the player who made the bet had cards
the bet was not called
other players folded
the dealer pushed the pot

Only if your hand is live. If you allow action to move past you, and significant action occurs, your hand is usually dead. 72 was facing a bet, but did nothing while the pot collected and pushed to the presumed winner, who had a live hand at this point. At any point, he had the ability to stop and make it clear that he had live cards, but he waited until the other player's hand was mucked, then declared himself the winner (the fact that he had trips indicates that he was likely not angling, but this same sequence could have very easily been an angle).

If I do not call action to me, and let the dealer push the poit and muck the hand, there is no way that my hand should be considered live.

I'm chalking this up to a bad hair day comment .. there's obviously other contributing details that make this thread way different than the suggested spot. GL

My bad, I somehow mixed up threads. Sorry for the confusion.

Thanks for the interesting comments on this interesting hand. As most have concluded the OP is the hero in the story. What happened?
I first became aware the BB still had cards when he started screaming at the dealer. My first reaction, like most players, was to give him the pot. I could see he had the best hand and I was drawing dead.

His loud and aggressive attack on the dealer made me rethink my response.
This dealer makes few mistakes and is a genuinely nice person. I did not want to reward this boorish behavior. I sat silent while the Floor was called.
Clearly this was dealer error. However, no fair analysis of the facts could conclude that the Villains conduct wasn’t a contributing factor. As we waited for the Floor, I pondered the ruling. I couldn’t see my way to a decision where the Villain was awarded the pot.
I think the Mcshin post is the simplest and most correct. He expands the protect your hand rule to include speaking up if your pot is being awarded to another.
Browser2920 approaches the question from a different angle. He concludes that the Hero, when being awarded the pot, has the responsibility to insure he has the last live hand before mucking. Madlex responds that he has never checked if his opponent still has cards, once the pot has been pushed to him. Ditto me.
As we awaited the Floor, the dealer looked anxious. I wondered if the Floor would note the dealers file for the error. Now it seemed the lesser wrong would be to give the pot to the Villain, which I did. Thus, there was no ruling.
Keeping in character, once I gave him the pot, he said I was responsible for any dealer tip since I caused the problem. If only there was a way we could go back in time.

I mean, you have to have known the consequences of rewarding the boorish behavior of a boor. This is not an event that should affect the dealer’s file or employment. By far, the responsibility belongs to Villain.

This is like the other active thread that madlex confused with this one: You learned new information about Villain. You would have been correct to adjust for it.

You are screwing over everyone by incentivizing the behavior.

A couple of thoughts. First, while I laid out both sides as I have seen this ruled both ways, my personal decision would be to give hero the pot, as imo the villain has the first, in sequence, responsibility to protect his action. But I have seen it ruled that last live hand gets the pot.

Where I dealt the hero would have no opportunity to give the pot to the other player. The floor would have to make a ruling and that ruling would have to be followed. Players aren't allowed to supersede a floor ruling. So whomever the floor awarded the pot to would have to keep it.

How can you consider villain's hand live when he did not call hero's action before the dealer moved past him and completed the hand? Same as any player who is skipped, if significant action happens behind, the hand is dead, yes?

Given the character of villain, I would just say "well you're super lucky, because I had pocket nines" and look like I was steaming for a bit. For a non-dick, I would at least toss him his $15 call back.

I like this one and was going to post similar but you beat me...

Give the guy his chips you nit

Man we do t get to hear what they ruled, disappointing lol. By the book rule you get the pot…I can see many places splitting it though.

What adds to this being an awkward spot is that the rulebooks tend to define substantial action in terms of how many players have acted after the skipped person, and whether additional money went into the pot. In this case, there were no other players to act, and no additional money went into the pot. So it really just falls to the floor to decide whether there was sufficient time for the villain to stop the dealer or not. I think in this case there was,but Ive seen fast dealers who can pull in cards and push pot very quickly, in just a few seconds. And if you arent expecting a dealer to do something so out of the ordinary by pushing a pot when the action is on you, you can take a few seconds just to process wtf is happening.

Just as OP says he never thinks about if there are other players with cards when a dealer pushes him the pot, (Though imo a player should be aware of who is still in a hand) most players arent anticipating he will suddenly push the pot when action is on them. For example, using same scenario, but dealer, in one swooping motion pulls in villains bet and starts to push pot towards hero. As soon as hero sees pot starting towards him, he mucks his hand. But the whole thing only took 3-4 seconds, then villain says "wait a minute, Ive got cards". Does everyone think hero should still get the pot, rewarding him for instamucking? I wouldnt think so.

So with the same actions occurring, is the ruling different based on how long villain had to respond? Or if He doesnt stop hero before he mucks, he is SOL? I think the amount of time is critical. Otherwise, a player could be well aware of rhe other player with cards, but angleshoot by mucking the instant the dealer starts to push the pot, thereby precluding the villain from having enough time to object. Sort of like in football where one team spikes the ball before the other team can request a replay.

Yes, timing is 'everything'. And that's what can make it very difficult on the Floor to make a ruling .. even a Rule #1 ruling. It will be based on how the sequence of events is described to take place.

In the exact spot above I'm going to assume that the Player's hand is not really mucked since the pot is still being pushed. Yes, the Dealer could fully muck the cards during his 'backswing' from pushing the pot. So when did the V speak up? Is the Board still identifiable? Where's the stub? All factors involved must be considered each time.

Good Dealer training stresses to keep the Board, Stub, muck pile and burn cards completely separate until the hand is concluded. Even the sequence of 'mucking' the Board can be discussed .. before or after the pot is pushed?

If you watch the PokerGo HS Duel from this week even those two Dealers had slightly different approaches to the end of a hand. One Dealer IMO was 'over' washing the deck, almost between every hand, but I did like the way he took the winning hand and scooped up the Board before combining those cards with the rest. Less work to turn over one 'pile' of cards rather than turning them over separately.

There isn't one sequence that will eliminate all potential issues but the sooner the cards are combined the less likely the hand can be 'saved' so to speak. GL

There is a proper procedure for ending the hand, which may vary by room (and some room procedures may not even include them), but there are best practices. I'm going from memory here (and some of our expert dealers can probably weigh in) but it is something like:

* kill losers and muck them
* slide the board left or right if necessary for the next step
* push the pot
* move the dot (button)
* sweep the board into the winners or vice versa (faceup or facedown, depending on whether the winner showed)
* muck the board and winners
* optionally wash the muck
* square the deck for shuffling or the shuffle machine

This procedure is designed to minimize issues like this. You kill and muck losers ASAP, so that there are fewer opportunities for people to grab their released cards back and table them, causing confusion and drama. You keep the board and the winning hand separate from the muck until just before starting the next hand, just in case there is an issue and you need them.

In this particular instance, OP stated that it was 10 to 15 seconds between the dealer pushing the pot and the villain pointing out he had a hand. That is a LOOOOONNNNNGGGGG time. Also, it wasn't bang bang. Hero bets, two players fold in front of villain, then dealer starts finalizing the hand. It isn't as if Villain was poised and ready to act, and the dealer\hero swooped and trubo killed the hand from underneath him.

There are cases where I think a player gets byapssed without having a reasonable opportuinity to act. Being on the phone in the middle of ahand while two guys fold in front of you, so that you don't notice that the dealer is killing the hand, ten seconds have passed, and the next hand is about to start is not one of those times.

Yes and lol

nominate for dumbest post of the month


how can anyone who never called the last bet win a pot EVER

Hero should get pot if villain was actually texting or reading texts during the hand. Period.

Otherwise I think its hard. I would give the pot to Hero basically because Villain wasn't paying attention and didn't protect his hand/action. Villain had a reasonable amount of time to stop the steal.

When I am in this situation I always guard my hand and check to make sure that nobody else is in the hand. I am paranoid yes, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. I have never discovered a player with a hand. And I have never lost a pot this way. This is a very rare spot.

This exact situation happened to me a few months ago in the Bike 60/120 LHE game. I bet the river with the nuts and everyone folded, and some guy was kind of hiding his cards and deliberating a call for a long time and because of the plexiglass I couldnt see his hand and neither could the dealer, so the dealer pushed me the pot, and took my cards and the guy spoke up like 15 seconds later. The pot was at least $1000 though, so no way was I going to let him angleshoot me.. anyway floor ruled in my favor. Fwiw, I think this guy knew what was going on and was trying to angleshoot me.

I would have handled it differently for sure, although that's easier to say now after having a few minutes to digest what you and others have typed here. I definitely wouldn't have just given up the pot though without a ruling.

I think the best resolution is to let the floor rule and if they ruled in my favor then I'd have told the guy I'm giving him the pot, minus the amount of my final uncalled bet.

last time this happened to me i just split the pot with the victim VILLAN

I missed the part where Villain has trips and showed his hand.

I probably just give him the pot. And feel lucky that I can fold knowing he has exposed his hand.

I wonder if this applies here. In some jurisdictions, chips in a player’s stack are property of the player. The casino cannot take chips from that stack. I’ve heard this come up in relation to a particular angle … a player goes all in. Another player says “call” but doesn’t physically push the calling chips across the line. The calling player loses the all in and racks up his chips and leaves without paying off the all in. According to the letter of the law, the casino cannot force this player to pay off the bet. The most the casino can do is ban the player. (For this reason it’s probably best to insist that the dealer pull in the calling chips before tabling your hand when all in).

In this case if the floor ruled for the villain, I’m not sure hero would legally have to pay up, although getting banned probably isn’t worth the money it would cost.

IANAL, but that is true in most jurisdictions actually. NV has a gambling specific law which allows them to confiscate $ from your stack, but most/all of the rest of US states do not.

You can still be sued civilly for the amount, but that would require knowing the villain, and paying legal fees that almost certainly exceed the amount at issue for most games.

For most, the only real punishment is that the player is 86ed until they pay the victim. In some jurisdictions with limited options that is a real problem, but for some with many options it is less so.