I’m good with “I can only read tabled hands” also.

I forget the specifics, but there is a Thread here discussing as to 'when' a Dealer should read hands aloud and/or frame the Board. Obv for 'the game' and the Dealer's back pocket it's best to keep the game moving along.

We have some, IMO, exceptional Dealers in our area who will only read the hands in order, even if the out of order Player shows first. One of them wont even answer a query from 1st-to-show .. only stating "You're first to show". If the Player look offended the Dealer matter-of-factly just states that they try to do it the same for everyone. GL

I think the dealer was fine here.

If the guy actually thought he can beat a tabled hand without having to show his cards, let it be a lesson learned for him. This is way out of the ordinary, and the more info the dealer gives him such as "can you beat king high?" "do you have the winning hand?", etc. would be helping the guy play his hand just like if there's 5 diamonds on the board at showdown the dealer can't ask someone if they have a diamond before they muck their cards.

I wouldn't put this on the dealer.

Dude, not one person wants the dealer to ask him questions about his hand FFS.

Can't recall seeing a sign with ALL the rules at any casino.

Just a general comment on this thread and other threads over the past few weeks but it seems like OPTAH has grown to encompass more and more to the point of absurdity.

Telling a player that it takes two cards to win a showdown is not playing their hand for them. Telling the newbie here that the best shown down hand is Ace, king high (A K J T 9 if I am not mistaken) is not playing their hand for them. It is describing game state in response to a question.

Recently someone here accused me of a OPTAH violation for telling a player who was distracted by the food runner what the preflop action was. I said something like "There was a raise to $X and a call. Action is on you."

I wasn't playing his hand for him, I could care less if he called, raised, or folded. I was catching him up on game state to keep the game moving.

OPTAH assertions have gotten ridiculous.

I think this nails it.

This thread reminds me of the post from long ago where someone commented that if poker gets to the place where the winner of a pot depends upon who best knows all of the arcana inscribed on the rules tomes lining the walls of the room then poker is in a bad place.

Yes the dealer gave a technically truthful answer, but is an answer that does nothing good for poker in the long run.

As players we all should want players who might not know all of the technical rules but are there to have a good time to play in the games. Running them off with technically correct answers serves no one well in the long run.

That said, I could totally see myself in the dealers shoes giving the answer he gave. Not because it was technically correct, but because I misunderstood the intent of the question and thought he wanted to fold. I like to think I would understand intent there most of the time, but I could see myself missing it if distracted.

How about something like “Pot goes to the best tabled hand” as an answer for this situation. That is not telling the player what he should do, but is simply clarifying the rules for him.

I'm also fine with "you need to show to win". It's not the same as "can you beat king high", and it's more in line with a rules answer. But when you ask a yes or no question, the dealer isn't obligated to go into further detail about the hand or what his holdings are.

What do you guys think about the player that bluffed to scoop the pot?
It's of course totally within the rules of the game, yet also completetly against he spirit of the game given he was a new player.

Not saying I woud have conceded the pot necessarily if I were in a situation like that, but seems awkward as hell.

You think trying to bluff a new player is "against the spirit of the game"? Seriously, that's one of the most bizarre takes on poker I have ever heard. That's not cheating, or angling, or even trying to trick a new player into doing something that he might not know would cost him the pot. Bluffing has always been an integral part of poker, and the game wouldn't even work without it.

Not sure if I posted this or not .. Playing in a room where I'm not a Reg, but they know who I am. This is not a casino, but isn't a home game either .. just a 'poker room'.


Short stack goes all-in and we go the Turn HU for a side pot .. check-check .. on to the River. SS sees Turn and moans and walks away .. presumably to buy more chips.

I've completely missed, but I think I can steal the main pot if I bet. I bet and V folds. I place my cards on the SS stack and start to push them to the Dealer. Two Players at the table say "Stop, you need to turn his cards over!" I'm stunned .. the Dealer doesn't really know what to do. It's 'the' regular Dealer and I'm expecting them to just tell me one way or the other what to do.

I know I didn't mix the hands up .. mine's on top. I separate them and table a weak holding, but good enough to beat mine and the Dealer pushes the pot to an empty seat. I feel taken advantage of in a very Reg heavy room but the pot was so small I didn't want to make a fuss.

What would you do? GL

This is the definition of an angle shot. Bluffing is part of the game which is why our cards are up side down.

My jaw dropped. How are you on this site for twelve years without knowing that bluffing is within the spirit of poker.

I think he means actually taking the pot when it’s clear a misunderstanding led to your erroneous award of said pot, not the bluff itself.

oh sorry my bad

So if the board otr is JAKQTr and a guy bluffs at it causing a new player to fold, when everyone tells him he folded a chop, the guy who bluffed is supposed to give him back half the pot? That sounds like an oxy moron lol.

I don't think so, as that was discussed from the beginning, and he seemed to be wondering about a different question. If he did mean that, it was a silly question.

The better analogy would be the guy bluffs on AKQJTr, new player calls with the obvious chop, bettor tables hand and says "chop it up", new player asks dealer "do I also have to show", dealer says "no", new player slides cards in face down, dealer pushes whole pot to bettor.

Yes, thank you. English isn't my first language but I thought it was obvious given this isn't the "Beginners Questions" section (also he already got called anyways).
Genuinely curious about the consensus on scooping the pot for the "K-high player". No one said anything so I suppose it's not as ambiguous as I see it.
Sure it's the rules etc. but he still won "undeservingly".

As rare and unfortunate these kinds of scenarios are (technically the dealer did nothing wrong and the new player should not play for significant money yadda yadda),
it always rubs me the wrong way how beginner UNfriendly live-poker is.


I agree.

Ok .. slightly different, but close .. I guess .. Should we feel inclined to 'not' accept a pot when ..

Board .. A8J6J

Player A 'quickly' says "Two Pair" and confidently tables A8.

(New) Player B holds cards for everyone to see .. AK .. and says "I thought you may have sucked out on me" .. rolls cards in hand and eventually tosses cards face down to Dealer.

While there's no 3rd party involvement here there's still the 'New' Player issue.

Do we feel Newbie deserves pot more so in the 3rd party case but not the 'self inflicted' case? GL

I get what you are saying but this doesn't even come close to the OP scenario.
In your example new player simply misreads his hand, while in the OP new player was clueless about ruling, asked about it and got a "sub-optimally" phrased response.

This is a totally different scenario than what was described in the OP.

In the OP the king clearly played, and the guy clearly mucked.

Right, and instead you gave an analogy where someone folded to a river bet and thus wasn't at showdown.

And in mine, the dealer "correctly" answered "no" just like in the OP. Do you think the dealer's answer to "do I have to show" should be different in the two spots? Why or why not?

I despise when people give the quick TWO PAIR in this spot in a way they literally never do when it's not the counterfeit spot. I think it's pretty greasy of the player to take a pot at showdown when they didn't have the best hand and it's known, but yeah I feel less bad for the player in this spot than the OP spot.

For newbies especially, but even for more experienced players, a good piece of advice we should give them is “Just table your hand at showdown.” I know that we give away info doing so, but how much info are you really giving away in a spot like this by tabling a hand vs mucking your loser if villain shows K high? If you muck, everyone knows you were bluffing/chasing some draw anyway, so why not just show? The EV of mucking has to be way lower than the amount of the pot you might win when you show rather than muck - it would not take a lot of such situations to make showing pay.