Player 8 is giving player 7 a freeroll everytime he turns over player 7s cards that would otherwise be mucked without showing.

I disagree that it would be a bad rule.

Protecting your hand is all ready a core rule and principle in card games. It's not unusual to see a hand ruled dead when a player fails to do so. Applying some of these concepts at showdown is both logical and practical.

I am guessing your argument is something about players grabbing each other's cards all the time in an attempt to kill hands? That behavior would not be tolerated.

I am ok with player 7 being awarded the pot in this scenario, but not the one provided in OP.

Though player 8 should still face penalties for bad behavior.

I hope they gave the pot to Seat 6.

The violation of OPTAH by Seat 8 is extreme. Probably the most extreme I have ever heard of.

It would be like Seat 7 tanking and Seat 8 throwing in a calling bet from Seat 7's stack.

I don't care that Seat 7 has the best hand. He didn't know it and he did nothing to table it.

The key factor for me in all of this is that the dealer was reaching to muck Seat 7's cards and Seat 7 did nothing to intervene. Had Seat 8 not beaten the dealer to Seat 7's hand, the dealer would have mucked them because Seat 7 wasn't trying to get there too.

Rick you don’t know and can’t know if 7 might have realized the winning hand and still managed to beat dealer to the cards. 8 being faster than 7 and dealer does not mean dealer is quicker than 7.

I would not object to the floor ruling 6 wins based on rule 1. That is not how I think it should go but I am not the floor. I would object to using bad interpretations or creating new bad rules to make that decision.

I think everyone sees 6 as blameless and most see the same for 7. Also I think all agree that 8 was the one to blame and he coul or should be punished. If 8 was a regular in the room and frequently acted like this or was always shooting angles and if the pot were substantial but 8 stack covered, I might even give 8 an option. 8 you make 6 whole or you get a ban until you choose to.

If the pot isn’t substantial, then I send 8 home for??? and make 6 whole from the house. But I don’t see punishing 7 for what 8 did

I am 99.8% certain that Seat 7 would not have beaten the Dealer to his cards. According to the OP Seat 7 hadn't even moved towards his cards.

My interest in this hand is not in punishing seat 8 though I think he should be punished.

My interest is in doing what is right as far as rewarding the pot.

In every other OPTAH case I have seen or heard of, including several that I have personally been screwed by, the player with the winning hand intervened after he was given hints or outright told what to do and tabled his own hand.

This case is different in that Seat 7 did not in any way attempt to intervene on his own behalf and the dealer was on his way towards mucking the hand.

Reading your own hand is part of the game. Seat 7 misread his hand and in no way was going to alter his assessment in time.

Making Seat 8 pay for his mistake is ludicrous. If the casino attempted to do that, I would stop playing there. And just so you know I have been in Seat 8's shoes and voluntarily gave $60 to a player who lost a pot because of something I said at showdown (actually it was ruled a chopped pot but it became obvious later that it should have been awarded to the player I screwed).

Note I said if he did things like this often. If it was an exception then yes ludicrous but if common make him pay.

Btw, if you acted like this frequently, it would not bother me at all if you stop playing there. Such a p**** hurts the game in the long run even if he is a whale.

Good discussion. The floor ruled that seat 6 got the pot. Btw, I was the dealer in this hand. I reached for seat 7s cards as soon as my hand finished mucking seat 8s cards. Seat 8s hand cut right in front of mine just before i would have grabbed the cards. One second later and I would have swept the cards nto the muck. Seat 7 at no time made any effort to regain control of his cards. Being new I doubt he even knew that was an option. Plus, I doubt he realized he won anyway.

I see how people can come down on both sides of this issue. After looking at the wording of the various rules, and considering the matter of fairness, it is my opinion that only the Player whose cards they are can retrieve a hand he has proactively discarded and table them. I think another player doing it is simply exposing the cards and does not override the action of the player and change the winner of the hand. So imo it matters how two cards ended up face up on the felt when determining whether they are considered tabled and live. I believe the player must be the one actively tabling the hand. YMMV.

So what if I am 8 and 7 throws his cards toward the muck. But my big hands get in the way accidentally get hit by the cards and they land face up? What if 7 claims he bounced them off my mits on purpose? What if I intentionally move my hands in the way? How do you know which if any of these “moves” are accidental or intentional?

I still think all the rules say to define a tabled hand is on felt face up at showdown

I'm guessing you don't play poker much.

This kind of thing comes up once in a blue moon. And once warned I haven't ever seen a player do it again.

But that wasn't the point in my example. I always help the dealers when they make mistakes at showdown. I never let a wrong declaration of hand strength be the final decider. Over the years I have helped steer the pot to the correct person many times. This was the one time that when I was mistaken (along with others) it went the wrong way. Nobody from the casino spoke to me about it. Nor did either of the players in the hand. When I gave the guy the money across the table the next time I saw him (like 6 days later) I'm not sure he even knew why I did it.

This would actually be interesting.
Truly an angleshot...

The beauty of the rules is that intention doesn't matter. This way people who lie have no advantage when rulings are made.
We agree to disagree.

I quoted the rules that show the grammar structure that shows that the action must be taken by the player. But on a broader point, in a set of rules that is pretty clear about other players not interfering or influencing another players actions as a general principal of the game, that those rules would state that any player can table any other players hand even if That player has discarded his hand? I dont think that passes the common sense test.

“ beauty of the rules is that intention doesn't matter. This way people who lie have no advantage when rulings are made.”

Except, those giving pot to 6 ARE basing it on the intentions of 7. Those arguments depend on the intention of 7 to fold.

I agree that things this egregious are rare and usually people do stop when warned. But I also saw a passenger get kicked off a plane because he refused to stop th F-bomb after more than one warning with his buddy next to him desperately trying to stop him. Some people just can’t help themselves.

We already KNOW the it is NOT always required that the player table his own hand. If 6 invokes IWTSTH the dealer will table the hand. I agree the rules expect it will be a player tabling his own hand. But given there is a known exception weakens those arguments.

We can certainly see things differently and agree to disagree.

Its not the intention that matters to me. Its the fact that he wouldn't have been able to get to the cards fast enough to table them. Even if Seat 7's intention was to try to get to the hand in time it wouldn't have mattered.

The thing I hate about the way the OPTAH rule is applied in casinos is that they pretend that the player who got illegal advice would possibly have made the decision on his own.

That is almost never the case. And yet the intention of the player is never the final consideration. It is the legal opportunity he had to table his hand if the OPTAH violator hadn't intervened.
Yes and I saw the biggest fish in the 20/40 LHE game at FW get thrown out for a year because he wouldn't stop threatening to kill the dealer because his hand was killed when he was on the phone. I tried to convince the Floor "I will kill him" in Greek would translate to "I don't like him" in English. But that didn't work.
The beauty of life and what makes poker fun!

So, the hand is not properly tabled. But the cards are face up oin the felt. And the hand is not dead.

So....what now? As a dealer do you just stare dumbly at the face up cards, then after no one realizes that they do not meet the very pedantic definition of a properly tabled hand, you kill the face up winning hand? What would the player have to do to table his non-dead hand? Does he need to turn them over and table them again, or can he just tap them?

-Cards speak
-Hands cannot be "folded" at showdown
-A hand is only dead if it's not retrievable

Imagine a situation where a player tries to muck their hand at showdown, and it hits the table at a weird angle and reveals that he had a backdoor flush that he missed. That's basically what happened in this situation.

In the letter of the rule yes, seat 7's hand is live and "should" be awarded the pot but in reality this is a situation where a floor person's ruling can be different in regards to fairness of the game which is usually one of the last posted rules in most cardrooms. Seat six did what he was suppose to do and properly tabled his hand, seat seven makes the action of mucking and the dealer immediately tries to kill it but is beaten by seat eight who had no business interfering which is what that person did.

If I were a floor I would rule seat six the winner of the hand in the interest of fairness tell seat seven he made the intention of mucking and the only reason his hand was tabled was that seat eight interfered and hand seat eight a rack and tell him to have a nice 24-72 hours off from poker.

Imo if there is a clear ruling that we can draw from the rules, "in the interest of the game" shouldn't apply. Otherwise, a floor could literally just rule whatever the "consensus" of the table is, or whatever the regs think should happen, etc.

"In the interest of the game" exists specifically as an override of the technical rules where fairness and integrity are prioritized. Floorpersons are given a lot of discretion by design. To say that it shouldn't apply to situations that are covered by a clear rule is to misunderstand its purpose.

How is that “a fact”? The players sit next to each other so there’s a good chance seat 7 could have grabbed the cards unless he has T-Rex arms. Would he have enough time to do it? All we know is that OP was about to grab them but we have no idea if seat 8 would have been able to stop him otherwise for example by yelling “fire” or if OP would have missed the cards while trying to muck them.

I agree with that 100%.

That is just silly.

OP has indicated that Seat 7 made no effort whatsoever to retrieve his hand.

And are you seriously making the case that Seat 8 could have violated OPTAH in a different way to help Seat 7 table his cards? That is just totally immoral.

If this were a trial and I was on the jury (and I have been on several) it is well beyond a reasonable doubt that Seat 7 would not have tabled his own hand.

That is absolutely not "basically what happened".

As a dealer you stop and call the floor for a decision on how to treat this situation.

A comment on this issue of having identifiable cards face up on the felt and whether that means they must be considered tabled and live. Imagine that in this same scenario, rather than seat 8 turning over the cards, another player had invoked the IWTSTH rule. So the dealer would expose the cards face up on the felt. They are obviously identifiable as the players cards. Yet no one would suggest (Idont think) that at that point the player could decide that he wants to undo his mucking of the cards and declare them tabled. Yet they were retrievable, identifiable, and face up on the felt. Clearly there are situations in the rules where cards can be face up on the table, clearly identifiable, and yet the player who discarded his hand is no longer permitted to declare he has changed his mind and wants to table them. Some argue that the hand must be live bc the mucking player was cheated out of an opportunity ( as of yet unused) to change his mind. But the same thing happens when a player asks to see a hand as soon as a player discards the hand. In fact, players either ask before the hand is even discarded, or immediately after, Bc they know that they must ask before the dealer buries them in the muck. so any iwtsth request will also deprive a player of the right to change his mind

Ibelieve seat 8s exposing of seat 7s cards is more analogous to a iwtsth by the non-winning player than any other situation. But in this case, rather than asking the dealer to expose the hand, he took it upon himself to do it.

So I believe the rules are more nuanced than a simple "face up on felt Always means they must be live" Interpretation.

since i got a captive audience i'll derail a bit

cbet on flop and villain goes into the tank

i just stare at the felt, don't hear anything but see dealer beginning to grab all the cards and pot together so i assume he folded, i push my cards forward and to the side a little bit (villain and i at opposite ends, seat 3? and 7?) so dealer can grab them and ship me the pot

dealer grabs my cards first and ships the pot to the other player

i'm like "wtf" dealer tells me he called and i folded

i asked why on earth would i fold? i reach for my cards (they're still separate) and dealer sees this and thoroughly mixes them first

i call floor, floor rules that i mucked my hand so awarded pot to other player, had top two pair, no way i was folding when my cbet gets called

is this standard? happened at wynn macau

Yes, that’s exactly the case I am making. Nobody says what seat 8 did was OK. But that’s not the point at all. OPTAH violations usually don’t kill other players hands.

If seat 8 yelled “stop” resulting in OP to freeze and then told seat 7 he has the winner and needs to turn his cards over, there should be zero discussion about who wins the pot. At that point seat 7 clearly would hold the best tabled hand. There’s nothing in the rules indicating that seat 7s hand should be dead. Seat 8 has to be punished after the pot has been shipped to seat 7.

The only thing people really have different opinions about is wether seat 8 physically flipping over the cards resulted in a tabled hand or not. One group of posters says “yes, that hand should be considered tabled and live by rule”. Others disagree and say “that hand shouldn’t be considered tabled”. I am in camp 1 but think awarding the pot to seat 6 anyway is a justifiable call based on the best interest of the game.

@rickroll: something relatively similar happened to me in the past. What I learned from that was next time I have to grab my cards back first before addressing the dealer.