Playing in a self-dealt PLO home game. The board reads KxxxK. At the river, A bets and B calls. A (the dealer in this hand) announces quads and turns over three cards. He shows Kxx. Someone asks for the other K (or at least the card), and he cannot find it.

We count down the stub, and there is one too many cards in the stub (so we assume he dealt himself three cards). I also knew that he couldn't have had quads because I had folded a King and said so.

Can a player win a hand with fewer cards?
The trip kings alone were good enough to win the pot. In a home game, would you still award the pot to A, or kill his hand and award it to B? Any other scenarios?

(And yes, after the hand, we counted down the entire deck and there were 52 cards).

Stuff like this happens (and much worse) all the time in self dealt homegames. I can't imagine why you would kill his hand here!! There is no unfair advantage to having only 3 hole cards in a PLO hand. The deck was good (no hidden/lost cards). His 3Ks were best! It's silly and careless certainly. Pay the man his money.

RROP seems to say that a hand with the wrong number of cards for the game being played is dead. It is the player's responsibility to protect his hand at all times. That includes making sure he is dealt the correct number of cards.

The TDA rules seem to say that only a properly tabled hand may win a pot and that a properly tabled hand in Omaha must have 4 cards shown.

A home game should have a clear set of rules governing it. Using a particular edition of RROP, possibly with explicitly stated exceptions, is a common way to provide a clear set of rules.

In holdem games in many casinos, a hand can be won with only one hole card, at least if it is the button. I see no reason to kill a hand for having too few cards.

I actually have a bigger problem with the player announcing "quads". In some casinos overcalling your hand can be a reason to kill it, especially if it causes the other player to muck.

I would want to count down the deck and see if something is amiss. I have seen countless times where players claimed straights and flushes they didn't have, even occasional pairs, but mistaking one king as two kings to make quads is something I haven't ever seen before.

It wouldn't shock me to find one of the "five" kings in play is from the other deck. Not likely, just not shocking. It would shock me to find only three kings, but if this did happen I would be "hair on fire" alarmed about cheating.

I would rule the three card hand as acceptable, but it comes with a KITN. Less so if the game is a mixed game vs playing Omaha every hand. The player should realize he has a defective hand and seek to resolve that before we get anywhere close to showdown.

In the event this type of thing is not rare, I get more inclined to kill the hand. And if the same dealer is involved with the reoccurrences then I get more concerned.

The specific cheating that worries me is the risk that the player is holding out cards from prior hands and reintroducing them as needed. Holding out a couple of cards would explain how someone could have a three card hand and not realize it and/or how someone could mistake trips for quads. I see this as a really low probability event, but still worth checking out.

In this situation, with this group, I wasn't concerned about cheating. The player/dealer in this situation had been drinking quite a bit, so we chalked it up to him looking at the same king twice and assumed he had a pair of kings (and therefore quads).
The deck was fine (we confirmed after the hand). I had folded the Kd, told the table this, and we found the Kd (clumped with my three other discards) in the muck.

It was really a one-off situation.

I was curious if there are casinos/home games that allow a hand to win at showdown with 1 card (for Hold Em), or 2-3 cards for PLO.

Hand is dead, RROP is pretty clear, the rule is there for a good reason.

Regardless of how much he had to drink, getting quads is a very hard thing to mis-interpret, and extremely noticeable. He didn't have quads and almost certainly knew it. Overcalling his hand looks strongly like an angle to me, and makes his only having three cards look more suspicious.

I would keep an eye on this player in the future.

Killing off this players hand in this particular situation is not needed IMHO. I can see where there could be other factors or situations like Dr.Strange mentioned, BUT there were not according to the OP. Friendly social home game players do not grow on trees these days , so being too strict about rules in situations like this may do more harm than good. There are plenty of situations where rules must be followed. To me, this particular case ,as described by the OP , lends itself to letting the hand stand with some admonishment to the dealer. Just one opinion.

Everyone's take on this is reasonable, even though there's disagreement. To me, it comes down to if this is a home game that is mostly designed for fun, or a home game that is mostly designed for profit. In the former, killing the hand is imo overkill, though I share the concerns about how the heck he thought he had quads. In a game in a home that isn't exactly a home game, the level of rules enforcement is probably already established. If you call the game close, then keep it that way. (But to me that's closer to an underground game than a home game, even if there's no rake.)

Home game: Best hand with no more than the maximum number of legal cards wins at showdown...

Casino: Assume dead hand in some rooms, live in others.

One-of situation? Ship him the pot.

If in fact he dealt himself three cards ..... (as opposed to accidently having one mucked) could he have been taking a shot here. Might he have expected a misdeal or refund of his chips if at he had a loser?

That my concern here ..... you have a better idea because you know the player and the game.

This is my concern as well. Of course, the angle only works if it is known that the host / floor would have ruled the hand live if it were a loser too, though without another data point or a solid trust it's difficult to be confident in what the host / floor would have done.

This goes back to what kind of home game this game actually is. In my beer and bull**** game, guys deals himself 3 cards, we'd tease him for weeks. Lol at declaring a misdeal.

+1

I would award the pot to the guy with three cards. I would also be concerned that he was cheating/attempting to cheat. I have no idea how trip kings can turn into quad kings, even after a few cocktails.

I would be watching this guy like a hawk when he deals.

Thanks for all the replies. The other player in the hand suggested that he take his river bet back, and the player with 3 cards could keep the rest of the pot. The player with 3 cards agreed and we moved on.

Not reading the whole thread, but has anyone mentioned that the K on river somehow came from the dealers hand and why he only has 3 cards now. Not sure how you would fix it, but I would try to give everyone back whatever chips they put in the pot and start over.

Hmm, I don't think anyone mentioned it, but that is a definitely reasonable possibility.

I mentioned your comment to another player in the game, and we both were stunned that no one considered this a possibility at the time.
Never thought of it until you mentioned it, but that's certainly a possibility.

Seems like the most likely scenario. Have to be pretty drunk to not realize you have only been dealt 3 cards, and to mistake 3 of a kind for quads.

Wow, some crazy responses in this thread.

The hand is dead. This is a known, universal rule. It's really debatable and any poker player should know it. Yes it's a social home game, and there are lots of things that can slide in a home game. Or even in a casino for that matter. For example, it's $5 to call, and someone puts in a $25 chip. The next player thinks it's a raise and puts in 5 $5 chips. Of course when the confusion clears we're giving this player back 4 of his chips if he wants. And there are many more scenarios.

This isn't one of them. And if you even had any inclinations in that direction, which you shouldn't, then it would be for nice, innocent players showing good sportsmanship. The angle with trying to declare quads throws all of that out the window. The player's hand is dead and it isn't even close.

Also, no casino, at least in this country, is going to give the pot to someone who mucked their hand just because this guy mis-declared his hand. If he has a legal 4 card hand and says "quads" and the other guy mucks, well first of all this guy doesn't even need to show his hand. But if he does, the pot is still his even if he doesn't have it. It could be an angle, it could be an honest mistake (not usually with quads, but with some other hands), but you have to protect your own hand and show it down.

Yeah, we can have fun and give breaks and be sociable in home games and be loose with the rules, but having a legal poker hand isn't one of those situations. It's inviolate.

There's no misdeal, it's a dead hand.

You guys have to understand which rules are fundamental to the game even in a social game, and which aren't. There are lots of rules that can be bent.

Could we get to the river and say "hey I have a straight and he has a flush, but I'm kind of drunk and I forgot what beats what", can we give the pot to the straight because he thought he had the nuts? No.

Could we get to the river and one guy has A A in his hand and we say "he wins the pot with 2 aces, but let's figure out this deck for the next hand?" No.

If the dealer mucks a player's hand by mistake in a home game and we can retrieve the cards, should we? Yes.

If a guy "calls" thinking the bet was $10 but it got raised to $50 and he didn't hear it, do we let him fold instead? Yes.

You need a legal poker hand to win a pot, period. Everyone in the game should know what the fundamental, unbreakable rules in the game are and then there would be absolutely no bad feelings about this, just like everyone should know a flush beats a straight. There's never any argument or hard feelings over that, is there? The hand is dead, period.

There are really NO universal rules for a friendly home poker game. Structures and rules are whatever the host and players decide upon. Now I certainly agree that many, many things should be considered basics for the overall good of the game and I believe mostly that most hosts/players agree and do just that. But if a private group wants to resolve a situation in an unconventional manner , I believe that it is their choice, and not an issue that needs a lot of debate. Of course this is an open forum and comments should be freely made and posted. As a host who is more interested in keeping my weekly crew happy and coming back rather than being too rules oriented ( no offense intended) I will try to resolve things in a way that pleases the group over a more rigid rules style. Just me.

In an average home game with my buddies he'd get the pot. In a serious home game for money that counts, rules is rules, so dead hand. You have to have a complete hand. I've even heard of a guy losing a pot in PLO because he only showed the two winners from his hand, while mucking the other two cards unseen. Gotta show down 4 cards in Omaha-ha-ha-ha.

The only thing I can think of is spike had a terrible runbad session online, donkeys sucked out on him right and left, and is venting/spewing all over us in misplaced rage. He starts with word construction that literally makes zero sense

and then goes on to take a dump on (more or less) the entire concept of home games, before making a completely erroneous claim:

In her wisdom, Bene Gesserit has brought us back to a reasonable place:

Fortunately, BG took some melange and has seen the truth of it, and all possible futures for home games. If it weren't for her wisdom we'd all have our heads in the sand.

As always people, as long as you're not operating heavy machinery or small children, relax with a beer or a toke before going off on us. At least not in Home Games. Save the anger for pointless line check debates in LLSNL.

Obvious typo, obviously should have been "not debateable".

Really? You just made that up. In fact I said nothing negative about the concept of home games, and if anything I said something in favor of the concept of home games: "Yeah, we can have fun and give breaks and be sociable in home games and be loose with the rules".


In her wisdom, Bene Gesserit has brought us back to a reasonable place:

Unfortunately she (he?) is simply wrong when saying "There are really NO universal rules for a friendly home poker game". While her heart is in the right place, having no universal rules is a really terrible idea. Table stakes, shuffling the cards, and requiring legal hands are three that spring immediately to mind.