I was playing at Fort Pierce Jai Alai this evening at a 1/2 NL table. I have been at the table for about a half hour, and I have gotten the better hand against one particular player several times already. On the hand in question, I was in late position and the Villain was in early position. He makes a small raise to $8. There are two callers before it gets to me. I look down at KK and raise to $27. The player after me calls, and the Villain pushes all in for $150. It folds around to me, and I push my chips all in. The player after me (who called the $27) mucks his hand. However, the Villain was not protecting his cards. They were lying right out in front of him, and when the player mucked his hand, it collided with Villain's cards.

The floor was called over. The player who mucked apologized and told the floor manager that he had pocket 7s. The floor manager decided to allow the Villain to take his $150 back because of the situation and I only won the little bit that was pulled into the pot. I tried arguing, but it got me no where. I felt myself starting to steam, said I wasn't going to play mad and walked out.

I would think that the floor manager would have separated out the pocket 7s and let the hand play. Or muck the Villain's hand because its his job to protect his cards. Why should he be able to take money back that he committed to the pot and got called?!?!??!?

I'll drive to Palm Beach for poker now. I'm done with Fort Pierce Jai Alai.

I've only seen this ruled as "you lose whatever you put into the pot and your hand is dead. Sorry. You have to protect your hand."

Was playing 3/6 Kill the other day. Guy called pre-flop. Dealer reaches around his call grabs his cards and mucks 'em. Floor told him he was SOL.

The casinos I have been at declare his hand dead in the two situations I have been in where this happened.

Was the other guy a regular or something (not that it should matter in a fair game)?

Wow! That's a horrible call. Never seen it in a million years and would have lost it if it happened to me.

this is why i always but a small stack of chips on top of my hand. Thing is, I think the floor was wrong but what the floor says goes so you're SOL.

From RRoP:

Very common rule, you will find it in most rule sets.

It gives the floor great discretion in making such decisions.

I imagine that the floor saw a situation that the "villain" did not directly cause. The direct cause of the dead hand was the other player mucking his hand improperly.

Why further punish the "villain" in this case?

Well he didn't protect his hand.

Why punish the guy with KK? He didn't do anything wrong.

Villain failed to protect his hand, his hand is dead. He loses some of the money he put into the pot.

KK did nothing wrong but wins the smaller pot. He could have lost the hand at showdown, very easily.

I think this is a situation where Rule 1 was appropriately applied.

Do we make different rulings if hero has 66 instead of KK?

OP's hand is not the issue. The decision was made on the basis of the poorly mucked hand, I doubt the floor knew what OP had, there was no reason for OP to turn his hand over before the decision was made.

But to answer the question, no, the hand has no bearing on the decision.

Also, we don't know Villains hand. If Villain has AA do we change our minds? Or do we start letting people muck their cards into an enemies hand to cost them their stack?

I agree with you; I was questioning steam, who seemed to think this was bad because of OP holding KK...

Playing in a tourny four or five years ago in Biloxi (IP I think). EP raises, short stack in MP (Seat 1) shoves. Next up in Seat 2 tosses his cards carelessly towards the dealer, lands on top and slides over Seat 1's cards. Floor is called. Seat 1 places his hands on top of his two cards (after the incident - he was not protecting his cards before Seat 2 mucked). Seat 1 is confident which two are his, but dealer is not. T.D. asks if the players can confirm which two cards were Seat 1's, most of us cannot with any certainty. TD declares hand dead, allows Seat 1 to take his re-raise back, but he must forfeit enough to make the call. Player in late pos. (seat four or five) re-raises all in and takes it down pre-flop. Seat 1 is steamed, not because of TD's decision for him to make the call, but because he had a premium and wanted to double up ....

Still, TD tried to preserve Seat 1's situation as best he could. He easily could have told him "protect your hand, good day sir."

My question to OP is this: Had you not been involved in the hand with KK, would you be more sympathetic towards the victim? I understand the frustration, I just wonder if you had mucked 84 off and not had an emotional or monetary horse in this race if you would feel the same.

I really don't like this ruling. Regardless of Hero's hand, action was complete with a shove and a call. I don't like killing Villain's hand either, but that's certainly an option since he failed to protect his hand.

If we're going with "in the spirit of fairness", I would consider asking Hero what he had. The third party already announced he had 77. If Villain says "I had AQ", we have a chance at a fair outcome. "Ok guys, if these cards are 7-7-A-Q, the AQ will play and the 77 will be mucked. If they are not these four cards, I'm sorry sir but your hand will be dead and you will forfeit your call".

As players, would you accept that ruling as fair?

I don't think that. If he has 2-3 he didn't do anything wrong, should he be punished?

And I'm not saying Dealer-Guy is wrong.
I'm glad I'm just a dealer and don't have to make decisions like this.

I dual rate on occasion and I could have a similar situation come up.

I would be tempted to call the shift supervisor, tell him I was going home sick and oh, BTW, there is a small problem on table 13.

If I'm the player who had his hand mucked, yes.

If I'm the player with a live hand, no. How do I know they didn't merge A7 and Q7?

I think that barring other information about the situation (the two guys being friends, similar situations happening with guy in question, etc), the rulings fine. I feel like taking away someones whole stack on a first time accident is excessive...

I have a question for Dealer-Guy, what if seat 1 pushes, seat 3 folds (without the cards touching those of seat 1), seat 7 calls, and the dealer mucks seat 1's unprotected cards and mixes them in the muck?

This is essentially the same scenario and if I were seat 1I would not expect to get my bet back. If that scenario were posted here (I'm sure it has been several times) then my guess would be the standard reply would be "Unfortunate, but protect your hand" - the same as I would say to villain in the scenario described by OP.

The one difference between my scenario and the one described by OP is that the possibility exists to "whisper your hands to the floor and get your cards back" although I think that solution can be exploited by angle-shooters.

What I dislike about this ruling is that I suspect it's probably not applied consistently. I suspect that a different ruling may have been made if villain had AA and was the one arguing for the "whisper your hand" solution.

Many rooms I've played in clearly state that if the DEALER mucks an all-in hand, then the all-in dollar amount will be returned to the player, in this case: player 1, but the prior action/rest of the pot is to be shipped to the player with a hand. (in this case, seat 7).

Well your title is misleading here but the results are the same. I have no problem with the floor's ruling for a first-time incident. There is a debate going on here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/24...please-984443/ over another similar situation. The parts about action offered and accepted are very relevant to what happen to the OP.

You are all-in, what chips are you going to use?

As for OP, I'm ok with the ruling as it stands as I feel it's the fairest ruling possible.

I tend not to go all the way consipiracy (that the mucked player and the player who had their hand mucked into were working together) unless there's a history of 'antics' between the two players.

I don't think there's an ideal solution here, but I think the floor made the best decision possible. The only problem I see here is it opens the possibility up to villain shoving and then freerolling(when player 3 kills his hand) if called. If OP had been the one to push originally and villain called, then this would not apply.

Allowing villain and the 3rd player to tell floor what hands they had and allow villain's hand to play is setting a bad precedent IMO. When I'm flooring, I like to be consistent with my rulings and that's not a ruling I'd want to make every time. This situation comes up a fair amount.

There's no great solution. I think making villain forfeit his entire stack is the worst option. I think all you can do is keep pounding it into your players' heads to protect their hands.

It sucks. Always protect your cards.
7 was coming on the river anyway. Saved $$.

Most, if not all decisions are unique and based on the particular facts of that situation.

In the case detailed, I think the floor used Rule 1 properly.

Sitting in seat 1 or 9/10 brings different responsibility on the players so you have changed additional aspects of the scenario.

So my answer to the question is "It depends".

The title change screw-up was my bad. The original title was something awful like "worst ruling ever." I've re-updated it to better fit the scenario described in the OP.