Saw this tonight in my NLHE game, was a new situation for me.

Three limpers, small blind completes, action is on the big blind.

Dealer burns a card and the top card off the deck (which would be first card of flop) flips up and over onto the felt, face up for everyone to see.

Dealer is about to put out the other two cards to compete the flop but big blind says "uh, I haven't acted yet."

Dealer says "oh, my bad."

The face up card remains on the table and dealer says "action on big blind."

Big blind announces a raise and puts the chips out.

The dealer asks "uh, are all players ok with that?"

"Sure" say two of the limpers, the other two say nothing.

Dealer says "ok, action on seat 4" -- the player next to act after the big blind raiser. Two of the limpers fold, two call and we are three handed.

The dealer then puts out the next two cards off the deck next to the card that had flipped up, making a three card flop.

Now an argument opens up.

"Hey, that first card should be burned."

"Hey, that first card should be set off to the side and not used."

"Hey, that first card should be shuffled back in."

Floor man is called.

What is your ruling?

First, KITN to dealer for not calling floor over immediately to make a ruling and explain what will happen to all players.

Second, there is no standard procedure for this. One thing is for sure, the card cannot simply stand as the first card of the flop.

I would probably just burn the card then put out the next 3 as the flop, then no burn, then proceed as normal, so only the one card would be different. I would probably not shuffle it back before dealing the flop, or set the card aside and shuffle it before the river, but wouldn't find too much fault with those either.

Hey, no fair... you didn't give me a ruling. :-)

When you are called to the table, you have preflop betting action with the exposed card, and now three cards on the flop including the exposed card.

Yes, I did.

Action stands. Pick up the premature card and kill it, put out the top card on the deck as the third flop card. Continue with flop betting. If needed, no burn and put the turn out. Proceed as normal thereafter.

You should still burn a card. The purpose of the burns is to protect the top of the stub, not preserve card order.

Oh. When you said "put out the next 3 as the flop" I thought you were explaining what you would have done if you were in the box.

I'm with Dinesh. Floor should have been called right away so players know what will happen with that card. Once action is finished, put the next 3 cards out and use the exposed card as the burn card for the turn. I'd have the dealer put that card face up on top of the stub during flop action to minimize possible subsequent screwups and keep the turn card covered.

An argument could be made for shuffling that card back into the stub either before or after the flop is put out but it's way more disruptive. Using this simpler method only one flop card is lost.

I agree with Dinesh on how it SHOULD have been handled, but it's too late for that now. Like it or not, the BB made his raise with the understanding that he knew one of the flop cards (like in Courcheval), and no one objected. It's too late for them to object now. Flop stays as is, play continues. You can't take back a card that everyone has now acted on, but expect that previous action to stand.

Only other fair solution is to void the hand and give everyone their money back.

But was it really clear that the flop card was going to remain? Surely the logical conclusion to draw is that the flop card wasn't going to remain, as that is the standard in situations where later cards are prematurely exposed.

I am with chillrob, it’s too late for players to object now. Doesn’t really matter if they did understand it correctly in the first place.

FWIW, standard procedure is for the dealer to tell BB that he thought he had checked with at least two of the limpers agreeing with seeing the check. Then we just play the flop and everyone is happy (except for BB).

I categorically disagree with that. If I were a player in that situation, I would think I was agreeing to letting the BB decide on an action PF, not agreeing that a single card exposed prematurely was going to remain in the flop after the BB sees it and then gets to decide on his PF action. That is such a bad and wrong idea it would never even occur to me to clarify that it wasn't going to be set aside and a new flop put out.

I agree with this except how to proceed. The exposed card should be shuffled into the deck and the flop dealt without a burn. If you aren't give the card a chance to come out again, then there is no reason an exposed turn or river to be shuffled in. The question in my mind is when to shuffle it. Do you deal the rest of the flop and then shuffle before the third card, or should it be shuffle in first and then deal the flop? I'd lean towards the former.

Why would people assume that allowing BB to act would allow a prematurely exposed flop card to remain in play?

This is a fair point, but there are some complexities to this:

* Shuffling an exposed card back into the stub makes the card more likely to appear than any other unknown card (because you know it's in the stub, and not possibly in one of your opponent's hands). Not shuffling it back in obviously makes it less likely (as in, 0% likely).

* Setting an early turn aside and shuffling it in before the river balances these two forces nicely, as gives it the closest chance to appear as any other unknown card. This mitigates the changes in EV you'd see for drawing hands as fairly as possible.

* I haven't run the numbers, but shuffling a card in before the flop (making it more likely to be in the stub, and giving it 5 chances to appear rather than 1) seems like it would dramatically increase the chance of seeing the card. I don't like this. It obviously also changes the other cards which would have been on the board, which doesn't bother me as much, but is a key thing we try to maintain if possible.

* Shuffling the card in before the turn or river might make the numbers more even, but add additional delay which just doesn't feel right. Also they give the potential for additional error as you have another card you have to keep track of and make sure not to accidentally muck.

* Not shuffling it in might be less fair, but if you tell the players that it will happen before you re-do the flop, then anyone who is drawing for that card to appear (read: set mining) can just fold and get out for a small amount, so the damage is somewhat self-limiting. In the normal early turn or river procedures, the player will have already invested more to get to that point, so the unfairness is also magnified.

Overall, I think I still prefer my solution, but I'm less sure about it now. Shuffling it in might well be slightly better, but figuring out where to do so best would require some math which I definitely couldn't do tableside in the heat of the moment. I would probably choose to do it before the river just to make the procedure as familiar as possible to all involved.

Finally, to respond to one other point raised, I agree you usually want to keep your burn cards to protect the integrity of the deck, but we also balance this against a desire to keep the order of the cards if possible in some situations where the burn serves no contextually legitimate purpose. In this case it's so farfetched to think that this situation is the result of planned collusion that it doesn't bother me not to have one in this edge case. Having said that, if the card were somehow marked, this would expose the turn card while flop betting was going forward, so I guess I wouldn't be too upset to see the top card burned here either, it's just not my gut instinct.

Interesting discussion guys, thanks.

Addressing chillrob's point (rob may have actually played in this room?): I agree with dinesh's objection. When I agreed to move forward in the hand, for example, I assumed that I was agreeing to move forward with a fresh flop. It never occurred to me that we would somehow leave the exposed card on the flop.

The floor's decision was to leave the two new cards out and re-shuffle the exposed card into the deck. This would have been my preference, too, as it gives that exposed card a chance to come out on the flop.

I do like the idea to set out the turn and river cards before re-shuffling the exposed card back in.

Fair point. But if a entire flop is premature, they shuffle all three in before re-dealing the flop. That would make all three known cards with a higher chance of coming out at some point. As I said in my post, I'm not sure the best solution on when to shuffle. Maybe, in this case since only one card was exposed, shuffle in before the river.


You have the same potential, albeit less likely, for additional error with a premature turn. But mucking the exposed card, in my mind, isn't a concern since everyone knows what the card is.


Which, on the other hand, potentially harms the eventually winner to have people looking for the card if they know it's not coming. The mistake happened and someone is going have the potential to harmed in this.


We agree here. This is so rare it is unlikely to be collusion between the dealer and a player. It is just figuring out the best way to proceed, which the floor should be deciding AND announcing before proceeding so everyone can make a choice in their best interest.

Never. If those cards are some how marked, someone in the hand may know what is coming.

Next card on the stub is going to replace the exposed card. The exposed card becomes the next burn card (burn before turn) and is placed back on top of the stub. Hand plays out normally from here. Anything else is just putting way too much thought into something that is very simple.

If you're going to re-shuffle I'd do it before the flop.

No way in hell should any player believe that card is staying out there. If the dealer gets confused and actually tells players it will stay then you might have to void the hand.

One reason I like the no-shuffle solution is it becomes very close to how you handle a 4 card flop by the book.

Hmm, I assumed that the big blind at least thought the card was staying. Maybe he didn't, but I don't know how you guys can assume no one thought it would stay, when apparently the dealer thought it would.

I mostly just don't care whether anyone thought it would stay. It's silly that anyone would think that, but even outside of that judgement, their beliefs do not factor in to the ruling at all.

The exposed card on the flop can't stay.

And it shouldn't be used as a burn card. Especially without an explanation before everyone has acted. Standard procedure on premature turns always allow for the exposed card to reappear on the river. For the reasons that Dinesh gave. So there are likely some players who expect that the exposed card has a chance to return.

I would likely rule that it would be shuffled in for the turn. This would be to compensate for the fact that it had no chance to come out on the flop. So the exposed card would have about twice as much chance as any other card of showing up on the turn or river, which would compensate for the three chances it no longer has to come out on the flop.

Again, maybe it is silly, but it is obviously what the dealer meant when he asked if everyone was ok with it, and no one objected. I don't think someone should be penalized because he was the only one who properly understood what the dealer was saying.

In retrospect it might have been obvious what the dealer meant, but I don't agree it was obvious at the time. Rather the opposite.

I would want to know what happened. Allowing the action to continue without a floor call is a serious problem. If the dealer pulled in the pre-flop bets, tapped the table, burned and counted 3 cards off the deck, I would rule the big blind did not protect his action.

If he didn't do these things, there is a reason we always did these things in this order.