I was thinking the same thing. What is wrong with just holding onto your cards? Two fingers will do the trick. No need to have some TRUMP wall built around it made of fingers that needs its own name.

I agree in principle, but reality is I watch seat 1 and 9/10 barely move their cards, like maybe an inch towards the dealer, to signify a fold. All. The. Time. They "train" the dealer to make that move.

One of the earliest tournaments I ever played, while still very much a noob to live poker, I had my pkt 10's mucked after all in and called while occupying seat one. The dealer was apologetic, and the floor was called (not by me, wasn't even sure what that was at the time!). Floor asked me to whisper my cards to him, he found them in the muck, and the hand played out. 10's lost to A's, so it wouldn't have mattered. This was probably 2008, maybe as early as 2005, in Az. I don't expect that to happen anymore, and usually have a card protector that I break out in seat 1 or 9/10.

Plus the way some do the finger cage it can be hard to tell they have cards.

Any of us would be super annoyed at this, but the fact that you received a ticket for an equal buy-in tournament makes me think this a slam dunk victory from an EV perspective!

I don't know about anyone else, but "cage" loosely describes the natural curl of my hand when holding my cards with two fingers, not the evenness of coverage or distribution of work.

I cage my cards by having one hand somewhat spread and covering the back half of the cards. the front half, facing the other players, is still visible. I loathe players who, whether they have cards or not, cup their hands together in front of them, palm down. it is impossible to see if they have cards or not.

I would have also been upset. I think the new ticket for another tourney is a fair option, and almost as good an offer as you could expect.

Lots of good suggestions in this thread. You are not the first one to have their live cards mucked by a dealer. Yes, it's the dealers fault. Yes, you could have done things to avoid it. No, I'm not happy blaming the victim, but I do like the crossing the street analogy.

One clear benefit if your poker room uses an all-in button.