Been playing in this home game for probably 5 years now and this is the first time this has happened.

The home game has a casual and fun vibe, but we try to adhere pretty strictly to casino rules to respect the fact that we play for decent-ish stakes. Blinds are .25/.50 NL but it plays more like a 1/2 game.

We use 2 decks, a blue deck and a red deck. Our procedure is after someone deals the hand, they shuffle those cards and then hand them 2 people to their left so that they'll be ready. It's not confusing for us, and has never caused a problem until now.

So... the current dealer deals out the hands from the blue deck.. Player A raises $5 pf, a couple players call. Flop is QhJh5C. Original raiser bets $10, one player folds, the other (player B) calls. Turn is 3h. Player A bets $20, player B calls. River is Jc. Player A has about $100 in front of him, and player B has him covered. He opts to bet only $20. Player B tanks, then just calls. Player A shows A2h for the nut flush, player B shows K9h for 2nd nut flush.

As the pot is passed to player A and the cards are scooped up, the dealer realizes that he accidentally dealt the river from the RED DECK. So the river should not have been the Jc. There's a little bit of chaos, and someone says "hey let's see what the river should have been" and so he deals it out: it's a blank.

Both players are irate. Player A feels like he missed out on stacking player B, because as played, the river pairing the board was a scare card to them both. Player B feels like he shouldn't have had to lose any money on an illegitimately played river, and feels like he should get his $20 back from the river bet. Player A tells him that he should feel lucky since he would've gotten stacked on the actual river. Player B insists that had the blank river fallen and player A had shoved $100, he would've folded his 2nd nut flush. (btw as ridiculous as this sounds, player B is actually a VERY nitty player, so I half believe him. Just look at the fact that he didn't go for a raise on the turn or river bc he was afraid he was beat. He almost never raises a hand unless he has the nuts).

Of course, no one can know for certain how these players "would" have played the hand had the correct river fallen, including the players themselves. Unfortunately, because both hands were tabled, there is no way to legitimately play out the river. Player B continues on that it's more than reasonable that player A should give back the $20 he'd won from the river.

If this were your home game, how would you rule? The host was really at a loss as to what to do here, and so was I (I'm usually deferred to since I have the most b&m experience in the game).

It's hard not to be results oriented here, since let's say in a similar situation the difference between the wrong and right river ended up changing who had the winning hand. WTF do you do then?? Whatever the answer is there, this should be dealt with the same way.


cliffs:

- 2 players play out a hand. Turn makes it nut flush vs 2nd nut flush. River pairs board, scaring both, leading to minimal action. Both show their hands.

- Pot is passed to winner, as dealer realizes the river was from the wrong deck

- Dealer deals out the correct river, which would not have killed the action

- Winning player is mad bc he feels like he would've won much more. Losing player is mad bc he insists if that had happened, he would've made a good fold versus a much larger bet.

- Losing player feels like he should get his money back from the river street since it wasn't legitimate, and it's impossible to truly play out the correct river since both hands were tabled.


What say you, 2p2?

I rarely kill an entire deal, but this time I would. Two decks in play, both players have tabled their cards and only at the end is the mistake found.

The situation is made muddy by the fact the hands are locked into a death match so clear that it is easy to see how little difference the "right" card made. But the general situation is not redeemable in my mind. The board is fatally compromised and the player's hands are exposed prior to the conclusion of the hand. Give the players their chips back, void the hand and go on to the next one. Stuff happens, deal with it.

I am also a bit surprised that this is the first time you ran into this. We have it happen roughly once a year.

Everything was good up until the river card was dealt.
I'm rewinding to the river card. Refunding river bet.
Deal the correct river card.
Since hands were exposed, award the pot to the winner.
If hands weren't exposed, river action is open.

If the winner whines about not getting any river action, offer a KITN.

If the correct river changes the winner, and the incorrect-winner turned correct-loser whines, offer a KITN.

It's a home game, mistakes happen.

We've had mistakes like this. As far as I can tell, nobody does it on purpose, and certainly nobody does it to benefit anyone. If small, the mistake gets erased and we play on. If large, we replay the hand. No formal definition of small/large, but one round of action will always be backed up and replayed, and we won't ever back up from the last round to the first.

we have had this happen too , very rare, usually if the deck color differences are somewhat similiar , but usually it is easy enough to fix among a low stakes home game of friends and regulars. As host I usually remind the crew that ALL of us have made dumbass mistakes and try to make an equitable ruling. Thankfully , usually it is accepted and we play on.

In this case backing up the action to before the "red" river card is likely what I would suggest. Of course you can't please everyone all the time.

Dealer would have to burn a "red" before dealing the "red" river card. Looks like he/she would have noticed the blue burns. I know. **** happens!

Also keep the next deck away from the current dealer. Having it that close so it can get mixed is not needed. I know. It's a home game

Yeah, you should definitely be burning cards before each street, it can prevent problems. And I don't really understand what procedure you are using with the two decks, but it's not working. No one should ever have access to both decks at the same time.

As played, I think casino procedure would be to keep the results as played if no one noticed anything until after the pot was pushed.

He did burn. It's just that he didn't notice that he burned and turned a river from the wrong deck until after. Not really sure how that happened. Like I said, this game has been spread for like 12 years now and this has never happened.

Just to clarify on the procedure, let's say player 1 starts with the button. He starts with the blue deck. Player to his left (let's call him player 2) has the red deck. Player 1 deals the hand. When the hand is over, he gathers up the cards and shuffles, while the button passes to player 2 and he can deal the red deck right away. As soon as player 1 is done shuffling the blue deck, he hands it to the player to the left of player 2 (currently the small blind) so that they're ready to go as soon as the hand that player 2 is dealing is over.

So that's the procedure. Deal the hand. Shuffle. Hand the cards 2 people to your left. It works pretty cleanly. I guess what must've happened is when the guy handed the deck over, it was physically between player 2 and 3
And player 2 also has a habit of not holding the deck while he deals. He picks up the deck, burns and turns, and then puts the deck down. Probably half the guys in the game do that, even though I've told them time and time again to just hold on to the ****ing deck until the hand is over. Go fig.

Hmm, sounds like the procedure I have used in home games, but we never had that problem because the previous dealer who is shuffling holds on to the old deck until the next hand is over. That would prevent it from accidentally being picked up by the new dealer.

Exactly.

Alright then, just tell the shuffler not to hand over the deck in the middle of the hand. It just will get in the way anyway.

Sounds close to "Shuffle behind."
Deal a hand. Gather the cards and shuffle.
When the next hand is over, pass them to the player on your left who must cut the deck.
After cutting the deck, it's passed to the player who deals from the shuffled by one player, cut by another player deck.

It seems that you are skipping the cut by the player in the middle, and not waiting until the hand is over.

I use the same procedure in my home game as OP, works fine enough. But waiting to pass the shuffled deck is an improvement I can see adding. Though tbh, we've done the deck mix up once--that we know of--in about 6 years of play, so I don't know if trying to change the behavior is worth it. For most of us hosts, it can take a LONG TIME to get a self-dealt game to find a decent rhythm, and I'm not certain how much disruption I want to add to my game.

I agree with backing up to the river and deling a correct river with no betting.

Actually using two decks with vastly different colors and designs is vital.

Also some structure that keeps the next deck away from the dealer is even more vital.

If this mistake still happened once in 100 sessions using the above methods I would be convinced that it was intentional for some dumbass reason or influenced by large amounts of adult beverages.

We do use different colored decks. We also use reasonable-ish amounts of adult beverages

Your Honor. Due to the defendents statement the prosecution rests!

Would you also negate the action from the original (and incorrect) river?

We've had this happen twice in our game. First time it, heads-up, was the turn dealt from the wrong deck. It was notice when the dealer burned for the river. Since we still had to deal the river, we backed the action up and replayed the turn.

Second time was like yours, on the river and noticed after the pot pushed. We let the action stand that time.

We had a fun one some time back. It was a multi-way limped pot, and the flop came out 44x. We ended up with a 3-way all-in, and when the turn brought another 4, all 3 of us turned over our quads. Oops - the dealer had dealt the flop and turn from the wrong deck.

We just nullified the hand, and had something to joke about for the next 10 years.

In RRoP (http://pokercoach.us/RobsPkrRules11.htm, section Irregularities), it states: "3. If a card with a different color back appears during a hand, all action is void and all chips in the pot are returned to the respective bettors. If a card with a different color back is discovered in the stub, all action stands."

So if you follow those rules, it's void. Be careful of angling though. If the dealer fails his turn bluff, he has a get out of jail free-card by pulling the river from the other deck.

Since RRoP are meant for (casino) games with dedicated dealers, it's ok to rework them to your needs.

I'm not familiar with the term "the stub". Is that the same as the muck? Iif so, then according to these rules, all action should have stood. The card with the different color back was discovered AFTER the hand, in the muck, as the muck was being collected.

The stub is the balance of the deck (undealt cards), not the muck. The RRoP rule quoted is irrelevant in your case. It applies for finding cards of a different deck in the deck being played not dealing from a different deck. RRoP does not have a rule for your specific situation except for "Rule 1". But the quote rule could be used as guidance to making a fair ruling.

Gotcha. Thank you for the clarification.

A different colour card dealt, all action void. Return chips to the players. Don't use two decks, really, not worth the headaches. Suck it up with one deck.

It is definitely worth the "headache" of having to decide what happens with an occasional misdeal, compared to waiting for someone to shuffle after every river.

If you use just one deck in a self dealt home game, with a normal mix of old hands, beginners , dumbasses and semi drunks, you will lose several hands per hour gauranteed! Maybe somebody with math skills knows how many hands lost with just one deck is likely???

I've never used 2 decks in my home games but I'm usually the dealer and I'm pretty quick and can shuffle like a pro dealer, go me! Lol