I was palying in a $100 freeze-out, I was on the CO seat with AQ suited, I make a standard raise, every folds to the BB, who says "I am ALL in", it gets folded around to me, and before I get time to think, or even ask for a chip count, he mucks his hand, it clearly is in th muck pile, as ppl throw their folded hands into the middle towards the dealer, now I am not sure weather or not it in fact touches one of the other mucked cards, but clearly its in the muck pile, the dealer puts two fingers on two cards of what he thinks is the OP two cards and calls a floor manager.

The floor manager says, if a player is all in, his cards are live.

And takes the two back out.

Please tell me this is a mucked hand, and if i call I win his chips.

If the two cards were clearly identifiable, they're live. It's a bit stupid, but it's an honest and easy-to-fix player mistake. If you want those chips, you're going to have to get them the old-fashioned way.

Props to the dealers for keeping them identifiable. Play the hand out.

Fair play to the dealer.

I've seen a player all in with no cards before though, so it can happen.

Why try to win a hand on an angle? He mucked because he didn't realize you still had cards. Did you keep your hand in a position where he could clearly see you still had cards?

I'm guessing he had the winner eh?

Some places also have a rule that if you go all in no matter what you do, your hand will remain live. Now the interesting thing is you hadn't called yet.

Kudos to the dealer for keeping track of things and not letting there be any chance those cards would be lost.

I'm guessing they pulled his cards out and you didnt win the hand?

No I didnt call, my cards was as clear as daylight in front of my chips, I picked up a stack of chips and moved them to my right, I looked down to start to count, 1 sec later I look up and he mucked his hand...........

So at what point does the dealer declare that a hand is mucked in this type of situation?

Lets say the cards cleary get mixed up with the muck pile and there is no way of telling what cards or what, can I still call and win his chips? Lets say I had AA instead of AQ suited?

Yes, in that situation you should win, but I have seen worse floor decisions than that. What you are holding is irrelevant.

Your cards don't matter, they could be 72o.

In that situation, I'd likely hope that the dealer was paying attention and prevents it from happening knowing there are still players to act.

However, should the cards be mucked in such a way they couldn't retrieve them, then there's not much else that could be done, you are the only one with cards that can contest for the hand.

Side note, I win a pot that way.. I give at least 50% back to the bettor with a warning to not let it happen again. I'm there to out-play my opponents not win on a technicality (though others here would take it down without hesitation, and I'm ok with that)

But hopefully you see why the dealer did a really good job in this case. It stings to lose a pot like this, but I'd rather play there knowing the dealer is there to help me and has control over the table.

In tournament play, if the cards are not retrieveable, return the amount of the reraise to the all in player who mucked his hand, but any portion that he had called is forfeit(Original raiser makes it 200, BB moves in and accidenatally mucks, BB forfeits 200, pot is pushed to original raiser).

This does open up an angle, where a player could "accidenatlly mucK" if he thinks he is being called, but this is the lesser of 2 evils. i dont want a guy to win the pot on a technicality, but I also don't want a guy shooting that angle at me either......

I don't think this concept will fly very well in a tournament. When 2 players are all-in or one is all in and one is risking a significant amount of their chips, the others players want to see someone eliminated or crippled, you aren't going to get away with giving half of the chips back.

Seems as though the hand was perfectly played by the dealer and the floor.

I wasn't talking about a tourney, I was referring to cash games. That's all I play live, I should have been more clear.

In a tourney, I take the chips and figure out if there's some way to recoup the player back later (provided I end up ITM)