I'm interested in getting people's thoughts on the following rulings:

1. My buddy is in a 50-person tournament, 16 people are left (top 4 get paid). He is short-stacked and the action is passed around to him in the cutoff seat with 33. The button, and SB fold. The BB hesitates, stares him down and then exposes his two cards (A8) to him in an attempt to get a "read." An uninvolved player tells the BB that he can't do that. The dealer does nothing and my buddy calls the floor, which prompts the BB to say something like "That's all I needed to know, if you want the floor, I call." The floor comes over and says that they had announced the rules at the beginning of the tournament -- the hand is live, but the BB will get penalized 8 hands (the number of people at the table at the time of the infraction). The BB complains saying that at most he should get a "warning." Thoughts?

2. Same tournament, 1/2 hour later. Early position raises and gets one caller. The guy from the previous example who had exposed his cards (let's call him Card Shower) shoves all-in. Both of the other two players call and they both still have chips left. Before the flop, the Card Shower flips up his cards -- probably accidentally (I think he thought one of the other two players was also all-in). The floor is called and the ruling is the same as before -- cards are live, but he gets a "once around the table" penalty.
Thoughts? Anyone think he should have gotten a more severe penalty because it was a second infraction?

Guy's obviously a db for showing his cards with action pending. There's some controversy over this, as many in the poker community (Negreanu being one) who don't have a problem with it. Having said that, rules is rules, and this guy blatantly broke them the first time despite being told at the beginning of the tourney, so yeah, sitting out an orbit is fine. It sounds like the second time was a mistake. What would you do, kick him out of the tourney? He had to sit out another orbit, which probably cost him at least one good sized pot, not to mention the blinds. Seems fair to me.

If they anounced the rules at the beginning then the DB did get a warning. I've got no problem with this.

Sit. 1. The player was warned at the beginning of the toruny, appropriate action was taken.

Sit. 2. It depends on what they said at the beginning of the tourny. If they said 1 orbit for the first time and it gets worse for more offences, then yes, the second offence should be tougher but if they just said it will cost you an orbit then they are following their own rules.

First time perfect!!!

Second time, since he was all-in already it seemed more accidental so 1 orbit is fine, if he had done the exact same thing as the first time I would be for either 2 orbits or Killing his had + 1 orbit.

I don't have any sympathy for this guy. However, killing his hand when he's all-in late in a tournament seems more that a bit harsh, no matter what his intent.

As the situation was stated I wasn't advocating killing his hand once he was all-in, I was saying how if he did the same thing he did in the first situation, exposing he cards "Before" acting, to me, should be a hand killing offense the 2nd time.

Ah, that makes more sense. I still perfer the missed hands to killing the hand, but at some point you do need to get the player's attention.