Not sure which Sub-Thread this should go under but...

2-5 game, 6 handed, plexiglass at Bellagio:
I folded preflop and wasn’t paying attention much until the river in the hand where the pot was ~500 between 2 rec players where the board was 7733x;

The player left of me showed K7 off and the other rec player across the table showed a 7 face up and mucked the other card:

The interesting part was that the dealer realized the situation and slid the face down card upwards which was an offsuit 9 and resulted in a chop pot

As a player myself not in the hand, I muttered to the player to the left of me that “you could call the floor on that” but he didn’t understand me through the plexiglass + masks on and I had second thoughts and I said “nevermind” as I didn’t want to get too involved

Question: As a player on the side, where the player clearly mucks one of his cards and does not flip over his 2nd card AND the dealer did it for him, should I get involved in this situation even though these 2 recs may not realize what had occurred?

Dealer is not supposed to do that. Two cards tabled are a live hand. Also you aren't supposed to say anything as that violates one player to a hand. If both cards were face up and dealer mucks a winng hand, then you can speak up.

Dealer shouldn't table hand for player unless player asks him to. KITN for dealer.

In some games (beginner stakes) I am OK with dealer telling player "it takes 2 to win" if it seems like player doesn't know the rule that he has to table both and he thinks he is getting a chop just by showing the winning/chopping card, or asking "are you folding" if it's not clear. In many home games, this is good enough to get half the pot. I'd rather educate this player on casino rules than muck his hand and cause a problem.

But this is a 2-5 game, so I would prefer dealer slowly but routinely drag cards toward muck and then flip them face down before inserting them in the muck, and just make sure player doesn't object to mucking his hand. If he objects that he is chopping, you can then tell him he must table both cards to make a claim for the pot and give him his hand back to table (or call floor over to rule).

Once dealer does table the hand, though, the hand is tabled. The pot gets chopped.

Getting involved after the dealer has tabled the hand isn't going to (or at least shouldn't) change the outcome of the hand. It's just going to cause the other player to get riled up, potentially. If he doesn't know what happened to get riled up on his own, I'm not sure I would decide to cause that mess to happen.

The reason to do it is to make sure the dealer gets proper scolding and/or training to prevent making that mistake again. If you want to do that, either speak up, or say something to the floor away from the table at a later time.

Thank you for the responses! One player per hand rule went through my head after I muttered that but wanted to make sure it was ethically right to not say anything.

For future reference, if I were in K7o shoes (wouldn’t ever play this unless checking bb), is this a sigh chop, tell dealer what he did wrong situation and inform floor expecting the chop? Thank you

Yes. If he tabled a 7 just chop.

Cards speak. Once table regardless of who tabled it the hand plays.

You can sigh all you will wish. Your u can speak to floor about dealer actions but the hands plays since tabled.

This is pretty nit picky. You are technically correct that the one card tabled hand was not live, but at the point that the dealer flipped it, that genie was out of the bottle. And you would be arguing a technicality against the intent of the game (best hand wins).

What I would likely have done, especially if this was my home casino, was lightly or jokingly say 'You know, not that it matters in this case, but that hand wasn't really live. The player has to show both cards' and then launch into some story about how I saw a player lose a hand because of an improperly tabled hand(even if I had to make the story up).

You aren't ever rolling back the outcome, and there is nothing gained from calling out the dealer directly (it will make him defensive and kill the vibe of the table)

A minor thread correction: The OPTAH rule cannot apply once all hands have been irreversibly tabled. OPTAH applies before the 7x hand is fully tabled, but not after. The question before us is one of ethics and nittiness.

I mention this because there have been threads where someone was afraid to speak up about something more significant because he misunderstood what OPTAH means, and our OP here said that the rule crossed his mind.

1) Dealer shouldn't turn over any cards without being 'prompted' by their 'owner'.

2) I would 'expect' a Dealer to gain eye contact with the 'offending' Player while he slower than normally drags the face down card towards the muck ... or just ask 'is that a muck'? The 'two to win' is also a way to go about it, but it does suggest that a Player might 'win' if they show as opposed to verifying their original intent of mucking or showing only the winning card.

3) I would 'prefer' a Dealer call the Floor over for a ruling before mucking the face down card and use the moment as a 'teaching' moment for the Player/table.

Certainly the Player that tabled their hand complete might get upset over chopping the pot over this technicality ... and I tend to agree that a 2/5 Player should be held to a higher standard. But I defer this to being a large room (Bellagio) and knowing that there are much larger games that run here give a 2/5 Player some extra leeway. GL

How did the player "muck" the other card?

Dealer should clarify action before touching the cards. Simple as that. Trying to win a hand on a technicality is a bad move for the game. If you ship the pot to the person who tabled 2, the 1 card guy is gonna be pissed.

On the other hand, the player could have thought kicker played and he lost. So a simple "is that a muck?" can get what is needed. Clarifying action is good for the game.

Hi all, thanks for the responses

To clarify, I was in seat 5, seat 6 flips over k7 off first (white gentleman rec player probably 35-40), seat (white male 30-35) tosses his 7 face up close to the 5 community cards, probably 6 inches away to show as if he had a 7 too to the player in seat 6 but thought his 2nd card played as a kicker and folds his other card face down around 3 inches behind his 7 (so not close, maybe 2 feet from the dead card pile where his facedown card is still recognizable as his), where then the dealer (asian probably 50-55) looks at k7, then looks at the board, then looks at the exposed 7 and flips over seat 2’s card and exposes a 9.

Then again, this all took place in less than 10 seconds and the plexiglass + masks made it difficult for communication, but TLDR seat 2 believed his 9 played and mucked it but was still retrievable and was done so by the dealer without asking

Note: seat 3 was a pro and I gandered over at him, he was paying attention but didn’t seem to notice the situation / make any “huh/confused” expressions like I did through the plexiglass/ masks

Dealer should never flip a card without confirmation. Dealer should at a minimum pause. The other acceptable action would be to flip the 7 face down and slowly pull it in and see if the player reacts. If the player appears to have given up on the hand, then mix with the muck, if player speaks out, give an opportunity to flip. Best action is to just confirm "was that a muck?" and nothing bad happens.

I've seen players try to flip a card over and it end up face down, that clearly would not be a muck. If there's plexiglass and you can't touch the cards under the window, makes it even harder to do things right.

Also another note:

We’ll never know, but it seemed as if the seat 2 player believed the board to be trip 7s where his kicker played, but did not notice the 3 and 3 on board, hence why the pot should be chopped. The cards were not dispersed in the exact order of 7733x which may have made it hard for a having fun/drinking beer rec to notice the chopped full house

What was the x? That is very relevant. For example, if it's a 5, and the guy mucked a 5, but now it gets flipped, it's not a chop. The only non-relevant card for that to be is a 3 or a 2. Imagine if the dealer flips over the card and it's an x, and he didn't realize he had a better full house. Now it isn't just chopped but shipped due to dealer action.

A disaster and more of why you don't turn players cards over unless there was clear intent to do it and they just landed wrong.

I don't think OP would have assigned it the alias x if it were relevant.

The thing is it is relevant, because you never know what the dealer is going to turn over. 2 is the only way it's irrelevant.

It is fine. This was low stakes and dealer did the ethical and correct thing here,,,

How is it relevant?

One player plays 77733 as his 5 card hand and the other one plays the same 77733 no matter what the last card on the board or the second card in his hand is. Unless that makes him a higher full house, but that’s clearly not the case here.

I can’t remember the exact configuration but it was 100% not a picture card and believed it to be a 4/5/6

Because the card the player has "mucked" is not known and it might be an x.

That makes a difference in that the dealers actions *could* drastically change things that puts the other player at a disadvantage, which is why flipping the hand over automatically is never correct.

The dealer flipping over the card changes things drastically anyway and puts one player at a disadvantage. If he mucks the card, one player gets the full pot. Doesn't really matter for the ruling situation if flipping over the second cards makes another player win 50% or 100% of the pot.

The dealer isn't supposed to flip over the second card, no matter if that means a player would win half the pot or the full pot. Once he does flip it up, the best hand is supposed to win, no matter if that means a player would win half the pot or the full pot.