Game is 1-2 8 handed today at the Manchester Poker Room (Now with the ridiculous name of Filotimo)

Hero is in the 8 seat. 6 seat has been raising to 15-20 every hand, drinking, not paying attention and somehow winning. 7 seat is elderly woman (EW).

Button in the 4 seat.

Action is on EW in 7 seat and she says "I only have one card."
Dealer deals her another card and she limps.

Most of the hand is unimportant. there is quite a bit of action, and after the river card is dealt, and seat 5 shoves for 186$. Seat 6, the annoying guy, snap calls. The board is AT749. Seat 5 turns over T7, and seat 6 turns over, with a flourish, AT5. Yes, he flips over 3 cards. Dealer doesn't know what to do, says "oh this is a real mess" and calls the floor. I remark there is no mess, that seat 5 gets the pot because seat 6s hand is dead.

Floor person A comes over, and after 3 minutes of ALSO not knowing how to rule, Calls for Floorman B.

Floorman B comes over and says "Unfortunately, seat 6 has a dead hand." Seat 6 has been blathering the whole time about how he will get his money back, etc, as he thinks this is the equivelent of a home game misdeal (Remember...EW had only 1 card because he took one of hers....)

The floor keeps saying the hand is dead, but he doesn't SAY what it means, and I am enjoying the wait for the other shoe to drop. So I prod the floorman like a guy waiting for the punch line, "So tell him what having a dead hand MEANS......."
And the floorman who is standing behind me says, "Everyone who had money in gets it back." My head does a SNAP180 and I say "HUH?" and then I shut my mouth. The 5 seat doesn't know any better, and is apparently happy getting his money back. Next hand.


I played about 4 more hands and went and tracked down the floorguy. I politely asked him about the ruling, and we came to the conclusion that was obvious which was that we both agreed the hand was DEAD, but he did not know what that REALLY meant. He was friendly, and said he would review the rules, and I told him that I would check back with him later in private, and NOT to tell me what he found out while I'm sitting at the table.

30 minutes later I revisit with him, and he tells me that I am right, and that he misinterpreted what a 'dead hand' meant, and thanksd me for being polite and teaching him. he also made a comment that he was glad it wasn't a big pot (Ummm..this was a 475$ pot at 1-2)

My big question for the forum is, had this been ME in the 5 seat, what is the proper way to NOT be the victim of this ruling in REAL TIME? Can I request that the pot be held aside until he checks the rules? What is the procedure???


Thanks

It should have been a miss deal right from the start when the lady said she only has one card. The guy with 3 cards should be banned.

Guy with 3 cards said 2 were stuck together. You also didn't address the question....

If you know the floor person is competent you don't have to say anything because they will come over and make the correct decision. If you either don't know the floor or know the floor to be incompetent then calmly state your case that his hand is dead and the pot is yours.

Also, this post is probably better suited for the Casino &Cardroom subforum.

Just my opinion...

The best and only way to handle issues like this is the politely but firmly ask for someone higher up before allowing the hand to continue on. Once the hand is over and the next one starts, you cannot get anything fixed any longer.

If the dealer makes a mistake, ask for the floor. If the floor makes a mistake, ask for the shift manager. If the shift manager also makes a mistake, you're probably the one who is wrong, but you can try asking for the poker room manager, should that person be in the room at the time.

Once you've exhausted these avenues, you're basically SOL. You can try the gaming representative, but this normally is only done after the fact once the hand is long over. And you run the risk of the room barring you or otherwise holding it against you because they can and they don't like being second guessed.

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As mentioned above, several things went wrong here. If you're the button in seat 4, and seat 7 only has 1 card, and they tell you this before there is (substantial) action - usually defined as 2-3 players acting after the blinds - then it is a misdeal. The only time you deal another card off the deck is if it's the button who is missing their 2nd card. If seat 7 (or any seat other than the button) stop the game to say they only have 1 card after there is already (substantial) action, then their hand is dead.

As played, once the floor is called, as you said seat 6s hand should be ruled dead.

He should have been banned. It's impossible to think you have two cards when you really have 3. I can picture him tabling the hand trying to get rid of the extra card quick somewhere but he got caught.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

There a couple of issues to contend with. First, the state has only the most bare bones rules for NL Hold 'Em. The room is trying to staff up. Sunday, two of the dealers had less than a month's experience and 4 dealers called out because of weather (it was too nice to work). I suspect that they also don't have a formal rule book that can be tracked with revision numbers. At best, it is a memo dating back a ways or a general statement that they'll follow TDA or Robert's Rules of Poker.

To protect yourself, you'll need to be vocal about issues. That said, the time to kill the hand was pf when the elderly woman said she had only one card, not let the hand proceed. FWIW, I only got one card on the button myself Sunday and had to ask for second.

I don't understand your stance Playbig.
You think that this guy KNEW he had 3 cards, risked 230$ in a pot, KNOWING HE WAS GOING TO SHOWDOWN (since he called a river all in) and then made no attempt to 'ditch' the 3rd card? He just spreads it with a flourish?


As much as I didn't care for this guy, I feel that with his level of drinking, not following the action, and general obnoxiousness, that he was obtuse enough to not realize it. Haven't you ever had 2 cards stuck together? Also, he made no attempt to hide or ditch a card.....he spread them out like you spread an Omaha hand. I believe his 5 was stuck to the back of his 10 and he only saw AT. But please elaborate...I'm interested in hearing more on card ditching.

Hello Venice;
Cool that there is a mod on here that plays in New Hampshire.

Your comments got me curious about the "NH rulebook" so I did some digging online. Since NH Poker is governed by the Lottery Commission (how fitting) I found the following page:
https://www.racing.nh.gov/licensing/...procedures.htm

I went thru about 10 of the HE links. I saw NO MENTION of players arriving to the river with a fouled hand. Also, I found a glaring misprint at the bottom of page 8 of *1* of the links to the 12-017 rules (can't cut and paste it) so it makes me curious where the floor looked up the info.....I'm gonna give the Lottery commission a call.

I've literally never had two cards stuck together in a casino cardroom or heard anybody bring it up in thousands of hours. How does that even happen? Let alone in such a way that one card completely conceals another.

At a minimum he needs to be given a rack if he's too drunk to know how many cards he has.

I'm sure you've never seen a player with 3 cards get awarded half the pot in holdem either, but that is what happened yesterday.....


He wasn't hammered, he just had that "I've had 4 drinks and I'm at a place where I just want to hear myself talk a lot and splash chips around" feeling.

Personally, I WANT him at the table. i even offered to buy him another 11$ cocktail when he racked up to leave..... Interesting how the majority of people here want this guy penalized/banned/sent home. I didn't see that coming. I thought you guys liked players that provided a +EV situation.

He was drinking from a sweaty pint glass. If you moisten your finger, and put it on a card, you can stick another card right to it. if you then get a third card, when you try to peek at them, it's possible you may see two of them. Certainly he has NO ADVANTAGE calling an All In with 3 cards so I'm not sure why someone would purposefully do it.

I mean, do you think that's less likely than a player knowing the values of two of his three cards but not knowing that he has three cards? Or less likely than a drunk who took a joke too far?

Cards do stick together occasionally when they get something on them such as alcohol from a wet wipe (many rooms clean cards on a schedule these days) or from a drunk player splashing a drink on them.

A drunk guy realizing he has 3 cards during the hand and proudly showing them after he thinks he's won is completely believable to me. We're not talking about a calm, rational thinker here.

It doesn't matter whether he knows or not, though, for the sake of figuring out what to do with the pot. He did not have a valid hand and I'm never awarding it to him. I suppose that means seat 5 gets it all, but I could see voiding the hand and giving everyone their money back. The hand does not officially end until the start of the next shuffle, so it's not too late to make some sort of correction.

The only way seat 7 should have gotten a second card is if they were on the button, and an experienced dealer would check with seats 6 and 8 to verify they only have 2 cards.

Welcome 'back' ? .. (less than 100 posts from 2013) Most of the posts here are from room 'staff', so there's no 'exact' +EV with this type of Player. There's both sides .. he can slow the game down or there may be an opportunity for large tips if he's got a hot seat.

You don't mention if the UTG 'one card' issue was brought up to either Floor, but I can see a backdoor Rule #1 ruling here based on what should've been a misdeal to begin with, thus allowing all chips to be returned to their original PF location. Granted both Floors were inexperienced. The one MAJOR thing that Floor's do IMO is to make a ruling and get away from the table as fast as they can. While it sounds like this is not a new Player base, it is new 'management' and this is the perfect opportunity to show that we're all here trying our best to get this room back on it's feet.

Back to your question. It's pretty much been covered. One, as a Player, you should've spoke up when UTG got an 'out of order' card. This leads to a misdeal or at least a Floor call to make sure the hand can continue .. and probably finding out about the BB with 3 cards right then. Two, You should always feel comfortable asking for a higher up to confirm what you feel may be a gross misapplication of a rule. The amount of fuss is up to you to decide.

I have seen pots put to the side and 'tape' reviewed, but you do need to initiate things before the next hand starts.

There's an old story (via Doyle?) of a H/L Stud game where a Player made the Steel Wheel on 6th Street .. unbeatable .. and never looked at his 7th street down card (why bother?) when it got dealt. All the chips went in and this guy's hand was declared dead and he was felted. He went into a tirade, got banned and went into a downward spiral. The Dealer had tossed over two cards together on 7th and he never looked until he fanned them out at showdown.

My opinion slipped out above .. had the story been relayed to me as you explained in the OP, then I'm seeing this as a teaching moment in a new room with new Dealers and Floors and declaring a misdeal. There's the rules and there's common sense.

How we deal with Seat 6 is an in-the-moment decision. I'm not as big a fan of the axe as some around here, but I think I do pull him off the table for a short chat to get a gage of his well?-being. If the Player gets out-of-hand during the chat, then we make a more informed decision.

There's been no indication, either via S6 being verbal in the story and certainly not 'willingly' showing 3 cards at Showdown that indicates there was any malice or angle being attempted. Again, an in-the-moment decision.

I don't think we've seen one quite like this .. thanks for sharing .. GL

Just keep pushing the issue as much as reasonable and tactful. Buying drunk people drinks to get them to stay and lose more money is dubious.

Did you apologize to the dealer because you couldn't have been more wrong on that one? Apparently the situation turned out to be a real mess and seat 5 didn't get the pot.

Re cards sticking together: That has happened to me once and I didn't notice until I tried to flick them forward and one didn't really move.

But if two cards are stuck together, shouldn't the dealer have treated them as one and pitch seat 7 two cards anyway?

Hello...thanks for your input!:
I did not apologize to the dealer because a.) I was 99% sure I was right in the moment, b.) I WAS 100% right in retrospect, c.) I was 99% sure in the moment the FLOOR would make the ruling I THOUGHT was right. There SHOULD NOT have been a mess. It should have been one of the simpler floor decisions I've ever seen. Floor should have arrived at the table and said, "A holdem hand with 3 cards is dead, Best live hand (or only live hand inb this case) gets the pot. Done. 7 seconds.

As far as HOW he got 3 cards, this guy was CONSTANTLY talking and apparently just picked up all the cards near him at the table. I don't think the 2 cards were stuck together when they left the DEALER's hand, I think they got that way when he picked them up with sweaty hands and didn't notice because he is talking.

Input appreciated. Also, I never used the term drunk in my post.

Even if I had, I think "Drunk" is a loose term. There is .06% BAC drunk, and there is .25% BAC. This guy was on the low side.
I guess most casinos operate dubiously since they buy people drinks to get them to lose money....and that's fine if you think that, however, this guy was WINNING, and he had as much chance to continue winning as losing if he stayed. He wanted to go to his friends house watch the hockey game and smoke dope (as I said he was talking a lot) I don't have a conscience problem with having him burn his money at my poker table rather than in front of the Bruins game.

Thanks for commenting.....my feedback is embedded....Cheers!

I don't think he knew he had 3 cards.

The first part of my post was mostly joking, I didn't expect you to apologize or would see any need for that

Him accidentally sticking the cards together makes sense, didn't even think about that possibility.

I did have 3 cards once and was stone sober and didn't realize it until I looked back at my hand postflop. It's odd because I look at my cards postflop less than once a sesson on average. I had KJ, and then when I looked back it was K5 and I somehow had KJ5. And so if I hadn't looked back this one random hand, I would have gone to showdown with 3 cards also.

One of the keys to getting a correct ruling is to accurately describe the situation objectively, before the floor knows which way the dealer or prvious floors ruled.

In this case, I would ask for the next most senior floor\room manager\TD, and ask 'In the case that a fouled hand is tabled at showdown and ruled dead, is the pot shipped to the best remaining live hand?'

If he says no, and that money is returned, then simply ask 'Can you verify that before the pot is shipped, because that seems like I could safely free roll a bluff, then table a fouled hand and get my money back. That doesn't seem fair or good for the game'

The key is to stay level, logical, objective, and non-confrontational. Kind of like refs in sports, floors usually find that it is more important to be decisive and maintain control of the game than it is to be right. If they are known to be able to be bullied off of a ruling, it will be bad for the game. The key is to let them get to a ruling that is correct without making it about control or power.

Leading question. Better would be, "What happens when there is a fouled hand at showdown?"

My first draft of my answer had almost exactly that question, but i felt like that an open ended question like that still left too much room for the floor to lock in on the wrong thing. I want the floor to be considering only the relevent parts of the problem.