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I think this is the best reason to insure that the dealer mucks the losing hand before relinquishing your cards.

But it isn't foolproof. In this case Villain might have argued successfully that he had called and tabled his hand and that a hand beating his hadn't been tabled. Given Colorado's rules and the fact that we were at showdown (villain had said "call" and was heard by 3 other players regardless of what the dealer said) the pot may very well have been rewarded to Villain, especially if he was in the process of objecting when Hero mucked his hand.

What I am seeing here is that the only way to insure that you get the pot with a winning hand is to flip over your cards before or as the pot is being pushed to you. Now if villain is shooting an angle, he has succeeded unless any of the players who heard him say call speak up. And of course if villain is honest he will pay up. Or as is usually the case, he has indeed folded and gets to see he made a good fold for free.

Those 3 were on their phones and heard him say call when he shot his angle and said "I called" after seeing hero's hand in the muck.

He was trying to fold. He heard the dealer say he folded.
Then he saw hero muck the un-seen hand.

"HEY where you going with that pot? I called."

How could he resist?

Sorry I don’t care if six villains heard call. The dealers not hearing it should trump the six. They are not neutral arbiters.

Dealers are human and make mistakes all the time.

In this case it is clear that the dealer made an assumption that was wrong.

In general it takes three people at the table to establish that something happened. One of those does not have to be the dealer.

I learned this the hard way. A few years ago I found myself in a situation where the player across the table from me said "all in". I asked the dealer if the player was all in. The dealer said yes. After I called, the player said he hadn't said anything. The Floor that ruled did not act like the Dealer hearing the all-in, trumped anything.

In fact what I took away from my horrible experience was that in these situations you cannot trust what a Dealer thinks has happened.

This is why in rooms that have all-in buttons I always make sure that Dealers put them out when somebody is all in. Turns out there is some non zero percentage of dealers that don't believe in all-in buttons and won't voluntarily put them out. But they do when I ask. And I ask because it puts out another point of reference in case there is a dispute. Similarly, the flipping of villain's hand in this case would alert villain that his hand was being considered a fold by the dealer. And maybe would motivate villain to speak up if indeed he had called.

What if 3 players said they heard him say call, but 4 players say they heard him say fold? Is the floor supposed to be taking a vote?

That would be very unusual. But if some people heard one thing and others heard another then, yes, I think the dealer's recollection would be much more significant.

In this case nobody heard villain say "fold" because he didn't say it. The dealer assumed villain folded because he threw his cards forward. Or maybe he did mis-hear what he said. But in any case, had the dealer checked or had OP asked him to ask the player, the player would have repeated what he said (assuming he really did say call) and hopefully, paying attention, the dealer would have gotten it right.

In my case the Floor was dealing with people who said they didn't hear him say anything vs me and the Dealer who heard him say "all in". And of course the Floor in my case didn't "take a vote". He chose not to ask anyone if they heard anything so he was just listening to people who were volunteering info.

After the Floor left, the person sitting next to villain said "I heard him say all in" but the reason he didn't speak up was that he wasn't asked...

So yes, I think the Floor should be asking everyone at the table what they heard.

I think the accuracy is very low when players speak up. Sometimes accidental sometimes on purpose.

I think it should be on the player to be sure the dealer hears any verbal action.

GG needs All-In and Call badges.

No need to have call badges, just ask the dealer to get the pot right before you expose your hand.

Wowo ... pretty solid thread here. Tough spot for OP with the door still being open since the next hand hadn't started yet. Lots of the semantics that can be looked at either way.

1) 'Technically' we were at Showdown 'IF' the Floor is buying the information from the three 'close' Players that a call was verbalized. Chicken-Egg If during the Floor's process the Dealer admitted that he didn't really know if the call was made, then the Floor unfortunately needs to interpret the information available. We can also open up the door that if a call was verbalized, then we don't need to discuss why no chips were put forward by the V.

2) Certainly there were areas that need cleaning up from the OP, Dealer and Floor that contributed to the wheels falling off this spot in a hurry. The issue is that they all occurred during the same hand, otherwise individually they just get brushed under the rug most of the time .. and they occur 'often'.

3) Did they stop the whole tournament while they looked at the video? Not too clear on when the video was looked at. Video reviews take time, no Players at the table were complaining about 'lost hands'? Not sure why video was needed anyway ...

4) Kudos for a room manager coming into the thread, certainly opens up the door to more debate most of the time. Hopefully all taken with a grain of salt.

5) Tough break for OP, but why not stay on the phone and talk to 'higher ups' ... did OP confirm hanging up the phone? Not sure what's equitable here, as indicated we don't know where we were at in the tournament to determine the value of 52K in chips.

6) OP may have refused the offer thinking that it may produce a larger offer. From what I've skimmed, the casino is admitting Dealer error, but not necessarily Floor error in evaluating the 'facts'?

7) Although no consolation, if a Dealer announces a bet incorrectly a calling Player must pay the 'corrected' amount. So by default, if a Dealer announces the action incorrectly a Player must live with their actions after the fact? Probably ... GL

Can we identify the player who was awarded the pot so we can publicly chastise them in the future for angle-shooting? That's the only way to prevent this behavior, that is, to beat them down and publicly humiliate them.

I don't think that's clear at all in this case. So you believe the 3 buddies on their phones as opposed to the dealer?

I reread every post written by OP and nowhere does he say the guys who spoke up were on their phones during the hand.

I believe the dealer made a number of mistakes during this hand. At no point according to OP does Dealer say that he heard villain say "Fold". It seems that the Dealer assumed it. But it is possible that the Dealer misheard it. Then he further compounds his mistake by not turning over villain's hand before pushing the pot. Another mistake the dealer made was not to ask villain if he folded when OP asks the dealer if villain has folded. Now it is possible that villain is lying and cheating here. But that is much less likely considering 2 other players confirm that they heard him say "call".

In general when the Floor comes over for any decision and needs player input to make that decision, it takes three or more witnesses to confirm something. So if a players hand gets mucked by a dealer and it was the winning hand it will take 3 people other than the dealer to confirm it was the winning hand in order for the Floor to rule it was the winning hand. And it doesn't matter if people who witnessed it were on their phone or not.

These are excellent points IMO. And by player I assume you mean villain in this OP.

However, in OP's position it is clear that we must be protecting our hand and that we cannot rely on the Dealer. The only way the ruling goes in OP's favor is if the Dealer announces loudly that villain has folded (so that not only villain but everyone at the table can hear it), gives villain and the other players enough time to correct the Dealer, turns over villain's hand and mucks it irretrievably, and then pushes OP the pot. And even then we would be relying on a competent Floor to make the decision to hold villain accountable. In Colorado this Floor would have to override the explicit showdown rules cited earlier in this thread by declaring that it is unclear that we were ever at showdown.

Well, to an extent, yes.
I have seen approximately this situation more than once. A couple of players think they heard "Call", and a couple of other players think they heard "Pot" or "Fold", or whatever. The dealer isn't sure what he heard.
(It is truly amazing how similar "Pot" and "Call" can sound, especially when said by players with foreign accents.)
In general, the best floors I know will try to evaluate all factors and use their best judgment to reach a fair decision in an imperfect and ambiguous world.
They don't actually take a vote, as such, but who (and how many) heard what, and where they are sitting, are relevant factors. So it is sort of a vote (more like a straw poll), but the floor isn't bound to accept the outcome.

No. Players. I mean the other players at the table telling the floor what happened.

Often they're not really paying attention and get the timing of what happened wrong.
Sometimes they want to help their neighbor/buddy/or the fish. Or hurt them.

When I have to verbalize an action I make sure the dealer hears it.
If the dealer has his attention elsewhere, I get his attention and make sure he hears me.

"If the dealer didn't hear it, you didn't say it." Sound like a good rule?

Are we still talking about the dealer from the OP?

Sounds like a good rule, but also sounds like a great opportunity to angle.
Making you responsible for the dealer hearing you is the same as making me responsible for confirming that the dealer heard you before I act.
Really, I think that common sense and judgment are what's needed here (along with very little tolerance for angling), rather than trying to craft a single hard and fast rule to fit all situations.

So basically use the All-In and Call badges?

This room is full of angle shooters and openly colluding players. The staff looks the other way and/or interprets situations in favor of these regulars all the time. I've seen one player pull exactly the move OP describes on multiple occasions. These guys know how these rulings are made, and look for opportunities to take advantage of it. It's because of this that I don't play there unless there's a "big" event in town, and even then am super vigilant to not get scammed by these sorts of moves. It'd be great if the management would actually do something about it, but they seem to think it's in their interest to support it.

I always thought there was a difference in making rulings between honest mistakes and cheating. With there being some very serious consequences for cheating. From reading all these posts, it sure seems like this was more of a cheating situation than a mistake(s). To me, that should be an entirely different ball of wax. Was villian a regular who knows everyone? Was OP a regular or an outsider not a member of the cool kids clique? Were the other folks buddies of villian? Was there collusion? It even seems likely that the dealer was victim to the scam and didn't even make a mistake. It seems pretty sad when you have to carefully monitor everything that happens at a table. If I were OP, I'd be pissed. And the comments about why buy-ins or even more (depending on how deep you are in a tournament and the monetary implications of losing that pot) being refunded makes me not like how card rooms seem to be managed. Money is more important than customer satisfaction and fair play, while cheating gets rewarded. But, this has been a very good lesson that I will keep in mind in the future.

If those three players were so sure they heard villain say “call” why didn’t they speak up when the dealer told OP than his opponent folded?

The odds that these three guys were actually paying attention and not on their phone, watching TV, or flirting with the cocktail waitress is 0%

The implication from the some of the recent posts is that four players took advantage of an event that should never happen. It's fine to explore that, but there is a much bigger fish to fry here.

Not sure how this relates to what you quoted. A verbal confirmation is as good as a badge if it's coming from the same person. If I find an "All-In" button in front of me when I didn't say "all-in", my response is the same as if the dealer were to say I am all-in.

Even if villain said call, if he didnt put a chip into the pot or communicate it to dealer in a timely manner, he shouldnt have the standing to make a claim.