The floor should run for Congress. He'd fit right in with our elected officials while doing interviews and town hall meetings. You know....get asked a very specific, yet simple question, and instead of answering it, just keep rattling off the same garbage over and over that is of NO help and in now ways answers the question. Yep, he may be an elected official moonlighting as the poker room floor.

I think the question the player asks is a very very good one. So if he'd reached over and slapped the dealer's hand, like you would a child when they reach for a hot oven, the floor would have kicked him out and maybe banned him. So the question is valid....what form of "protection" of the hand does the casino allow?

I was just about to say the same thing. You don't reach over and pull someone's card into the muck, while their hand is on it and call it "unintentional".

It is the player's responsibility to protect their hand. As others have mentioned, one of the things they are protecting it from is the dealer taking it. In fact I would say the main thing they are protecting it from is the dealer taking it as that happens more often than someone else mixing their cards with it. If people never made mistakes and were never dishonest, you wouldn't have to protect your hand.

You can always escalate it up beyond the floor, unless the floor just happens to be the owner of the casino.

Find out who runs the poker room. If it is the same idiot that told you he was the boss, move it up. Write them an email/letter, let them know it is now on 2+2 and many people are asking the name of the place so they can avoid it. Since you have many friends on 2+2, you're going to reluctantly have to let them know soon. You much rather be able to post that the management realized this is handled poorly and promise that it won't happen again.

If they don't respond, don't go back.

OK since the consensus is pretty much that floor acted very poorly, I'm going to find out a way to escalate this to upper management and quote the thread. I won't out the casino just yet so they can take a look at the thread and decide if they want to be embarrassed.

Once again I wasnt the actual player involved, my motivation is that all hands held in players' hands should be considered as 'protected', and the floor can't just act like a dick and expect to get away with it. I've also previously had a discussion with this floor over a different issue and felt that he was very arrogant about it but I just let it go... seeing him do this to another player just made my boil and I think the suggestions here are good.

Will keep you guys updated.

In general, or in this case specifically? When you make a mistake at your job, do you get punched in the face? This is such a bizarre attitude.

Uh.

I think you'd have a better case trying to present a clear story and expressing your displeasure with the floor's customer service. I don't think you'll make much headway with, "Hey, I gave my biased report to these random anonymous internet trolls, and they agreed with me! So there in your face point set match!"

However, think of it from this perspective: Players who are demonstrably completely 100% wrong still like to argue, and they like to do it at the table. In those cases, a proper floor reaction is give a ruling, walk away. From the outside, how does your case appear any different?

If you want to have a conversation on hypotheticals, do so away from the table, and not at a time when you're emotionally heated. By trying to trap him at the table, you're putting him in a no-win situation. That's simply unfair on your part.

Of course that's the consensus, as you've presented all the facts in the case. Nobody has anything but your word that the dealer physically took cards out of the player's hand, rather than, say, the player holding the cards forward past the betting line.

This is no different than, "hay guyz, I bet $25 and the dealer put it in his pocket and told me to put out another $25, I told him he pocketed it, and then he denied having done it. Who's right?" Obviously, based on your description of the event, you are. However, there may be competing descriptions of the event and memory is notoriously faulty (the more you play the situation in your head, the more you'll skew your memory to match what you anticipate).

Objective evidence is key, such as a videotape.

You will be laughed out of the room. Seriously, merits aside, how much weight would you give to someone who comes in to your poker room, says that a horrible injustice occurred, and his friends on the Internet back him up?

You may very well be right, but basically the time window for correcting this expires when the overhead videotapes are deleted. The correct action here is to go to a manager and ask them to review the tapes from that night, filling in the conversation to the best of your memory.

Hasn't everybody snatched their cards back from a dealer at least once? I can think of a couple times I physically reached out and yanked my cards out of the dealer's hand or put my fingers on the cards harder than the dealer's fingers were on 'em to stop the slide, and both were at showdown when the dealer was trying to muck my winner.

Don't be shy about protecting the cards. Don't go to the extreme of breaking the dealer's hand, or otherwise getting charged with battery, but if the dealer is trying to reach under your hand to take your cards why aren't you doing something about it?

I've actually seen players glare at the dealer as they do something like this, and intentionally let it happen all the while trying to kill the dealer with their eyes, and only when it cannot be fixed suddenly say "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!?!" So sorry, but the time has passed that the dealer can be corrected, sir. You lose. And your righteous indignation that you aren't to blame for this because the dealer did it all isn't going to bring the cards back to life.

'Course the dealer in OP's example was wrong. But the cards are toast. If the room uses the dumbass rule that any partial bets have to stay, even if the player isn't aware of the action in front of him, the floor should pull $5 outta the tray for the player. It'd be cheap public relations. Dealers shouldn't be folding someone's cards when they are asking a rules question. And when you have a dumbass rule like partial bets have to stay, the answer to "can I fold" should not be "yes"--you can pretty much ALWAYS fold--it's obvious the actual question is "what are my options?" Answer the question you know the player intended to ask.

In this case, the correct answer to "can I fold" should have been "the $5 has to stay, but you can fold and forfeit the $5, or you can complete the bet to $10." The Vegas Monte Carlo dealers are very good about answering "can I fold" like this.

"Fine, the next time the dealer comes near my cards, I'm protecting my hand by breaking every bone in his."

I forgot to mention that floor also refused to go to videotape when Seat 9 requested.

I just think a room needs to be run properly because they rake us enough as it is.

Again. All that the Floor could/should have done is apologize for the mistake and give him his $5 back. His hand is in the muck, no matter where you lay the blame.

Can we hear what room this is please? Otherwise what's the point? Some of us are curious to know if this matches up to any other stories from played rooms.

Damn, bav, you been working out?

In flop games, a hand is considered to be protected if it is under a chip or being held. A dealer grabbing cards out of a player's hand is way out of line.

Floor should back their dealers when the dealer is right, but not when the dealer is wrong.

Where did this happen? Floor's rude behavior should be reported to the highest supervisor you can find.

It has been my experience that most video tapes (disks) are kept for thirty days at a minimum. OP has an obligation to report the Floor's unprofessional behavior.

I took that to mean that if the dealer really can 'unintentionally' reach across a table, 'unintentionally' grab cards out of a players hand, and 'unintentionally' sweep them and a bet into the muck and pot, that the dealer is probably a danger to himself and others. What else might he do 'unintentionally'? He should seek treatment so as not to 'unintentionally' kick his boss in the jimmy, or 'unintentionally' steal an old lady's purse, or 'unintentionally' eat a box of thumb tacks.

I'm willing to believe there's more to the story than in the OP. For one, the player asked, "Can I fold?" I agree the dealer should not grab cards out of peoples' hands, and I'd say for this to have gotten this far is the sign of a bad dealer in general, who's more interested in technicalities than in running a good game.

I just find it odd to wish violence or harm on someone else, even in jest. Especially based on a biased half-told story.

was this in vegas or la

This happened at Crown Casino in Melbourne Australia during the Victorian Poker Championships last week. I was there for the tournament which concluded and I've flown out but I know a couple of higher ups that I might email with. My interest in this is also due to Aussie Millions in January which I'll play along with lots on 2p2 I'm sure.. and it's just not right for a reputed casino's floor to act in this manner.

pfapfap, I love your imagination but my version was not biased. I wasnt involved in the hand, is it wrong to be concerned when a player's hand gets mucked incorrectly and dealer protected by an arrogant floor? I think not.

It doesn't matter if your version to us is 100% accurate truth. The point is appearances. Printing out this thread will not help you at all. Arguing with a floor at the table will not help you at all.

This is correct. I didn't mean the player in question should hospitalise the dealer. Just that something like this is not an unintentional action. The dealers intent probably wasn't to cause a scene or a player to lose a fiver but the action that resulted in those certainly was intentional.

I like this comparison better than any of the previous (the Chris Elliott comparison was particularly painful, though probably far more accurate than this one). It was a drunk Canadian who claimed "oh come on, you've gotta have heard this before--you look JUST LIKE HIM". Beer goggles, obviously.

Heh.

Frankly, I prefer Chris Elliott. He's funny! Ed Begley's no slouch, either.

So you gonna cut and gel your hair like that now?

Stop trolling my thread pfapfap, firstly making fictional accusation of me being biased hiding something.. and now just posting 100% off-topic crap with NO CONTENT with someone that you could easily carry on in private message.

GTFO

Fair enough, sorry about that. I've been playing more online lately, and I'm a nit, so idle hands...

Also, sorry to make it seem I was accusing you of anything. Usually people give biased versions of events that happened to them, and there seemed to be details missing, so I went with the idea that it's possible there's more than you saw or heard. Even still, in my first post, I shared your indignation.

Anyway, I was speaking more perception, and giving reasons why it's a bad idea to print out this thread and present it to the floor. From his point of view you're someone with a biased tale and an axe to grind, and saying "but but but these folks agreed with my version!" only hurts you. I wasn't intending to accuse you of lying, just trying to illustrate how it would seem to those you're trying to convince. That's all it was.

Trying to help, not troll or threadjack. I have an odd style and sense of humor sometimes, and don't always think how it'll be interpreted.

(But hey, it sort of illustrates how good intentions poorly executed can lead to unsatisfying results.)

That's actually a classy reply from you sir, well played & thank you.