Two players in the pot. They get to showdown and when the guy who would have won the pot flips his cards over, he notices that he has 3 cards. There was a 3rd card stuck to his hole cards.

What's the ruling? Most of us thought it was a misdeal and to replay the hand. However we had a player very adamant that it was the players responsibility to check his hand and therefore his hand was dead and the pot should be awarded to the other player.

unfortunate, but true.

Robert's Rules is a public poker rulebook that says:

If it's a really friendly game and you are all confident that the player was truly unaware of the 3rd card, you could decide to let it slide, but obviously this is wide open to exploitation by a cheater.

"protect your hand" is a mantra around here, and that includes making sure it's a legal hand.

Gedanken, way to take all the fun out of it. You left no room for argument! That is a weird situation though; I don't think I've ever heard of anyone making it through an entire hand without realizing they have 3 cards. I have learned in my few days as a 2p2er that dealer error is far too common.

The hand is dead, player should always be checking their hand. yea, its a bummer at a home game, but to allow him to play the hand out opens the door to other problems.

Hands dead.

Similar situation happened to me - I had a boat and was betting buck wild, at showdown i go to flip my cards and see that I now I have 3 cards. I'm not even sure how it happened.

I insta mucked

Sarge

I could see this happening. I rarely check my cards a second time so if two stuck together and I didn't notice it immediatley I'm not going to find out until too late.

And as already mentioned. Hand is dead. In a friendly home game, which mine is, I'd rule the hand dead and award the pot to the other player. It would be my hope that he would now split it or give the guy with too many cards his bets back. But I'm not going to think any less of him if he keeps it all either.

How did you settle this? It seems that you didn't check the rules since you are asking about it here.

Question to everyone: If the rules aren't handy or if a rule can't be located or clarified, how should you deal with a disagreement? Is this decided among players in the hand or does the table vote on it?

home game I say "misdeal" and everyone gets their money back.

My house I decide. And what I decide ends the discussion.

Can't speak for anyone else.

Question for you: Why don't you have the rules handy? Do you typically play games not knowing the rules? (being a little facitious as I realize there are rules for poker that'll get you playing the game and then rules, like Robert's, that'll help you run the game.)

Dead hand.

Can't do misdeal. Guy bets and wins, he mucks. Bets and loses, he gets money back? No freerolls dude.

I don't have the rules handy because up until my last game I had never had a dispute that required any clarification. We had enough knowledge among ourselves to solve any problems that we had come across. Prior to this week I had never heard of Robert's Rules of Poker. I know the rules enough to get through a friendly game of poker, granted I don't know all the intricacies of the game.

Seems to me that executive decisions might not be received well by some players. I don't want to go into a game knowing that anything that can't be clarified by a rulebook will be left up to the opinion of the host, even if there are nine other players that disagree with him. This could result in losing a player. If a suitable agreement can't be reached otherwise, then I could see why it would be left up to the host to make a final decision.

study the rules, so when something comes up, you can say authoritatively "here's what we do...". It is excessively awkward to try to leaf through a printout in the middle of a hand to find the relevant rule.

You don't have to be right all the time, just often enough that everyone thinks you know what you're talking about. You don't have to be perfect, just better than anyone else.

the first rule is "whatever the floor says is final".

As host of your game, you need to take charge of it. If you let people discuss and vote, you just let some of them feel they weren't listened to or worse, you encourage people to try to influence your decisions in their favor.

If you're not the host and the host is weak, build a reputation for knowing the rules and a neutral attitude. If you do it right, people will turn to you and ask "what do we do here?", but it takes diligence to build that trust.

I guess if the guy was truly surprised in a for-fun and low stakes home game, I say misdeal. Depends on how cut-throat everyone is.

This brings up a consistency problem in enforcing rules. One guy is "truly surprised" and you do a mis-deal. Next guy is "sorta surprised" - misdeal or dead hand? Next guy doesn't act surprised at all and thinks he should get to use the 2 cards he says he saw - misdeal or dead hand?

Stakes doesn't matter. I've seen people try to angle-shoot and cheat at freeroll bar games.

in reality though, there are lots of games where we'd all shrug and I'd say "be careful next time". Stakes wouldn't matter, but who I'm playing with. Believe it or not, humans are pretty good at lie detection. A guy who says "my full house wins... hey, is this two cards stuck together?" probably wasn't trying to cheat.

We're talking seriously amateur-hour poker here, though. Any kind of a "normal" game the hand is dead.

I'd never call it a misdeal and return all the chips -- it's either a dead hand or he plays the two cards he thought he had.

Its not my home game so we called over the guy who runs the league and had him decide. He decided on a misdeal and to replay the hand. It is a pretty friendly game and no home game I've ever played in has had a rule book handy for reference. Most situations that come up are pretty common and easily dealt with. This was just a weird one for everyone.

Yeah, he's a boring nit that way.

I agree that home games should be friendly and occasional mishaps, such as the one that is being discussed, can be overlooked and dealt with in a "less than standard" fashion, but I would like to know how much money was involved in the pot. A large sum of money on the line may change peoples opinions on how lenient you should be, even in a "friendly" game.