Florida Poker Room
$1-2 game
8 handed
$7 UTG straddle
2 call the straddle, I raise to $27 on the button
SB calls $27
Next player calls
Next player says All In, pushes forward some chips
I say All In on the Button, shove a $300 stack
SB FOLDS AND THROWS HIS CARDS INTO THE MUCK IN FRONT OF THE DEALER
Next player hesitates for a while and realizes that I cannot shove because the reraise was not for enough chips.
Floor is called.
Floor says he is giving the SB back $27 from the pot
I say “How can you justify taking money out of the pot?”
Floor says “You are right. SB was damaged by the misinformation you presented with your illegal raise so I am giving him his hand back.
I say “His cards are mixed up in the muck in front of the dealer.”
Floor says “He will tell me what he had and I will retrieve it”
SB walks a few feet from the table with Floor, they whisper, SB gets his hand back.

Regardless of the outcome, was this appropriate?
Thanks in advance for any learned opinions.


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No, asking a player to tell him cards so he can pull them out of the muck is almost never right, and this example isn't one of the few exceptions. While it is true that dealer should have caught the illegal raise, SB has an interest in the hand as well and needs to protect his own hand and action by slowing down and asking for clarification. He chose to fold his $27 instead (possibly very quickly). My ruling would be that he forfeited the right to act after your misinformed all-in when he folded, so his $27 stays in and he folds. (NB: if you are a known angler in the room, my opinion on this would change significantly.)

If his hand had been clearly retrievable, I would absolutely have given him his hand back however, and allowed him to act on the first raise after you did (call or fold, presumably). That would clearly be the best outcome unless the other player's all-in was monetarily quite close to yours.

Giving the player his $27 back (honestly, giving him $20 back would be what should really happen if he goes this route, the initial $7 straddle call should never be refunded) is not a good ruling either, but as a rule 1 ruling it's maaaaybe preferrable to giving him two cards he claims to have had back.

You also do have some blame to shoulder - your raise was not legal, and presumably you should have known that, or asked if it was close enough to need a count. Your mistake is the one that caused all this trouble, so that is another reason to lean towards making an accommodation to the SB in one way or another.

Dealer gets a KITN most likely, unless your multiple allins and the SB fold happened too fast for him to keep control of and notice your raise was not legal.

Sadly some floors go crazy when you challenge their authority and go on a power trip. In this case he turned a questionable ruling into a horrible ruling. Honestly sounds like you’re lucky he didn’t rule your hand dead as well lol

Thorough post. The above really drives home how insane it is to give SB any money back.

When I was reading the OP I was thinking: Well if we give him any money back, then it would be $26 because he posted the $1 blind.

Then you brought up that he was "facing" a $7 straddle when he called the $27. But he wasn't facing $7! He was facing and called a $27 bet. There is no sensible reason to give him all but $7 back when he called a legal $27 bet, and so there is no sensible reason to give back any amount we can come up with for that same reason.

Something similar happened in a tourney a few weeks ago. I sit down, first hand dealer hands an extra card to the button, I see him handing a card back and a bunch of people mucking, I incorrectly say misdeal and the guy next to me folds too, it wasn’t a misdeal (I got a warning I know I was wrong but the way the cards were all thrown forward at the same time it looked like a misdeal. Moral of the story he’s calling floor asking the floor to retrieve his cards. Even though they were at the top of the muck no dice

It's on the dealer to declare the illegal raise and change it into a call. Preferably immediately before any other player acts on it.

If the mistake is noticed after SB folds but before his hand ends up in the muck, I'm ok with giving it back to him. As soon as it's mixed it with the other cards I don't think that should be an option anymore.

If the casino decides to refund the player his $27 I'm certainly not opposed to that. But that money obviously shouldn't come out of the pot.

Yup it was horrible, especially for a supervisor to say “You are right. SB was damaged by the misinformation you presented with your illegal raise so I am giving him his hand back."

The dealer should be the one he should be reprimanding, not the player who made the bet.

Depends if he said those are my two cards and then said what they were and floor retrieved them or if they were really mixed in.

They were really mixed in.


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Def the Dealer needs to stop the bus after OP/2nd all-in, but there's a reasonable amount of time to allow for this as well.

Rooms have different policies on counting down bets versus all-ins, including differences between cash and tournaments. TDA now wants all bets counted down immediately EXCEPT all-ins .. a direct flip from previous versions. Obviously there's still the Dealer's responsibility to the other rules of bets/raises and this spot

SB is responsible for protecting their action as BB has done here.

The Floor rulings could be all over the map here .. we don't know the exact chip difference or stack sizes here but I'll leave the door open to some variations. But I'm definitely NOT going to consider returning 'identifiable' cards until I've heard a pretty good story.

We don't like considering relative $$ in rulings, but if we are considering going off the hard line then I think it has to be considered here. Taking chips out of the pot after multiple (attempted) aggressive actions might be a fair consolation prize in lieu of digging into the muck. GL

The cards were not identifiable from the backs in any way, they were mixed into the muck and were fished out by the floorman.
I am in no way saying that the SB lied about his hand, I am questioning ever giving cards back to the player under the described circumstances.
Thanks for all of the previous replies anyway.


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Bump.


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Don't know why you're bumping this.

Pretty sure pretty much any experienced poker player or floor person would say it is wrong to pull an untabled hand out of the muck, other than for some particularly unusual (and bad) house rule.