pair and thought player with position gave up on hand. Player B shows AQ high. He thought he won with AQ high. Player A thought B gave up on hand. If his hand is retrievable, can he win?

Depends on the Casino, sometimes you can get the floor manager to come over and if you tell them where in the muck your cards are and what the exact domination and suit they were; then yea you should get it retrieved.

Usually at low stakes like 1/2 and 2/5 they will tell you to stfu and suck it up/stop being impatient or careless.

This is really question for brick and mortar.

I'm confused right now to be honest. I can't tell who showed their hand here. If V1 really tabled his hand and then mucked it, he should have won. If he mucked without showing and V2 didn't angle shoot, I think it's his fault for mucking.

By retrievable, you mean laying in the middle of the table? If it went to showdown, any hand is retrievable if it hasn't made it to the muck.

With that said, I wouldn't make any special accomodations if a card (or cards) was touching the muck or placed on top.

I don't get the statements that player A thought B 'gave up on the hand'. The only way someone 'gives up' is by saying they fold, mucking their cards , etc . As long as someone else has cards in front of them, unless they say that they fold, they are still in the hand. If player A showed top pair face up before throwing his cards away he can have surveillance prove that.

Kind of confusing what happened here, player A wasn't paying attention I guess or ... ?

I [i]believe[/b] the answer is yes, if retrievable, player A can win.

However it seems that there's some key info missing in the OP. I'm pretty confused.

need more info. on the surface the answer is yes.

Yeah there's no indication of who mucks and when, where their mucked cards are, etc. Those are very important issues... there's not even anything specifically saying anyone's hand was mucked.

If player A said "You're good" and threw his cards into the muck and then player B turned over his hand, player A is out of luck. If player A said "You're good" and slid his cards toward the center of the table (or some similar that isn't really a muck), Player B turns his hand over, I'm likely to say A's hand is easily retrievable. I'd warn player A to be careful to protect his hand, expose his cards in turn, or whatever seemed appropriate.

too little information.

Yes he can win.