During a tournament at a casino. First person to act goes all in and puts his chips in the middle. Second person folds. Before the 3rd person can act the 4th person goes all in (out of turn). Seat 1 takes his chips backs and claims that since seat 4 went out of turn he is entitled to redo his decision. The dealer who was pissed because he was having to deal after the end of his shift said nothing and when the TD was called the dealer said he did not see seat 1 put his chips in. The end result was seat 1 was able to put his chips in and say all in and then take them back out because someone after him acted out of turn. I was not in the hand and my first reaction was you played you hand and you have to live with the results. It does not matter what happens after your chips have been committed. I guess you could argue seat 3 maybe got an unfair advantage because he has information before he acts that seat 1 did not have but should that be enough to reset the entire round of betting? To me it is not.

Nope...not how at works at most places with a competent floor.

Seat 1 All in stands, seat 3 gets extra information, seat 4 all in stands , seat 5 acts after seats 3 decision.

That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

Player 1 is not entitled to extra information. In fact, the whole reason acting out of turn is bad is that the action of whatever player(s) was supposed to go first could be effected. Since player 1 already acted in turn, his action is set in stone no matter what action happens after him.

If anything, if player 3 now shoves for more than player 1, player 4 would have the ability to change his action since action is not the same. That’s the only time when out of turn action could possibly revoke a player’s all in. It wouldn’t revoke the all in of anyone acting in turn, only those acting out of turn (in this case player 4).

I'm not sure how the comment about the dealer being pissed is relevant unless you are saying that in addition to claiming not to have seen seat 1s chips in the middle that he also said he didnt realize seat 1 was all in at all. But since seat 1 argued that he should be able to take his bet back, then seat 1 obviously wasnt disputing that he had already gone allin.

So given that the floor knew seat 1 had gone all in prior to the oot action, it's just a horribly wrong ruling, period. The only way that ruling could possibly make sense is if the floor was under the impression that seat 1 had checked, and then gone all in after the oot action.

This ruling is obviously non-sensical as explained.

The only thing I can come up with is similar to what crd said above, that the dealer told the floor that he didn't see seat 1 bet anything (meaning he checked), then fold, then it's on seat 3 when seat 4 bets AI OOT. Then (I guess the game is 4 handed) seat 1 goes AI OOT. Then seat 3 stops the action.

In this case, floor can rule that action goes back to seat 3. If he checks, then action hasn't changed, so 4 is AI, and presumably seat 1 is AI again now too.

If seat 3 somehow changes the action by betting, now action to seat 4 has changed and he has all options open to him, and same for seat 1.

Other than that though, yeah, seat 1 is AI. Seat 3 has some additional info that seat 1 didn't have, but that is life in poker, and why people hate OOT actions. Someone is going to benefit from extra info no matter how you rule, so you rule in the way that minimizes the overall damage and puts as much of the damage on the person who went OOT as possible.

We need clarification on “dealer said he did not see seat 1 put his chips in.”

Based on that, either most the blame goes to the floor or we can share the blame between floor, dealer and potentially seat 1 in case he lied to the floor.

FWIW, if seat 1 put his chips in the pot and took them back out later and the dealer claims he didn’t see any of that, the floor might want to check the video to help decide about disciplining the dealer.

WTF

Reminds me of playing with a small child that called a bet and when it was raised, she cried and tried to take the bet back.

Actually 4 all in stands UNLESS 3 changes the action by raising 1 all in. If 3 does raise then 4 OOT action is nullified and 4 has all option open to him.

Tomshooter,

As you have no doubt gathered, handling out of turn action is a trivial and commn ruloing, and the floor here got no where near close to the correct ruling (Kudos to Dinesh to at least trying to reverse engineer what the floor might have misunderstood to make his ruling almost make sense).

Everyone here has referenced the correct procedure for OOT action, but it would probably be useful for you to see the rules in writing. Here is the rule from the TDA (Tournament Directors Association) rule set governing out of turn action

"53: Action Out of Turn (OOT)

A: Any action out of turn (check, call, or raise) will be backed up to the correct player in order. The OOT action is subject to penalty and is binding if action to the OOT player does not change. A check, call or fold by the correct player does not change action. If action changes, the OOT action is not binding; any bet or raise is returned to the OOT player who has all options: call, raise, or fold. An OOT fold is binding. See Illustration Addendum."

So, the correct procedure when someone acts out of turn is to immediate stop action (the skipped player needs to speak up. If he stays silent and more people act behind the OOT actor, then the skipped player is out of luck), and for action to roll back to the next to act skipped player. If no action changes when it comes back to the OOT actor, his action is binding.

Note: people get confused by 'action to the OOT player does not change', though it is not a conusing idea at all. The wording is specific in saying that the action cannot change. Some people argue that if a player acts out of turn, skips 4 players, and reraises, and then the 4 skipped players all go back and call the original raise, that the situation to the OOT player has changed, and therefore his action is different. It is not. While the situation is different, the OOT is still facing the same bet he was facing before, so his action to him is unchanged.

In any tournament, you will see this play out at least once, if not multiple times.

Yep, this gives the skipped player an advantage. There are a lot of times when the skipped player has a monster, and knowing that if he just checks\calls that there is binding action behind him that will reopen action is a huge tactical advantage.

I guess i should clarify. When seat 4 went all in out of turn Seat 1 took his chips back and said his bet was non binding. The rest of the table called him on it and asked for the Tournament director. When the TD came over seat 1 went silent. As others tried to explain what happened the TD asked the dealer what happened and the dealer yelled at the tournament director that he did not see nothing (his exact words) and asked when was he being relieved. I mentioned that the dealer was pissed because that was the only way I could see him not paying attention to the action to the extent that he saw nothing. My impression was that anything before the mistake had to stand but it did not in this case and seat 1 was able to retain all his chips to start the next hand. I thought it was a terrible decision.

I guess I should also mention that the dealer was listening to seat 1 explain why he believed he was entitled to his chips back. At no point did Seat 1 never claim he did not go all in. The dealer did not participate in the conversation he just listened. He also did not mention any of the conversation to the TD (he just said he didn’t see nothing).

This is less a matter of rules, and more a matter of how to handle the floor or TD during a dispute. The TD has two priorities. 1) Maintain control of the game, and 2) make the right ruling

When a TD is faced with 5 people yelling at him at once, and a dealer having already made a decision, they will often just back the dealer, rather than appear indecisive or susceptible to bullying

In this situation, better for one of the calmer, more experienced players to say 'Before you make a ruling, please let me explain clearly what I think happened, and then the dealer or other players can tell you if they disagree', and then give an objective presentation of the facts, without pushing for a ruling.

We have all seen TD's get locked into backing up a questionable ruling because they ruled too quickly or on bad information, and were reluctant to reverse themselves. Also, if people are getting hot, they try really hard to not take sides.

In this case, if you had just said 'Guys, let me say what happened, and you can correct me if I am wrong. Player 1 went all in, when action was player 3, player 4 acted out of turn. We need to know where the action is, and what that action is.', I am reasonably sure he would have made the right call. Don't even mention P1 trying to retract his bet, as that is ridiculous.

Lots of fun here .. I'm surprised that the 'rest of the table' didn't get a little rowdy about the ruling and perhaps ask to go up the ladder or request that the TD check the camera for the correct action. Obv the Dealer doesn't make any of this easier on the TD. The TD was also well off their game by possibly not pursuing information from the Players (which may be a training thing as well).

I would like to toss out an additional item here .. What if Player 3 goes all-in but it doesn't constitute a raise? Does this still change action 'enough' that Player 4 is now off the hook for his all-in?

As stated above, this should've been a pretty easy spot for the Floor. Action is on Player 3 and Player 1 is all-in. Should Player 3 raise then Player 4 is off the hook in most rooms. However, you may find that in some rooms Player 4's chips stay in the middle no matter what, even if OOT. GL

I assume you are asking if P3's all in is for more than P1's, but less that a full raise. So, if P1 shoves for t1000, P4 shoves OOT for T2000, action rolls back to P3 and he shoves for T1050. The question is, since this would not reopen action to P1, is it considering changing P1's action?

I would have to go with the simplest and most literal defintions here. In my example, before, action to P4 was T1000, now it is T1050. 1000 does not equal 1050, so action to P4 has changed.

Any all in for more changes the action. Any all in for less does not change the action, since technically a player is calling an all in when they go all in for less, and a call is not considered a change in action.

That happened in a regulated US poker room?

If the TD didn't relieve the dealer immediately, I would try to talk to the poker room manager about the incident. My main issue here isn't even the horrible ruling but the fact that the TD apparently was OK with the dealer letting players know about his disregard for the integrity of the game.

Imagine a waiter at a restaurant yelling at the manager "I don't give a *expletive* if he said medium-rare. I want to go home now!".

It did happen at a Las Vegas casino during the 2019 WSOP. It was part of a tournament series at another casino. I wonder if there was a shortage of dealers at the time. As far as I can tell he was changed as part of a normal rotation because I later say him dealing at another table. I think the majority of the blame lies with the dealer and I realize the tournament director was in a bad spot. Not that it matters but Seat 1 got into the money and he would not have if he had not pulled back his chips (if he lost of course). Seat number four said he had ace king suited after the hand so seat 1 might have won. The other members of the table were not very nice to seat 1 until he was knocked out.