In a 1-2 No Limit Hold'em cash game in vegas there was a ruling made by a floor about a mucked hand. Two players are heads up on the river one player calls a raise on the river(not all in) and waits for the other player to show his hand. The player who made the raise shows one card then throws the second card face down across the table, which lands right next to the muck.

The dealer then takes that face down card and slides it in the side of the muck, under other cards. The second player, thinking the other players hand is mucked shows his to cards and expects to win now. The dealer then mucks the first card shown face up also. Then the first player says, " no I meant for him to flip my other card."(referring to the other player in the hand) at which point the dealer slides that card out of the muck and the player takes it and flips it over, this card making his hand the winning hand if it is considered live.

The floor is now called. He makes a ruling, after much debate, that the hand is still live because it can be retrieved from the muck. The player whose cards were both in the muck at one point and the first card shown was never again retrieved was awarded the pot.

This, to me, was an awkward situation and would like the opinion of professionals in Vegas that work in the industry on this ruling. I did not include any other details because they were not relevant to the ruling, if anyone has a specific question regarding the hand or situation please feel free to ask.

Really appreciate any comments.

Looks pretty wild to me. Guy throwing cards around loses pot.

Hand is mucked imo, 2nd player has been shafted here, see Roland de Wolfe v reinkemaier on YouTube for similar hand

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr2agX80ZyE

if everyone is 100% sure that's the right card then i guess player 1 gets the pot but i wouldn't lose any sleep if they killed his hand

Whey did the dealer stop him from mucking? Then flip it over?

I like Tobias but that almost seemed like an angle....

I know 'pros' don't like people to see their cards especially other pros as they can get a read, but it makes me laugh that de wolfe mucked before Tobias? My cards don't leave my hand until the dealer is pushing me the pot, simple.

You can win with zero cards, one card or whatever so whoever has the best hand wins. Other card is totally mucked though as once it's in the muck that card is dead especially since it was face down and nobody saw it.

I know first guy has to be a noob and you want to take it easy on them or they'll never come back but god that was dumb. Stop being a jerk slowrolling.

And this is the bottom line. There's a whole new generation of entitled dolts playing poker who seem to think the world should coddle and care for them while they're trying to get the money. It's funny really.

If you're ******ed enough to only turn over one card, you deserve to lose the pot. Just turn over your hand ffs.

yeh I dont understand that either

The guy was mucking king high bluffs so that is why he did that. He went to muck his hand and so Tobias saw this and turned his hand over after the guy folded. The other guy saw his hand was best and then tried to retrieve his hand. The question was who was angling who?

tobias is a jerk in that video and an idiot for revealing his hand in such a confrontational manner

Where I play floor managers rule from two sides in special cases like these.
1. Abiding by the rules, hand is mucked and pot goes to player two.
2. Applying something called "in the best interest of the game" which of course is very subjective and therefor prone to corruption but nevertheless, should the board read AKQ JJ and player one has AA it's pretty clear he didn't mean to muck his hand. And rules are rules, but when something is clearly not intentional a floor manager can use his own common sense to make a ruling. It's of course walking on thin ice making rulings based on thoughts about how a player should play, but in some cases awarding someone a pot based on a technicality is not the point of the game.

I don't like hands getting retrieved from the muck if the dealer has released the mucked card or player 2 has shown his hand. It's simply a freeroll for player 1 if he sees which hand player 2 has and then says which card he allegedly mucked.

If the card isn't retrievable then I think player 2 wins the pot.

As long as the room allows cards to be pulled from the muck if 100% identifiable, then this is the correct answer. The guy is being pretty careless but he objected as soon as his hand was mucked so if you can be 100% which cards were his, ship him the pot. KITN to him though.

Angus's Law: An appeal to any televised hand between two childish players shall be considered evidence for the opposite of what the poster intended.

I find it difficult to believe that you can know for absolute certain which was the correct card when it's slid into the bottom of the pile, it's fairly easy to get it close but not exactly on the bottom.

I can see the floor having the player tell them what the card was, having the dealer confirm that as far as he knows, it should be exactly the bottom card, and then the floor checks that one card and if it matches what the player said allowing it to play, but frankly I think killing the hand is technically more correct here. You pitched your card face down in the direction of the muck and only asked for it back after seeing your opponents cards? Too much potential for an angle.

I think killing is more correct here than retrieving the cards. And player one should get some sort of talk about not slowing down the game and being a general dumbass and told instead to just table his hand like an adult.

Depends on the dealer.

IMO when you muck a hand as a dealer, you muck it. It should not be even close to retrievable or identifiable. However, I've seen a lot of dealers that muck a hand simply by sliding it to the bottom and it's very obvious which two cards were just mucked.

Much depends on how much the rules have been bent in other cases. If it's customary to get "halfly mucked" cards back, then it could be applied in this case too. If a free style is encouraged, like throwing a card over the table for somebody else to look at (a bit funny actually, like a home game), then go ahead and retrieve every time it's possible with great enough certainty. Like Sir said in the previous post, some dealers make this more possible than others. And the players know it. At least those who play there a little more.

I agree. The part that I thought was the problem with the ruling wasn't that the card would have been retrievable, but that it was pulled out by the player.

I'm pretty sure that the floor has to retrieve a mucked card, and they have to do it by verifying with the player exactly what card it is that they mucked. Then looks at the presumed card, and if it matches then it's retrievable. By pulling the card out and tabling it himself, the player killed his own hand by making it unverifiable by the floor.

It would set a bad standard if anyone starts letting players pull cards that were in the muck.

We use a 'forward motion with release' as muck in most of the rooms I play in. I have tried to push this ever since I started playing, whether they have a betting line or not.

The issue with betting lines is that seats 1,2,8,9 (or 10) can actually muck cards without passing 'over' the betting line. That's why we go for 'forward motion'.

I totally agree with the 'for the good of the game' Plan B as well. We have to have this rule (for the Floor, not the Dealer) to allow for the human aspect to be available to all players. We do need to educate players on certain aspects of the order of play.

In the charity rooms where I do most of my play a player rarely gets the full brunt of a ruling the first time around. This is to keep the new and curious player pool coming into the room. Regs need to realize that they might be shorted in some spots, but for the overall good of the room it's better to treat them this way.

Another way to avoid some spots is to NOT turn your cards over if someone mucks unless the dealer forces you to do so and you know it's 'your' pot. We had a spot where seat 1 'flicked' his cards towards the dealer (implying a muck) with no action on the River and seat 4 turned his cards over anyway. Seat 1 then tries to grab his cards from the dealer since his 'King high' would've won. He was none too happy with the forward motion rule and we ended up calling the cops on him. GL

In the TR vs RdW hand, the dealer stops RdW mucking his cards under the burn pile. Can any dealers/long time live regs explain why this was done if not to make the cards retrievable?

I think then TR then shows his Q6. Why would he show RdW his angle shoot here? These are two guys playing the circuit, surely TR wants to keep this info to himself to continue using?

The one detail I need is...

Did the player need the mucked card to make his hand or was the card face up enough to be a winner without the other card?

Please save the "have to show two to win" argument here. We all know this.

All that really matters here is if the dealer is 100% sure which card was his or not. If the dealer is sure then it's live. If he's not 100% sure, its a dead hand, but I may give him the pot if his other card that was shown is enough to beat the other players hand and a friendly lesson that he should never do that again. The best hand should win if possible. I try not to give a losing hand the pot based on a technicality if I can.

My impression of



was that the card that the guy exposed was meaningless (ie a needle) and that the face down card was "the winner". At minimum, the face down card was needed to complete the hand.

Also,

doesn't sound like the dealer "buried the card irretrievably into the muck".

My impression as well, just clarifying.

OP, could you ahead and tell us the players' cards and the board cards please? The reason I ask is it could be helpful to determine intent. For example, was it likely the first exposed card was good, but only after he saw the other player's card he realized he needed both to win. Or was it the exposed card gave him nothing, and he was trying for an epic slowroll? Or even if they both ended up with zip, and high card won.

Thanks.