Yes. This is generally how I work.

Of course not. The whole situation was totally overwhelming to me. Had I won, I of course wouldn't have had the time to further question what had just happened. I would have tried to play my new 18 BB stack perfectly and go on to win the tournament. Because of the way it played out, I had the time and energy to realize what had just happened and take it from there.

And this is why you can't get it fixed after the fact. You would be freerolling.

Once the dealer has allowed the SB to take his cards, you really have no way of addressing it without tipping your intentions. The BB is going to know that you want the SB out. You can't get around that. Sometimes errors are like this.

After the BB has acted, your opportunity to speak up is over; it wouldn't be fair to kill the SB's hand after the BB has taken an action that accounts for the SB's call. So you have to call out the error sometime before that.

If the rule is that the hand is dead as soon as the second card lands without a player behind it, I would recommend that you speak up immediately after the dealer pitches the last card and doesn't muck SB's cards. This is when the error truly happened. That's the best time to say something, as it quells your concern about tipping your hand and, more importantly, gives all other players the same information you were seeking before they act. It also gets the SB's hand into the muck, preventing him from being able to show up 78% of the way through preflop action to try to play it.

Of course, if the house won't enforce the rule properly, which may be the case here, it's a whole other can of worms. But I think there's a better chance those cards would've gone into the muck if you'd brought it up before anyone could see that SB was on his way back.

Also, I wouldn't worry so much about the BB calling you light. He probably already knows you likely want a fold; after all, you just shoved 9 BB. Assuming not-unusual conditions, he's probably calling you already with all of the hands that really have you killed. If his calling range gets any wider than that, the change may even favor your KJ. One way or the other, though, it's unlikely to be a major change.

Good point. Although I'm sure the regs never ever put me in the category of being able to use reverse tells. Which in turn means they would always have taken what I said at face value. In such a situation, i.e. when weak means weak, this is clearly a disadvantage of being a woman. When it IS a reverse tell (which I've been known to give off, of course), it's a great advantage for me.

Yes, but even with a good BB calling with appropriate hands here, my risk of busting would instantaneously have been much greater, and as I said, the likely +16% looked just fine to me.

This is definitely what I will do if this ever happens to me again.

New question: What would you have done, if, after having protested immediately and before the board was dealt, the Floor would have decided to let the hand go on?

When you play in a poker room off your home turf, you assume they enforce TDA rules;

When you assume they enforce TDA rules, you are hesitant to speak up immediately;

When you are hesitant to speak up immediately, the dealer lets the SB incorrectly play his hand;

When the dealer lets the SB incorrectly play his hand, he calls your all in with AQ;

When he calls your all in with AQ, he holds up and and beats your Peewee Herman;

When he beats your Peewee Herman, you feel sad and complain to the floor;

When you feel sad and complain to the floor, he laughs at you.

Don't let the floor laugh at you; enforce TDA rules yourself when you have to.

"Plus, had I "addressed the situation" before playing my hand, i.e. had I asked "Is the SB's hand live?" when action was on me (which according to both old and new TDA it should not have been, so why ask in the first place), I might as well just have mucked. No good player would ever misunderstand what a question like that means, namely: I'm double-checking rules I know to be in place (covering both new and old TDA variations) because I have such a ****ty hand that I will only play it if you now confirm to me that we will stay so short-handed and if there is dead money in the pot from the missing Small Blind. Please, dealer, confirm this to be the case and if you do, I will push my 9 BB wide! I don't see how asking the dealer about the SB's hand before acting UTG wouldn't have invited the other 3 players to call my shove really, really wide."

If this ^^is your thought process....

"As I've said before, when the SB was suddenly let into the hand, I was taken aback and insecure and had no clue what to do in that situation. Cf. above statements on my thoughts while this was happening."

Then this^^ sounds like bs. You seem to have a solid knowledge of what your intentions were and the intended consequences on other players based on your action. Taken aback and insecure? Didn't know what to do in the situation? Yes you did, you say you did but chose not to because it may have shown the weakness of your hand. Should the cards have been mucked by the dealer as soon as the last card hit the table? Yes. But they weren't. The time to make a case was when the player was allowed to play the hand. You chose not to as a strategy. The initial play, and choice of strategy after small blind called, failed. I am sure had you won the hand we wouldn't be posting about this.

It should have been killed, but it wasn't, so you are SOL. As many have said, the times to speak up are when the dealer starts dealing, when the dealer finishes dealing, before you act, or before the SB grabs the cards. No matter what the rules say on paper, I don't see too many floors killing the hand after the guy returns and has the cards, and none after he says call.

Bull****. My thoughts as described above referred to retrospect thinking about the option of asking if the SB's hand was live BEFORE acting UTG, as you can see above. (I described my confused thoughts once the SB was let in in another post but I can't be bothered now to go look for it and quote it again.) In the actual hand I never even considered that the
SB would magically turn up AND be allowed to play his hand. When it did happen, I was thrown and sure as hell didn't know what to do. I didn't strategically not speak up! I thought I'd have no chance to get his hand killed (wrong and insecure thinking on my part) and in a split second I probably thought that trying to would definitely get the BB into the hand. All this happened super fast and the fact is that I was put in a situation by the dealer, I never should have been put in. Next time, I'll know better.

Judging from your post, jw, you have probably been playing at least 10 times as long as I have and you would have instantaeously known what to do. Well, congratulations. I'm not that experienced yet.

Not really. There aren't many hands that dominate you that the BB will play now for 9BB's that he wouldn't have before. First off you are a woman so your UTG range at 9 BB's will be presumed somewhat tight. The only hand the BB might play now that he wouldn't have before that really hurts you is KQ. And he might have played that anyway. AJ he always plays. Maybe some very small PP's like <= 55 and maybe some AX hands. But thats a small price to pay for having a shot at getting the SB out.

I would have asked for the tournament director or room supervisor immediately. I wouldn't allow play to continue until the TD came over.

If the ruling went against me I would just play on.

The thing is for me I would have shoved KJo if the SB had been sitting there so if this is really how they handle it in this room I would try to face my disappointment at getting knocked out rather than try to blame somebody else for my misfortune. I look at this like a premature turn card card getting called back and I lose the hand because of it. Sometimes it works in your favor sometimes it doesn't.

The real lesson here is emotional awareness/tilt control.
OP what most posters are trying to tell you is that you cannot ask for a ruling after you lose the hand. That is extremely poor form and is really just another form of angleshooting.

If you failed to stand up for yourself in a timely manner then you have to learn from the experience for the next time.

This is what I have learned from posting here in brick and mortar over the years:
1) Know the important rules of each room I play in before I start playing. Some rooms have a synopsis of their tournament rules in a handout.
2) Always speak up immediately if something is going wrong ruleswise. If in the moment I think it disadvantages me to stand up for myself or I fail to because I am flummoxed, then I must live with the consequences.

This is where you hurt your case the most. You were of clear enough mind express that you would be unhappy if an unfavorable condition were met, but you didn't speak to a floor until you saw that it was.

That is a freeroll attempt.

Why would you ever say that you will be unsatisfied with a particular result? If at no other time during the hand, you should have called for the floor right then, before the result had been known.

Wasn't the whole idea of changing the TDA rules from last card of deck to first card of deck, the prevent situations exactly like this?

I think there's no way for OP to get the hand killed before PF action is complete, without influencing the other players decision on his eventual action. What could have worked is, after BB folded, let the dealer stop, call floor so that floor can rule SB hand to be killed, and let him take back 8,5 BBs from the pot. However, when BB would have called too this would not be an option.

Difficult to have it changed back, but the least the floor could have done is admitting the dealer was wrong and in the future stop encouring 'friendly' play. TDA was modified to prevent dealer favoritism to some players, so that makes it quite contra dictionary to have both IMHO

No. This situation is also prevented by an enforced "last card" rule.

I watched the Youtube video of the part of the TDA meeting where they discussed the first card vs last card rule. As I recall, and I'll admit I wasn't necessarily paying 100% full attention as the debate droned on, the major reason given was to keep players from wandering around behind other players who are checking their cards. It's hardly fair that sitting UTG, unaware a player is behind me, I may pull my cards up to look at them just as the button is walking behind me, and then he gets to go on over to his seat and play.

Either rule fixes the problem that you shouldn't have to guess how many players are in the hand when you act. If 9 spots are dealt in, and CO and button are missing, are we playing 7-handed or 9-handed? I'd like to know before I act. Long as you're killing the hands of those not at their seats when the last card is dealt, that issue is resolved.

OP, it's a Poker Tournament not a golf match. I'm not opposed to letting people play their hands if they step away from the table to get a drink from the coffee stand as long as it's not a ploy to stall near the bubble. If the player went to a table to check on a buddy. But I just don't want it every hand.

If you don't want it every hand, then you can't have it on any hands. If going to get a coffee or check on your buddy is a fine reason to be allowed to arrive late to your hand, then what isn't? If the standing rule allows people to get away with that kind of stuff, they will do it as much as they damn please, not just as much as you're willing to tolerate. And you won't have anything you can do about it because it's all within the rules. You can't let some people do their thing within the rules and then change it up on everyone once it goes beyond your comfort level.

We can't have the house wasting time and energy judging people's excuses for being away from their seats, like a teacher asking why kids are late to class. They're late, so they get marked as late in the attendance book. In a poker tournament, that means your hand is killed. Next time, plan your coffee consumption or other random activities better. The tournament is on a predetermined schedule that doesn't yield to every random little thing people want to do.

I don't think OP acted in his best interest, but this is just terrible. You don't get to mosey in and pick up your cards after action has been made based off of your absence and the presumed deadness of your hand.

If you presume that a hand that isn't in the muck is dead, you aren't going to be a happy camper very often.

Absolutely not what I said. OP should protect herself, and the dealer should muck unattended hands. I was responding directly to the post I quoted.

say it before you look.

I haven't read all the replies, but you simply brought this to the dealer's/floor's attention too late. By the time you tell me what happened, I'm going to tell you its too late now, but I will certainly look into what happened and have a chat with the dealer.

If you had said something immediately after the SB was allowed to look at his hand and stop the action, then I would agree with you and say tht the SB's hand is dead. By letting him call and letting the hand play out, you lose the right to a decision of his hand being ruled dead. That would be the TD letting you freeroll to see if you win the hand or not before deciding what you want to happen. It doesn't work that way.

That would tip off that she didn't want a caller. It's a tough spot.

The time to ask about the status of another hand is before you look at your cards. Wait for the dealer to muck them, then look and act.

BTW on other thing people have to get used to is that just because someone in the room says they use TDA rules, or a sign says it, or the website says it .... doesn't mean they use the TDA rules.

I have worked and played in rooms where i was told they used TDA rules, only to find out that they didn't.

In one room I never dealt tournaments on my shift but got called in to deal a freeroll one day. So I asked the shift manager about tournament rules, and was told "standard tournament rules." I said "You mean the TDA rules?" she said "yes." Just to test a bit I asked .... "so a player's hand is dead if they aren't at their seat when i deal the last card to the button? (which at the time was the TDA rule)" .... Oh no we don't use that one ......

Okay so now it comes time to take the green chips off the table and I start setting up for the chip race (per TDA rules) and I notice the players all whispering between themselves and seeming confused ..... so I ask "So you guys don't race off the chips?"

Basically the shift manager just told me to use the TDA rules because she didn't have a better answer.

Playing at another property I had a shift manager rule against me when I argued I was supposed to get a hand on the button after moving from a broken a table. Later when I showed her the TDA rules which they had posted she told me that TDA rules didn;t apply (despite the fact that they were posted and teh structure sheet said TDA rules apply)

At another property i worked they claimed to use the TDA rules, but in fact used an outdated version of the TDA rules over which they crossed out and wrote their rules in (which wouldn;t be a problem if they told me that they used a ruleset based on TDA rules .... but instead simply claimed their edited rules were TDA rules.)

I have been rooms which use the TDA rules but the floors will not enforce any penalties or kill hands because "this is a friendly room", This is a small tournament, or because they didn't understand the reasoning behind the rule...... "Why should I penalize a player for soft playing her husband ?..... of course she shouldn't try to knock him out they are married."

You need to ask for the floor to be called before the flop is dealt or at least before you left the table.

I love psandman stories.

The button/SB rule really trips people out.