heard this from a dealer at a local casino. the deal was playing at a rival casino when at showdown he was first to show cards he turned over 94 ( nine high ) and announced nuts jokingly , opponent mucked hand immediately.(hand not retrievable) once opponent realized it was nine high they put up a stink called pit and the pit ruled against the 94 hand and shipped pot to the mucked hand..

any thoughts on this? even if it wan an angle shoot how could you award the pot to the player whos hand is gone in the muck ??

He did it on purpouse knowing he didn't have the nuts. I have no problem giving the other player the pot.

This is one of those obvious situations. Very rarely would this be the case.

There is a pretty standard rule that if you intentionally misdeclare your hand at showdown and cause another player to muck that you may be ruled to have forfeited the pot.

I don't much like the application of the rule here because the players hand was tabled not just misdeclared giving his opponent full opportunity to see for himself.

On the other hand if this gets just one player to stop declaring every hand as the nuts .... it would be hard to hate the ruling.

It's in line with Robert's Rules of Poker.

Section Three, Subsection "Showdown", Rule 2 includes:
... deliberately miscalling a hand with the intent of causing another player to discard a winning hand is unethical and may result in forfeiture of the pot.

Of course, house rules apply, but most house rules are just versions of RROP so most likely the floor made the by-the-book decision. Or perhaps he invoked Rule #1 as dbag who lied about his hand does not deserve to win because of his lie.

He should be happy he wasn't 86d.

Three strikes. (not OP, a dealer, at rival casino)

Nevertheless, someone with principles (other than the almighty $) who realizes that he probably didn't have the best hand should not have a problem with the ruling.

agreed^^ and i wont fight or argue this at all, just thought is was very strange ruling, i have no reason to believe this as truth but some other players did confirm this later.

so you guys agree with ruling even though the other player mucked cards ???
i would almost like them drop the pot in the rake to teach both players a lesson haha

It is not a strange ruling at all. It is very standard.

Without being there it's hard to say, but if he tabled THEN made an obvious joke, I wouldn't give the other guy the pot for not paying attention.

Putting the 9 high down and then saying nuts, is a lot different than saying straight and coyly putting it down a few seconds later.

Either way he is intentionally misdeclaring his hand.

Ship the pot to the other guy.

The flip side of this is determining if the guy did it intentionally. Sometimes you get a guy who says I got the straight and he shows J7 on a 7,8,10,Q,Q board. Maybe he thought he did have a straight, and maybe his 2 pair are good anyway. Who knows. Was it intentional? That is what the rule requires for us to maybe ship the pot the other way.

Not all cases are as simple as the OP. Huge grey area here which just makes it depend on what floor guy you get, so save yourself some trouble and wait to see if your opponent has what he says or not before you muck. And don't ever jokingly or purposely say you got something you ain't got cuz you might get the wrong floor guy that day.

Intentionally misdeclaring your hand, and causing the opponent to muck is a dead hand.

I also wouldn't be opposed to the floor ejecting the player in an overly excessive, baseball umpire style way. "Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu're outta here!"

seems like a standard call based on all the feed back. and it would be great to see the pit toss him out like an umpire with the big fist pump

My question back to the dealer in a loud voice would be, "so it is acceptable here to misdeclare your hand at show down here to get others to fold?" Then I'd sit back and watch the fur fly.

did the angler even attempt to give the pot to the guy who mucked, or was he ready to accept the pot? was it pushed to him?

man if I was at that table and he took the pot, trust me action would be stopped even if I had to stand up onto the table.

yes it was a good ruling.

I agree completely with the ruling. There's even a small chance the second player had something like 87 and shot an angle of his own, but the first player opened himself up to that possibility with his "joke," so too damn bad.
But you people who think he should be ejected are crazy. Even though I agree with the ruling, it's not very well supported by the rule quoted above, due to the "with the intent of causing another player to discard a winning hand" clause. For me, showing his hand goes a long way toward disproving that intent, as well as the description that he "announced nuts jokingly." And even if we rule that there was such an intent, it's quite a stretch from "may result in forfeiture of the pot" to "You're done for the night."

Intention is never as clear as players on forums want it to be.

"Nuts" Can mean

"Darn I missed"

"Dang, I was bluffing and you called."

"I have the best hand possible."

"I have a hand that is terrible but I think it still beats you so in my mind it might as well be the nuts."

"I misread my hand and honestly think I have the best hand."

"I misread the board and honestly think I have the best hand."

"I'm a funny guy and everyone will see I'm joking."

"God I hope he just insta mucks thinking I win."

"Waitress, a bag of peanuts please!"

Dealers are either awesome at the table, or a pain in the ass.

The only problem I have with the ruling is that "the nuts" is not a poker hand. Yeah it's common slang but it's slang. If the guy said "two pair" it's misdeclaring his hand. If he says "9,7 - the shiznit" it's meaningless. In my mind "the nuts" is somewhere in between. It's also extremely common for people to joke about "the nuts" when someone shows a winning hand that was never bet.

That said a dealer voluntarily mentioning that he was involved in what was at best a questionably unethical play at a rival location is a horribly bad idea.

I once announced "nut low" in a heads up NLH pot and tabled my hand (which would be a nut low in a split pot game), the other guy studied it for 5 seconds and mucked his hand

I'm all for the rule about misdeclaring your hand, but I really don't consider saying "nuts" to be a hand declaration. Especially if he turned over his cards as well.

Of course if I were the guy making the joke and were pretty sure the other guy had a better hand I would give him the pot anyway, but I don't think the floor should rule a misdeclaration here.

Agree with everyone. And lol @ strike 4.

Miscaller forfeits pot, and gets the rest of the night off from the casino to work on proper hand identification.

If this repeats, the vacation will be longer.

It's in the rulebook that the same action may have different consequences depending on the player. A fellow dealer should know better, and not do things to obfuscate action or lead to bad feelings. Yeah, everything is fun and games until a table explodes in anger.

If you can't joke around and have fun at a poker table without doing these kinds of things (also not funny: the "all in" joke when you don't have cards), then you should work on it.

I have been instructed to announce "the nuts" when the nuts are tabled.


My ruling?
Ship it to the hand in the muck and suggest to him that he is sure he's beat
before mucking in the future because next floor might not give the same ruling.

Honestly that's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. No reason to give the dealer something else to worry about figuring out, and now what if the dealer makes a mistake announcing it and the other player mucks a winner because of it?

Even saying "the nuts" is not the same as saying "nuts". "The nuts" is slang for "the best possible poker hand". "Nuts" is slang for "I'm frustrated" and seems more likely to mean someone has a missed draw than a great hand.