You are in middle position. UTG+1 quickly folds out of turn by discarding his cards, UTG+2 fold out of turn immediately afterwards by discarding into UTG+1's cards, making them unidentifiable. You announce fold about the same time that UTG starts saying 'Hold up, I haven't acted'

Does action roll back to UTG, or do two dead hands constitute significant action, rendering UTG's hand dead (assume that he responded reasonably quickly to the players folding out of turn). If action is rolled back to UTG, is your hand dead since you announced fold, or do you retain your cards and all options?

Why would UTG's hand be dead? He didn't do anything wrong.

If you still have your cards then both UTG and your hand are still live. The other two hands are dead because they cannot easily be retrieved. Action on UTG.

For the first question whether the hand should be dead, I am a clear “no” and can’t remember seeing that happen or even a discussion about it. Even if some (house) rules might say otherwise? That situation isn’t even that uncommon, especially right before a tournament break. UTG+1 folds and jumps up to leave for the bathroom or whatever and one or more other players behind him throw in their cards. Every time I’ve seen that happen, the dealer tells players to hold their horses and action is on UTG without any complaints.

For the second point about your hand, I think technically it should be live. But at least if UTG folds, I wouldn’t even entertain the thought of not folding because it would look just odd. If UTG doesn’t fold, there might be arguments for you to not fold. That said I don’t think the super small EV that might be gained there is worth of doing something that others might perceive as an angle.

The only time his hand might be dead is if he is suspected of knowing the action was proceeding behind him and waiting to see what everyone else does, before finally telling the dealer that he never acted in the first place and now he wants the chance to back everything up and act, or act after seeing how everyone else acted. this is not allowable. you have a responsibility to protect your action.

rather than kill his hand, he might also just be warned, then be allowed (or even assumed) to have taken the passive action of checking if possible, but if it's PF or if there's a bet things get trickier. Maybe you rule he can only take passive actions this street rather than allow him a guaranteed check raise after seeing other players bet and raise behind him.

if he tries to protect his action reasonably fast, then he's doing his job, and you back it up to him and let him act. undo any subsequent action if needed based on what he does. folds are still folds. I would tend not to let you take your cards back and call (or raise!), but it would depend on the context.

I've seen UTG's hand be ruled dead before. But in that situation, he sat there and watched four people fold at a leisurely pace --until it got to me, I was paying attention and would have pointed it out right away put was also dealing with a waitress. It's up to a player to protect their action in a timely way, not just sit there and watch people fold. As long as UTG spoke up reasonably quickly, the hand should be live.

Assume this is pre-flop where UTG is acting first and must call or raise to stay in the hand while everyone was folding behind.

In this case UTG's hand is almost never declared dead. However if a player does this repeatedly they may get a warning that if they do it again their hand will be declared dead.

I played in a 20/40 LHE game at FW between 2007 and 2013 and there was a guy who would deliberately hide his cards UTG and wait for players to fold behind and then slip out a call as it got close to the BTN (so the blinds wouldn't have a chance to say "chop").

Once when I was sitting next to him as UTG+1, he did his thing and the guy to my left folded and by the time I realized what was happening and said something, I was the CO. My cards were out in front of me with a card protector on them so I don't know why it happened but it made me laugh. UTG then limped and I raised. Not because I had a hand but because I wanted UTG to stop with the nonsense.

In the case you describe if it was pre-flop, the Floor could decide to remove the raising option from UTG because of the advantage gained by seeing others fold. But typically it is 3 folds that mean that technically you can't go back and pick up where it was left off (or if at least one player calls or raises then two actions).

In this case because you said "fold" just as UTG was saying he hadn't acted yet it could be important to determine which happened first. If they both happened at exactly the same time, or if it couldn't be determined for sure, then the tie goes to the runner. Which in this case means that UTG gets to do what he wants the two folds are still folds and you have acted out of turn when you said "fold". You would be held to your fold unless UTG raised. At which point you would have all of your options. And you would fold.

If this was not pre-flop, say one of the blinds bet and it was on UTG and he was tanking and there were 3 folds behind him, then his hand could be declared dead. But in practice that would happen only if the Floor believed this to be intentional. So usually there would be a warning first and then perhaps the hand being declared dead. And again UTG might be restricted from raising.

But when UTG raises an objection relatively quickly then the ruling will typically favor UTG because ultimately it is the Dealer that lost control of the game.

If action rolls back to UTG, is MP's hand, which he verbally folded oop, but retained his cards, folded or live? Keep in mind that UTG and UTG+1's hands are unidentifiable, so they are dead. Is MP allowed to change his action now that his situation has been improved?

MP's hand which was folded out of turn must fold unless UTG raises, which changes the action. Then MP can do what he wants.

But if MP folded originally why in the world would he play against a UTG raise?

I'm a poor player so this may be off-base. But doesn't UTG's raise change the pot enough that your hand might be worth playing while it wouldn't be worth playing against just the blinds?

Also, you're clear that if UTG raises then you have all options. But what if UTG just calls. The action hasn't changed but, again, you are facing a different pot size. Would you still be able to call/raise or would you be held to your original fold?

Yes, there are a couple scenarios where you would want to call if UTG was in the hand but fold otherwise. I wouldn’t do it anyway because the optics are bad.

The only way I would play the hand against UTG was if UTG only bets when he has it. Or has some other tells that lets me know when he is bluffing.

Yes we have position but our hand is bad enough that we refused to raise initially when we thought everyone had folded. And what is worse, UTG knows this. Our hand range is very limited at this point. UTG, if any good, could play pretty much perfectly against us, with a hand that is by definition better than ours, thus negating our positional advantage.

No. A call by UTG does not change the action to us which is the deciding factor. So our out of turn "Fold" would stand.

Its not that I disagree with you. I think that a call does make a difference because in my mind it changes everything. But the rule itself is clear.

In TDA rules, a fold OOT is always binding. Itdoesnt matter if action is rolled back or not, or whether action changes or not. RROP says the same thing, but IMO RROP is so old now (stopped being updated around 2005) that TDA is really the best rule set in terms of being updated. Also, many rooms have gone to using TDA rules for cash games as well. See Illustration Addendum.

I was unaware of the TDA rule so thank you for pointing it out. I have never seen an out of turn fold in a tournament that wasn't assumed to be a fold (it never came up in other words).

But in a cash game it has come up at Foxwoods and I was allowed to act after I had folded out of turn.

Most of these spots just come down to he said/she said and how it's explained to the Floor, should it get that far.

Yes, OOT actions, especially folds, are binding per TDA Rule 53. Should action change by the offended Player, then Players who still retain their holdings may reconsider their actions, including the return of any bet/call chips that may be in the middle.

The Rule also states that the Floor can make a ruling on UTG's options on a case by case basis, including killing the hand. The key would be 'how much' significant action had taken place before a Player stops the bus.

While it would be very uncommon for a hand to be killed the first time around, this is not an area to test a Floor/TDA patience with. GL

Yeah, this rule is really room dependent for sure. I'm sure that even within our room, (a large room) there isn't a uniform awareness about oot folds being binding whether action changes or not. It doesnt really come up very often, where someone wants to fold and then changes their mind based on the action.