I did not actually witness this event but was told about it by someone who was there.

It was a NLHE Tournament, low stakes, home game. The dealer thought one of the cards being dealt had flashed and asked the table if anyone saw it. A player spoke up and said he thought it was the Ace of Diamonds.

The recipient of the card in question looked and said no that was not the card.

The hand continued and at show down the player, who ended up with the allegedly flashed card, won the pot by showing his hand, which contained an Ace of Diamonds. When questioned he claimed that he received the Ace as his second hole card and it wasn't the card the dealer thought was flashed.

Since nobody could really provide any evidence to refute the claim the matter was dropped and play continued.

It would have been a huge coincidence to have gotten the Ace as a second down card but, as we all know, long shots happen all the time if you play enough poker.

Could there be someone that would pull a move like that in a no limit tournament where any benefit would have given only a minor bump in a long, deep stack journey?

Was there something different that should have been done in handling this incident?

It was asked if the flashed was seen and someone said it was. It should have been turned over and shown to everyone and the card replaced at the end of deal. The player should never have been allowed to look at it, let alone keep it.

What, praytell, what the supposed OTHER card that villain held? If it wasn't the 4 of diamonds or the Ace of hearts..... I think I'm booting a player, unless he has a well-known honest rep.

For sure, I have a "asshat" icon potentially etched next to his name. This story, as told, strains credibility.

As for your 'value of the move?' ending.... it seems an instinctive asshattery, which is a warning flag to me.


hopefully you'll tell me I'm overreacting, but I'd sure want to know a lot about it.

There was an extremely similar story in B&M about 10-14 days ago.

The player does not get the option to keep a card, or answer questions about it. If it MIGHT have been flashed, expose it and replace with the burn. No need to make anyone guess about what they saw, that only creates more problems.

This is the optimal way to do it, and usually the way I do. I'm guilty of occasionally making a judgment call - if it seems unlikely that the flash was seen and nobody says anything, I'll let it go.

But anytime a player says, "I saw that card," it gets exposed and replaced.

When I'm in that situation (and it's possible I could have seen the card but didn't), I'm very intentional to make it clear I don't know what the card is. Maybe I'm too trusting, but at a friendly home game, I believe someone when they say the didn't see anything. If someone sees a card and calls it, then it needs to be killed.

The guy should not of been given the choice. If someone says they saw the card, then it gets exposed

It definitely depends what the other card was. If it was a ten of clubs then I'm asking him to leave and not come back. Honesty is paramount at a poker game, especially among friends. Someone that would lie about their hole card would lie about other things.

Our game is quite relaxed when it comes to this but I'm going to start pushing for some changes in this area. We had a very minor issue last week where a card was clearly flashed and I said it was the king of clubs. The player said, "No, it's not," and the hand continued. The player showed up with A-K with the king of spades and that exposed card definitely affected the play of the hand.

There's another way to look at this when some one claims its the K of clubs and the guy receiving card says no. He's already given out information and what he does not have. To me , if you think a card was flashed, then it gets pulled back and turned over for everyone to see.

That's another really good reason to just replace the card.

I was thinking about calling the floor manager but it was a home game, I would suggest that give the card as is and have the allegedly flashed card face down at the moment, when someone folded his hand he may look at the card and see if it is the Ace of diamonds and if its not continue the game, if its the ace of diamonds, expose completely and muck the card and give a new card.

Really? You would ban someone if the other card didn't resemble the Ad? I have played many hours of live poker and have been in many situations where a card flashed. Sometimes I am totally wrong in what I "thought" the card was. There was a situation once where I had seen a card flash. The floor was called and it was ruled that I should state to everyone what card I thought I saw. I told the table that I thought I saw a red 9. The hand went to showdown and the player whos hand was in question showed down two black deuces. Everyone makes mistakes, ide let it slide until further incident.

LL is not considering booting the guy who thought he saw the Ad. He is talking about the player who claimed he got the Ad as his second card, and not the first one that flashed. Big difference.

Yeah, but if the player thought he saw an Ad, but it was really Jc (I'm with prof -- people BADLY misinterpret what they half-see for an instant), and then villain miraculously got the Ad, we can't exactly boot the villain over it.

Of course, I don't buy the "2nd card" story for an instant, and that insulting fib counts against him on the boot score. It just doesn't warrant a boot by itself imo.

But this illustrates why we don't play the "what did you think you saw?" game in the first place. If the card might have flashed, treat it as flashed, and take it as a reminder that you need to be more careful about dealing.

Yeah, rather than qualify it with "unless he has a well-known honest rep" I would say "if this is not the first dubious scenario he has been involved in" or something along those lines. It means the same thing, really, but puts the burden on me to make this the last straw, rather than the first.

I would (and have before) just say "I saw a black king." Suits are very easy to misidentify in an instant of a flashed card. The real issue here is that the player can't have the option of keeping it. At all. Had his other card been, say, a seven, no doubt he'd have turned up the king, said, "not the kng of spades, but close enough," and hoped for a replacement card that worked better with his seven. Players shouldn't be able to "roll their own" (unless playing a specific Stud home variant ).

The host in this case has a dumbass rule that you must call the exact rank and suit of the card in order for it to be replaced. I know, I'm working on him. Next time I play there and a card is exposed I'm going to refuse to answer any questions about the contents of my hand.

Couldn't agree more. I made this argument to him and it apparently fell on deaf ears.

I was able to get the rule changed in another home game that I'm a member of, so all hope is not lost.

Why is it so important to you to get various home games to change their rules, to something you agree with?

This vague "I think it might be" situation is the cause of much awkwardness. Asking him to say whether he has a card or not is pretty crappy. What's he supposed to say if they were wrong? "No, I don't have an Ace."

The dealer should STFU, frankly. If a player sees a card, he can speak up. Fishing for someone to say something in order to create this muddy situation is just asking for trouble.

Cards flash all the time, either from dealers or from players picking them up poorly. It's not "fair" but it's life. The solution to this is usually more aggravation than the problem.

Because I think that home games should be run as close to a casino environment as possible. There are two reasons for this. One, if someone decides to play poker in a casino (and not everyone who attends home games has ever played poker in a casino before) the rules and procedures at home games should mirror what happens in a casino as closely as possible. This makes for a smooth transition for that player. You wouldn't want to "learn" how to play poker in a $25 home game and find out the hard way that casinos do things completely differently, would you? The second reason is that dealing procedures have been refined over the course of history to the point where proper procedure has significantly reduced the possibility of dealer and player error. Everything that a dealer does, from keeping the burn cards separate from the muck, to killing all losing hands prior to pushing the pot, is done for a reason. Bottom line, the better a game's procedures and rules are defined and implemented, the smoother and more enjoyable the game is for everyone.

.... that are interested in replicating the casino game in a home game.

OK.

I agree with Koko, it's generally more fun to have a home game that's well run. I don't care if it's exactly like casino poker, but I do see why it's best to closely resemble it.

I see why it's not possible for it to be exactly like a casino - but I don't want to play in a home game where people splash the pot, share information, flash cards, etc. There's a certain things which could be called procedure or etiquette depending on the scenario, but I prefer people to at least follow some rough procedure, and some etiquette - even in a home game.

I agree with running a tight, smooth game. That's what I do when I'm hosting.

If it's not my game, it's not my place to correct it. I have enough trouble being "that guy" as it is. I try not to annoy people who can introduce me to soft games. After all, the weaker the procedures, the weaker the players (usually).

I would never say "as close to a casino as possible", but koko's example is a perfect illustration of why we push for standard rules. Asking the players to name the rank and suit is a bad policy. Allowed to continue, that practice will continue to create difficulties at that game.

It's really hard to come up with a clear and compelling argument for why, but having seen a lot of poker hands, I'm quite convinced that naming cards and asking players to confirm or deny the rumor is going to create more problems than it solves.

100+ years of collective poker experience backs this up, as reported in RRoP and most cardroom policy. This thread is another anecdote that supports the policy.

I encourage people to play by standard rules because they avoid trouble. They allow us to draw on a lot of practical experience at poker tables. Don't use your knowledge and understanding of RRoP as a power trip, but do bring it as an asset to games you play in.

RRoP is emphatically NOT some heavy-handed author sitting down to dictate how his meager subjects should do things, it's an anthology of practices that have evolved to mediate between players in competition.