Yeah I know blah blah protect your action pay more attention yada yada .. show me any rulebook in any card room live or online that stats a player that is fta or has the option to check does NOT have the option to fold.

If I'm dealing I grab his cards and put them in the muck.
If he says "wait" or grabs them before they're mucked, they're live.

If a player says "he mucked", I call the floor to sort it out.

I would like to hear the floor enforce verbal action (dead hand), but I wouldn't count on it.

He said fold, the cards are sitting in front of him, unprotected by a chip or anything else.
They sound released to me.

The dealer didn't make a move to muck them. I take that as evidence that the dealer didn't consider them released. If a player is sitting there with an unprotected hand it doesn't mean he wants the dealer to take it.

saying "Fold" to a bet is binding.

saying "Fold" when Fold isn't an option, isn't binding.

How is Folding not an option, people choose to fold for a variety of reasons when they could check. I have seen a gazillion times someone say fold instead of check on a monotone board, or a board of AAK. And if someone says Fold and I am next to act, I am going to act based on that because I am not some douche who holds up the game because the dealer did not collect the cards yet or the player did not throw them into the muck. He said fold what is ambigious about that?


Now HU on the river I will make sure that they actually muck, but on the flop is is super common for people to fold when they could simply check. And it is allowed so it is an action available to them as surely checking or betting is.

So, on the river, if Player A says "fold" but holds on to his cards, and then Player B says "fold" but holds on to his cards, Player C can demand the pot?

I'm confused why everyone is saying fold isn't an option. It certainly is on PokerStars. You get a message that says "Are you sure you want to fold? Checking is free."

Winner.

This seems like an angle shooters dream rule. We should always protect ourselves by ensuring we see the cards surrendered, but a floor should ensure the game is played fairly and rule the folded hand dead.

You're kidding, right? Whose hand was folded?

What part of he couldn't fold doesn't anyone get?

first off no dealer should ever grab any players cards that have not been pushed forward towards him while the player is still at his seat.

action verbally is usually binding but only if it is clearly made. and saying fold when it isnt a normal option is pushing it too far. if the dealer takes the hand away and kills it what if the player says he didnt say fold and said something else.
it could be an angle or a mistake who knows. but not a dead hand in my book.
even in pokerstars they ask for clarification. so the dealer can ask the player if that was his intention, then if he says yes ask for the cards.

Link this thread to the FAQ please. Great stuff.

While many people don't realize it folding first to act is against the rules in many places. This is because folding can effect the action after you (ie player knows he won't be checkraised by you). It isn't really enforced most places (I did see someone warned about it once at Borgata after they did it a couple times in a row)

There are conmflicting rules on this subject in Robert's Rules of Poker

First, under dead hands:

The qualifier of "facing a bet or a raise" wiould seem to support the hand being in limbo if the player tries to act on it now.

Under BETTING AND RAISING:

This rule could support killing the hand.



also under BETTING ABD RAISING:

Finally, each rooms rule set is different at least to some extent.

I think in my room, the floor would kill the hand since action had occured and the player did say fold, in turn.

I would ask for the players cards as soon as he said fold since that is our rooms policy. we are to kill any folded hand as son as possible. With the statement of "fold" being made, even without a specific action to the player, I would ask for the cards to muck them.

If folding "isn't really one of their options", and the player tosses his hand in, why then shouldn't the dealer just push the cards back to the player. Saying fold may not be normal, but it happens, saying bet and not placing chips isn't "normal" either, but the verbal bet is enforced. Binding a player to a verbal fold under the conditions listed in the OP is reasonable.

I would suggest that MOST players would in fact decide that the verbal fold is in fact binding( in the OP the cards were unprotected on the felt, not in his hand).
Your statement still arguable if the hand is still in his possession. The problem here is the dealer made the exacerbated the situation by allowing the action to continue without attempting to muck the hand either by grabbing it or asking for it.

We can't make the player keep their cards if they really don't want to. Strictly speaking I think the cards should go back to the player, but that is so far from how it is done traditionally that I will continue to muck the hands when they are discarded into the center of the table. BTW when a player throws his cards away when not facing a bet he still has not folded, he has "checked out." That is he has checked and is out of the hand.

I'm not being sarcastic - this is a serious question.

I cannot find the term "checked out" in any set of poker rules or by googling. Is this a real term?

Yes. When a player does it the dealer announces "checked out." It means they checked and threw away their hand.

Potawatomie, Milwaukee, WI has a rule against open folding. Dealers will issue warnings to a player who tries to open fold facing no bet. Yesterday, in the 3-6 game I was in the dealer reiterated the player's options: "Check or bet." The player tried to fold. "Check or bet," he said again sternly before the player realized that folding was not an option.

Of course, if the player throws away his hand, it will be mucked, but with a warning not to do it again. While, I have not seen a penalty asserted against a player who has done this more than once, it is the house rule.

If the floor rules the hand live, shouldn't he rewind the action and let the other players reconsider their bets and raises?

Call it what you want.
If a player says fold, and I can reach his unprotected hand, I'm mucking it. Unless the player stops me.

Tell a player he can't fold then he catches a draw on the turn and loses his stack,
he's mad at me for not letting him fold (check out?).

He catches the turn and river and wins the pot,
the other players are mad at me for not letting him fold (check out?).

________________


I agree it's poor etiquette to fold to no action.
And I might explain this after the hand.
But during the hand it's one player to a hand.

If the button folds out of turn I'm mucking the hand then asking his to act in turn in the future.

I think that would be the worst floor decision yet.

I can't believe his verbal action isn't binding. I don't play in B&M a lot, perhaps 10 times a year. But I would have acted based on this players verbal declaration. I'm glad to know now that it is a potential point of ambiguity.

I can only go off my own online experience. I know you can "fold" a hand at any point, especially when checking is an option. Hell, my wife occasionally folds in the BigBlind preflop, in an unraised pot!

I hate disagreeing with RR, since it normally means I'm wrong, but regardless I'm in the 'dead hand' camp. Perhaps the best way to deal with this when called over as a floorman would be to ask Player A if he did indeed say 'fold' (OP states that Player A confirmed he did say it), and then ask him why he still has cards in his hand if he has folded. Clearly by raising, he had no intent in folding, so it would appear that his sole intent was to deceive the other two players in the hand.

Personally, I think this type of action is counter to the spirit of the game, if perhaps within the black-and-white rules. I would advise Player A that folding to no action is not a valid choice but now that there has been significant action based on his perceived fold, his action will stand and his hand is dead. He can take back his bets but he must surrender his hand.

The dealer also gets reminded after they are relieved that they need to address invalid actions when they happen in order to prevent situations like this from happening.

Thoughts?

Well otherwise it would lead open a huge angleshoot. If I was a huge jerk, I'd just declare fold from EP all day long and wait to see the action before deciding what to do.