OP needs to clarify this before we can decide if the floor made a poor decision or not. If the cards are clearly identifiable then there is no issue in this particular case.

the term folding was always used in poker as poker started as stud. so when you conceded the pot you folded your cards which meant turning them face down or throwing them to the dealer or dead pile.. folding, mucking(which is a term created in holdem), all seem to mean the same thing. that is when you do it you have conceded the pot.
only after tournament poker came on tv did the rules change for that benefit/

SOSA (and IWTSTH) do not (or should not) make the hand live when exposed, unless otherwise-winner of the hand makes the IWTSTH request.

Unfortunately, this is one of the complicated nuances of when the best hand shouldn't win the pot.

I agree with Ray about the timing and reasoning for the rule changes to make poker easier for newbies and to protect them. In years gone by, none of that was needed, or done.

But I think that the change was a good thing. It got more people, and more fish, in the game. It got games out of the shady, seedy underbelly of life and into legal venues with lots of new players.

Don't bite the hand that feeds. If you want poker to be a public, legal game with lots of new players bringing fish money into your game, then you have to be willing to give them some protections so they don't feel cheated by gotcha rules and players who think they should be "taught lessons".

in the past there wasnt any angle shooting everyone just played. people didnt use rules to win pots.

only after all these new rules came in did all the problems start. poker was simple newbie or not you kept your hand in front of you unless you were folding. and you did everything in turn.

I’m glad this post has stirred up some good controversy. Regarding my OP. The Floor guy said that they did make the right ruling. The floor didn’t go fishing through the muck pile. But the cards did touch the muck. The dealer should have scooped them in but didn’t and the player shouted “wait” calling over Floor and identifying her cards before they were retrieved from the muck and tabling them active for a split pot.

I'm sure that's true. Because in the past if you tried to angle shoot or cheat, you were likely to get your ass kicked or killed by other players, who knew that no one else was going to protect their interests.

Times are different now, and better in many ways. Now anyone with a hundred dollar bill and no poker experience feels welcomed to just show up and try it out, they don't worry about all the things you used to have to worry about in order to play. The downside cost is that rules had to be erected, and newbies sometimes do stupid things. You can either grin and bear it or chase them away.

Maybe in the 1870s when people were shoot for stuff like that. But I remember various stories of people like Amarillo Slim pulling all kinds of shady stuff, angling and cheating and there's also a thread around here about a hilarious Puggy Pearson angle shot in the 1970s. I wasn't even born in the early WSOP years, but according to people who played back then, cheating in live games was way more common than it is now?

I am pretty sure the % of sketchy poker players decreased significantly during the poker boom.

Now it sounds like the cards were clearly identifiable? In that case the ruling seems pretty standard to me for any place without a "magic muck".

Correct ruling IMO

OK so the Floor did NOT search the muck for the ladys cards? Cards were NOT really in the muck? Cards were totally easy to identify? Room has a rule for it? This seems not to be much of an issue then!

Two cards on the felt not mixed-in with mucked cards is not "in the muck". Not sure what happened though from the OP.

This is what I suspected.

Yeah it’s more of the fact that the player has the option to show cards face up but instead threw them face down into the muck. I’ve had dealers scoop hands on accident into muck but would never be retrievable. Also, it is partially up to the deaer to scoop the cards into the muck. I asked the Floor at this same casino a question. Player in hand when heads up shows cards to one or two players at the table and then folds face down. I ask dealer if we can see those two cards just as they are pushing the cards into the muck and we’re still easily identifiable. Floor said they would never pull cards out of the muck. Ironic.