Was playing in a pub game the other night and the following happened.

UTG limps, all fold round to small blind who calls. Big blind then goes all in. UTG thinks for a little, 20-30 seconds and calls. They spend about 10-20 seconds sorting the chips out for the call then UTG flips his hand over for the all in show down. Then its pointed out to him that the small blind still has to decide his action.

There was a guy at the table (not in the hand) who was adament that UTG's hand was now dead and should lose all the chips he'd called which seemed a little harsh as it amounted to 99% of his stack and as they were all in nothing the SB did caught affect any further play

What actually happened is small blind folded and big blind was happy to carry on as he had UTG dominated. UTG then caught a 3 outer to knock out the BB but thems the breaks.

Was the guy right? whats the ruling in this situation?

UTG should get a warning to take more care in future to ensure all action was over before showing his hand.

SB can still decide whether to call or not.

For what reason would UTG's hand be dead? Obviously he shouldn't have turned it over, but it is only to SBs advantage.

Right, and SB's advantage is BB's disadvantage, poker being a zero sum game and all.

Suppose UTG has JJ, SB has 99, BB has AK. Then if UTG shows JJ, and SB folds because he knows he's crushed, BB loses an enormous amount of equity because of UTG's action.

Agreed. If anything is going to happen to UTG, he should be assessed a time penalty for exposing his hand.

I have dealt, and played, in rooms where the stated rule was if you prematurely expose your hand it is dead and all money in the pot is forfeited. If this rule is posted then hand is dead if not the warning/penalty and hand is live.

Also one of the rooms I dealt at recently changed the dead hand rule to a 1 orbit penalty, which IMO is a better rule.

Hand is live, player gets a warning

In the card room I frequent the hand exposed is dead, which if there is still live action, should always be the case, the reason being is it can kill kill further calls from players that would normally call with dead money. Imagine I hold AA, get all-in preflop, guy calls with KK and shows, pocket queens then instantly folds along with KQs and 99. While this situation seems unlikely as why would all these people be getting it in pre-flop, but in tournaments where the average stack is 10 big blinds this situation can and does happen, and it happens at a point in the tournament where good hands MUST be maximized as you can't wait for another one. The pocket kings showing his hand needs to be declared dead to allow for the the other hands to put their money in as they would have without the knowledge they were up against kings.

While I'm not a fan of declaring a hand dead for trival reasons, I don't think showing and getting weaker hands to fold is trival at all, it is very serious and the person who made the mistake should be the one screwed not the person whose action was killed because another twit showed his hand.

Keep in mind this only applies to tournaments and should be ruled based on the basis that showing his hand killed further action from weaker hands. Generally this will only happen pre-flop and likely only late into tournaments. Obviously this needs to be rules on in a case by case basis and there are many instances where it is clear the injured person is only the person who exposed his hand and in those cases the hand should not be killed.

The dead hand rule that some use is one of the most ridiculous in all of poker.

I disagree somewhat, as you don't want people angleshooting in the UTG situation.... and the BB can gain (increased winning/survival chance) when SB folds here


This one may be a good enough reason to have a more draconian "hand exposed = dead" rule, to avoid putting the TD in tough decision spots.... but I agree with you that being over-eager to kill all-in hands is NOT a good thing, especially in a home tourney

Sorry I forgot to add the tidbit that in a home tournament I would never kill a hand in this situation, not because it shouldn't be killed, but because it is a home game. Having people come back is far more important the getting some action killed by someone exposing the hand.

So just to clarify guys. The dead hand rule, does this only apply in card rooms that have decided to use it and posted it in their house rules? Or is it something that all card rooms throughout the land would condsider the normal way to deal with this kind of infraction?

It is not standard. Players love to kill hands, but that should always be the last possible option in any situation. A hand should never be killed on a technicality, including grazing the magical card-dissolving muck.

It's a stupid rule that I think was used once in a WSOP circuit event. Some rooms do have it as a house rule, but those rooms are run by morons.

The "standard" (with the caveat that in poker there is no universally excepted rule book) rule is that the hand is not dead. Having said that, many many players believe that the hand is dead, including many that ought to know better, so if you don't carry around a copy of the rules you are liable to lose this argument at any given time.

Here is the rule from the Tournament Directors Association rules:

One argument that may carry weight with other players who mistakenly believe the dead hand rule is standard, is that the World Series of Poker follows the standard rule:

Here is the link to the WSOP rules:

WSOP Rules

And here is the link to the Tournament Directors Association rules:

TDA Rules


Edit: another very common mistake people make about the rules that you might want to be aware of, although for obvious reasons it comes up less often than the above, is that if somebody mucks or throws their cards into or onto a live, but unprotected hand, the live hand is killed (thus, always protect your cards). That is untrue. Only the throwers hand is dead, but you'll have to google Robert's Rules of Poker and look under dead hands to find that one, because the situation is not adressed at all in the TDA.

Thanks very much to all who responded and thanks in paticular to Zetach, a very comprehensive answer.

I am assuming by Pub game you mean free poker? If it is posted that a shown hand is dead then it is dead, but as played in a Pub he should just get a warning.

Btw...The guy (not in the hand) wanting his hand dead is clearly a guy I want at my home game!!