Floor should give it to the j almost every time unless he vehomently refused to show or greatly slowed the game down.

The show all cards rule is frequently misunderstood by less-experienced players. Dealer needs special justification to kill his hand and sounds highly unprofessional.

You think that a spoiled deck is impossible? It isn’t. Don’t forget there are multiple identical decks in the room. Cards can get mixed up. Also if a card is bent or fouled that single card gets replaced. Maybe it was a club that by error was replaced by a spade. this is part of the reason to show both.

Pierrot, please realize that a) much of what you have posted here is not applicable to this scenario, b) because of that many of your conclusions are incorrect and c) there are some very experienced floors, dealers and players here (not including mys3lfvamong those). You might want to sit back and listen and learn from them.

Cards don’t speak until properly tabled. This means both cards in most rules

Players should not interject until cards are tabled. There is not an error to correct until the hand is tabled.

Fouled decks happen far more often than you seem to think.

@Venice, why is this, show both to win, a bad rule? Especially if the player is given the chance to show the second before the hand is mucked.

Within this context, is irrelevant. Should the pot be awarded to player B. Yes.

Should the pot NOT be awarded to player B because the deck might or might not be spoiled, coincidentally by a J♠, which the player B purposely refused to show, muck it, and relied on the dealer poor handling to later claim the pot, the table no speaking up and the floor ruling to keep it secret mmmm ...

... I don't see how this extraordinary scenario might influence the floor's decision within the original context.

If for some reason someone arise the concern the scrambling face up would clear that possibility.

The rule is a hand must be properly tabled to be the winning hand. Properly tabled is BOTH cards on the felt BOTH face up so they can be clearly read. That is the rule. The rule was not followed so the hand can’t win.

That the deck might be fouled is NOT the reason B does not win. B does not win because he does not have any hand much less a winning hand.

The dealer did not poorly handle the cards. Dealers in well run rooms are specifically trained and instructed to NOT turn over cards that a players discards face down except in cases like SOSA.

The players acted completely correctly because they are not supposed to interject themselves into a live hand doing so violates OPTAH. They can only point out errors in reading the hands once the hand is properly tabled. Since that did not happen there was no error on to whom to award the pot. The only player with a live hand wins.

And until B complains about his dead hand, there is no need to call the floor. So nothing for the floor to ignore or to keep secret.

The fact that you propose a way deal with something is irrelevant. The rule says show both cards. This ensures B is not free rolling with a known spoiled deck. The fact that you proposal might solve the issue but the current rules preclude the need for your solution. We do not need to scramble the deck.

Btw you would not only need to identify each of the four jacks but also that there was not a fifth jack. Doing this multiple times per hour would significantly slow the game

Most places I've played pot would go to A but I'd rather it go to B. Games I play in that aren't so rules nitty almost always tend to be better. Then again those tend to have ability to kick out anglers.

What if there’s 4 jacks but 2 7 of clubs?

"MUST" is the keyword here, the cards MUST be tabled, which means that the dealer cannot declare the winning / losing hands until ALL cards are properly table // The dealer duty is to ask player B to show both cards, never to muck it, here is the main mistake here, and the why the dealer is poorly trained (No half well-trained dealer should do this)

Right, dealers never touch the cards, but should never call a winning hand either UNTIL all cards are tabled (It's a MUST remember -keyword).

[QUOTE=Fore;57300742]The players acted completely correctly because they are not supposed to interject themselves into a live hand[QUOTE]

At this point this is not a "LIVE HAND", there is no pending action, it`s a showdown all cards - as you correctly pointed - MUST be tabled, and players are actually encouraged to SPEAK UP,, assisting in reading and prevent errors to occurred NEVER to let them unfold.

Here is the main misinterpretation, the MUST show the cards it`s not an optional condition, the cards MUST be tabled, this is an instruction for the dealer, if the player failed to do so the dealer MUST instruct the player (B in this case) to do so and refrain from declaring a hand until all cards are properly tabled.

Many players due to multiple and different situations, preferences etc... often, muck cards facedown at the showdown as a courtesy, a sign of hey well play, I surrender, you got me etc... Dealers simply honor such courtesies but there is a thin line between surrender a hand and etiquette tabling mistakes.

Are we still shuffling that damn faulty deck?

The same goes here, dealers are meant to be trained to avoid these situations, protect the muck, refuse to declare winners until all cards are tabled, called out mistakes, and ensures the pot is properly awarded to the winner.

In this case, the dealer should have rectified the situation, called the floor, tossing cards to the muck at SHOWDOWN does NOT kill them.

Cards Speak and MUST (Mandatory instruction not conditional, optional nor subject to the player attention span) be tabled at showdown.

I don’t know where you picked up that idea, but there is no requirement that all players table their hands at showdown, except in a tournament when at least one player is all in and when all other action is complete. At any other time, including any cash game, any player is permitted to discard/muck their hand at showdown.

If you want your hand to compete for the pot at showdown, you must fully table it. TDA rules specify that if a player with an obviously winning hand doesn’t show all cards, the floor should be called. It doesn’t say what the floor should do, but the common sense reading is that the floor should tell the player that his only two choices are to table all his cards or lose the pot.

As I noted above, in this case I would use rule 1 to award the pot to the player who only showed 1 card, because the dealer mishandled it (in some rooms, in others apparently they are trained to muck these hands as fast as possible, which I consider a poor procedure), but you have to understand this is a rule 1 ruling, which is to say a ruling which violates the letter of the rules in order to achieve better overall fairness. It is, by definition, not a ruling consistent with the actual written rule.

It's always amusing when someone goes so hard defending a position that is so obviously wrong.

Let us be fair. It is possible English is not Pietro’s first language and he truly is miscomprehendung how must is used in these instances.

As a floor, these are the kinds of situations I generally hate. The rules (at least where I work) are as plain as day. You must table both cards (or all 4 cards in Omaha) to have a properly tabled hand. There's really no way around it. Q high wins the pot.

Ideally, the player with the Queen is going to recognize that he's winning with the 2nd best hand and (assuming that the guy with the J isn't a jerk) will voluntarily surrender the pot. But there's really nothing to interpret here. One player properly tabled his hand. The other player didn't.

I had another one last night that I felt crappy about. It was a 1/2 NL table. On the river, the 7 seat bet $25 into a pot of about $50. The 1 seat (who was getting a massage and therefore wasn't as diligent about protecting his hand as he otherwise might have been) announced "all-in". The dealer mis-heard it and mucked seat 1's cards.

The rules are pretty clear here too. Protect your cards. He could have kept his fingers on the cards, but he didn't. The massage made that even more unlikely. He might have used a card protector but he didn't do that either. Who's at fault? Let's say it was 90% the dealer's fault and 10% the player's fault. You know what I'm certain of? It was 0% the fault of seat 7, who led out on the river. Seat 1 wanted me to go into the muck and retrieve his cards. That wasn't going to happen. I awarded the pot to seat 7. I didn't feel great about it. But these things happen.

Also if we’re gonna use TDA rules, we may as well check what that Rule 65 it mentions is.


65: Accidentally Killed / Fouled / Exposed Hands
A: Players must protect their hands at all times, including at showdown while waiting for hands to be read. If the dealer kills a hand by mistake or if in TDs judgement a hand is fouled and cannot be identified to 100% certainty, the player has no redress and is not entitled to a refund of called bets. If the player initiated a bet or raise and hasn’t been called, the uncalled amount will be returned.

The hand might not be properly tabled but I don't see how you can argue he doesn't have a valid hand. This isn't Omaha; you can use a single card in your hand to form your 5-card hand.

IMO the best way in which casino poker could be made better would be by making the game more accessible to new players. Any time a hand is won on some rule technicality it's a bad thing. If I had it my way OPTAH wouldn't even apply at showdown, and cards would be considered tabled individually. I'd still force the second card to be tabled if the first one is enough to contest part of the pot, though.

yes, that is what rule 65 says. but you seem to be ignoring Rule 15.

In this case, everyone is in agreement that one player tabled a Jack, and that no matter what his other card was, his hand was the winning hand over the Q hi hand that his opponent tabled. This is not (exactly) a rule 65 case of waiting for a hand to be read. it is much more clearly (as in, exactly) a rule 15 issue.

I’m not ignoring 15 at all. I’m adding 65 for the benefit of the whole picture.

15 says the dealer SHOULD (not MUST) advise the player to show the other card. In this case, dealer didn’t and instead killed the hand.

We can’t read a hand that wasn’t properly tabled, or that has now been killed.

He doesn’t have a hand because most places including this one require both cards to be tabled. True you might only use one hole card but you are still required to table all your hole cards.

Your method is not any different. If the one card turned up did not contest the pot then the hand gets mucked. If the turned card does contest AND you force the second card to be turned then current rules are met. So nothing is changed. But what if player refuses to turn the second card, even going so far to physically muck it himself, now what do you do?

This is an interesting situation bc there seem to be rules and procedures in conflict with one another.

Rule 15 says dealer should advise player to table all cards if his hand WOULD be the winnng hand. (Note it does not refer to it as BEING the winning hand). So the hand with the jack is not the winning hand at this point.

But another TDA rule states that no one should read a hand that has not yet been tabled. As I mentioned earlier, our dealer procedure was to not read hands ntil properly tabled. So Im not going to read any hand with just one card up to see if its a winner. Im not going to see if the jack makes a pair, or if his up card makes a flush, or whatever.

So I think it is a conflict to tell dealers to only read properly tabled hands but then expect him to not muck a hand slid forward with 1 card up if it would be a winner. I don't know if it would be a winner bc I dont read hands not tabled. Lots of players muck losers with one card up. Dealers dont stop to read those hands.

I also disagree with people who refer to the need to table both cards as a "technicality". It's the rule. Its not optional. If the TDA had wanted the rule to be "show one card if it shows a winning hand" then they would have made it the rule. But they didnt. Here is rule number 2 of TDA rules. It's right up top, so players have no excuse for not seeing it.


So its not like this is some obscure requirement. We've cited numerous rules itt that clearly say you must table both cards to win. And it makes it clear the player is the one responsible to make that happen. I know there is a feeling that the best hand should get the pot. But thete are rules thst dictate how one claims a pot and when others should speak up. If there is a Ace high flush on an unpaired board (ie the nuts) and the first player tables Kk to play he board, if the second player tosses his cards forward face down, no one is allowed to say "wait you also have the winning hand". No one tells him to table his hand.

So even when the whole table knows you are splitting the pot, they say nothing and the dealer mucks your hand. Its a player responsibility to know the rules.

It's different because the situation in this thread wouldn't happen. In every room I've played the rules would say to award the pot to Q-high because he is the only one with a tabled hand. The player's hand would also not be dead in other situations where one of his cards gets mistakenly mucked, or dead in situations where he never got a second card at all.

If the forcibly mucks his second card after being told he needs to table both he can win the pot with a rack. You still have to show both cards if possible, but the penalty is less severe than losing the pot.

“this case, the dealer should have rectified the situation, called the floor, tossing cards to the muck at SHOWDOWN does NOT kill them.

Cards Speak and MUST (Mandatory instruction not conditional, optional nor subject to the player attention span) be tabled at showdown.”

Maybe the dealer should have rectified the system. But mucking a hand that has not been tabled most certainly does kill it. Btw proper mucking is not tossing cards into the muck. The dealer should push them into the muck in a manner that makes the cards unidentifiable.

Also yes cards speak and they should but they only speak once the hand is tabled. That is the point being missed. Until a hand is properly tabled it cannot be the winning hand in a contested pot. Cards can’t speak until they are tabled. Players can’t assist reading the hand until the cards are tabled. The dealer can and should kill untabled but discarded hands promptly. Now they should attempt to correct a partially tabled hand but if they don’t the hand is dead. Ultimately the player is responsible to protect their hand and their action.

A unraveled hand cannot win contested pots and all the protections for tabled hands only kick in when properly tabled.

I don't know if you're replying to me but I was never debating what the rules are. I'm talking about my own fairy unicorn land where I'm the King of Poker. I think these procedures/rules are bad and should be changed.

Yeah I could be good with rack and one card winning the pot…had this happen to me at the WSOP 1-3 a few years ago…in a 3-bet pot I run a bluff with K-high on AAX board and get called on the river and table my bluff . V whose first language is not English laughs and tables one A, I ask to see his other card (might as well get some benefit to dusting money on the bluff). He laughs and mucks his card forward, the dealer gives him his card back and both of us tell him that he has to show it, he fires the card face down in the muck…dealer scrambles the muck and gives me the pot…floor backs the dealer up…I feel bad for the guy and tell the dealer to chop the pot up…why didn’t I give him the whole pot a.)I wanted the money b.) I guarantee next time he’s showing both cards at showdown.

[QUOTE=Pietro3000;57300843]"MUST" is the keyword here, the cards MUST be tabled, which means that the dealer cannot declare the winning / losing hands until ALL cards are properly table // The dealer duty is to ask player B to show both cards, never to muck it, here is the main mistake here, and the why the dealer is poorly trained (No half well-trained dealer should do)


The player must table both cards if they want their hand to be read and stand a chance to win the pot. They also can muck their cards with one or both cards face down and are not obliged to show.

Im curious about this bolded part. In our room, the pot must get pushed to the player the floor rules is the winner. Players at this point dont have the option to surrender those chips to another player, or decide to split the pot, etc. Players cant transfer chips to another player, and are not allowed to disregard the floors decision and come up with their own decision.

In a tournament there's a lot less latitude for something like this. But in a cash game? Any time there's a discrepancy and all of the affected parties in the hand can come to an agreement, I'm all for it.

Now if I thought that the players were trying to do something shady strictly for the purpose of transferring chips to each other, that would be a different story.