Fairly large limit game, the big blind has not posted yet and quickly mucks his hand after the cards are dealt, thinking he was utg. Dealer informs him he is bb and returns his cards as there was no other action. The player refuses to post, arguing that the dealer should have forced him to post pre-deal and now he has telegraphed a bad hand due to that.

Ruling?

pay up or ban

Floor!

Is he a regular?
Does he contribute on a consistent basis?

He owes, this kind of situation is common and most of the responsibility to protect himself is on the player. If dealer did not move the button that would be different.

Floor allowing any differently would open the game up to all kinds of angle shoots.

Sounds like an extremely standard “pay or leave” situation, is there a twist to the story?

Pay up or done for the day, most likely.

If he looked at his hand (seems like he did) he should be forced to pay up or banned until he does. If he didn't look it's much less of a big deal.

1- Dealer should not give him his (second) card while dealing until he has posted BB or at least acknowledged that he will.

2- Since no action has yet followed, you can give him his cards back, and as everyone else has said, you can force him to post or have him face sanction, telling him it is his job to follow the action and protect his hand, and that he can take his hand back or not, but either way he owes the BB.

3- Assuming it is the room procedure, which it hopefully is, dealer gets a KITN afterwards for screwing up #1.

There have been previous threads with similar problems, except the BB has stepped away from the table altogether, or his fold has resulted in further action (meaning you can't even misdeal), or someone mucks into his hand meaning it isn't retrievable, or action proceeds from the real UTG before the BB player says no, he was racking up and leaving on his BB, or any number of other bad situations where it's not as clear cut that the BB is in the wrong. This is the reason why #1 should be the proper procedure. It prevents you from ever getting into the situation to begin with.

Sorta weird that it happened in a big limit game. Those games have enough crybabies in them still, but usually the players know how the game works and will give up once the rest of the table tells them to shut up about it.

1. Dealer shouldn't have given him a second card. The floor should punish the dealer.

2. As played, BB is SOL and has to post or leave.

3. From the phrasing "telegraphed a bad hand," it seems like his cards were retrievable and he just didn't want to play them. His reasoning sucks because there are plenty of hands that you should fold UTG but defend the BB with.

4. I posted the BB twice in a row at a 40/80 game once. The dealer apologized profusely, the floor ruled no misdeal, the SB expressed mild disappointment for not realizing either, and the BTN offered his sympathies with a big **** eating grin and, "haha, sucks to be you!"

Pretty standard post or kick rocks. You are the BB, you post. There is no requirement for the dealer to babysit you.

Seems a little harsh.

Not if it is the room procedure.

Punishment could be as mild as "you need to spend your next break rewatching the training video" if this the first time or whatever. It doesn't need to be harsh.

As an added benefit, attaching a punishment to the action gives the dealer cover/reason to say, "I can't give you a second card until you post the BB, it's house rules, my boss is an *******, and I'll get in trouble if I get caught."

He was a reg and got away with it, not even a floor call. Misdeal. Another reg gave him crap about it and I'm surprised others with strong hands didn't speak up but it was my first time in the game so I stayed quiet like a coward.

Stayed quiet like a sensible person IMO. This isn’t the hill for a first timer to the game to die on.

Edit

Might be worth having quiet chat to the floor later though. If the floor blows you off completely, it’s a sign that shenanigans happen in this room.

Fairly large LHE games only exist in a handful of places in the US. It's not like 1/2 NL where you're going to have the luxury of switching casinos every time a casino employee pisses you off.

Disagree on punishing the dealer without more of the story. 99% of the time, the dealer has told the BB 3-4 times by now that he is BB. If dealer was super passive about it and maybe only said it once, I agree. But please don’t be slowing the game to wait for all the inattentive players to post their blinds.

Many places the dealers don't say much at all, which is a peeve of mine.

Mumbling "small blind, big blind" to no one in particular doesn't count as telling anyone.

Disagree. I don't care how many times the dealer has to say it. Room procedure should be that BB has to post or acknowledge he will post before you deal him a hand. If the game grinds to a halt, the other players will join in and help get things back on track. Or as an alternative, give that player a missed BB button and deal around them.

Otherwise things like this thread, or worse situations, happen. No player has an obligation to take the BB, no matter how many times the dealer prompts them. (Once they look at their hand, this changes, but it is far better to have a procedure in place which prevents them from being able to look at their hand first, and thus prevents the need for a floor call in the first place.)

Note that this is less an issue in NL, where blinds are small relative to stacks, and players will generally not object much before just throwing in a BB. It can be a major issue in limit, where blinds are substantial.

Ok, so the twist is that this happend in a game full of regulars who basically make their own rules.

Problem is that there’s a pretty good chance that someone would have called the floor to get the new player to pay up.

Having to slow the game down to get the blinds attention from their phones or the cocktail waitress before finishing the deal would tilt the ever loving hell out of me. The dealers in my room usually mention it on the first pass, then louder on the 2nd pass, and then rap the table in front of them to wake them up after the deal.

In hundreds of hours of play ive seen the bb muck and have to pay maybe twice, which might garner an irritated scowl but never a full protest. This is preferable to the dozens of times a night the dealers would have to stop the game.

This is LOL ridiculous.

In big LHE games very few players limp. In probably 90% of the hands there is a raise. And usually if it folds to the SB (which is very rare) they chop - always.

Also, folding UTG only indicates not a premium hand. It can be a playable hand to a raise especially a late position raise.

The Dealer should not have allowed the reg to get away with this. But stopping it and calling the Floor would get him in trouble and it would slow down the game. The fact that all other regs agreed to this makes the decision a slam dunk. It is clear that nobody had a big hand or the argument against would have been made and won.

It is good not to make a big deal as a newbie. But just keep in mind that unless you are a reg you may not get this kind of preferential treatment.

I think the fact there was no action yet was the determining factor. Had players acted and somebody raised then it would have been immediately contested. The Floor would have forced the reg to post the BB or the player would have to sit out until it was resolved.

I saw this play out at FW and the reg involved was new to the 20/40 LHE game but had played 10/20 LHE forever. The difference was that she had inadvertently posted UTG the hand before, at the direction of the dealer, before the BB sat down and also posted. She folded to the raise thinking she was BB. The next hand she refused to post the BB and wasn't allowed to play until she posted. Everybody hated her as a result because she halted the game for a few minutes. Also, had she not been such a crybaby the game probably would have skipped her BB the next time around (which I have seen happen in big LHE games because yes the regs do run the game). FW did give her a $20 comp in the end. But the game did not forget. Some months later she and her husband were not allowed to play at the same table together (unless there was only one game) and no regs went to bat for them.

This blows my mind. I can't believe anyone at that table let him get away with that.

It shouldn't have to slow the game any. All they have to do to please me is state clearly "Robert, big blind", names are on the bravo screen right on front of them everywhere in Vegas.

If someone doesn't post after calling him by name, I'm fine with dealing him out as suggested by Dinesh.