Probably just a mini-thread here but a unique spot where a normally cut and dried rule has a small out.

$5 Straddle on the Button
A few limpers and the Player checks the Straddle and tosses in his chip.

Flop comes out and SB checks
Button then says .. "I only have one card" ... Options?

1) Dead Hand
2) Give Button the burn card, which was theirs anyway and treat as a pre-exposed Flop ... shuffle and redo Flop 'with' a burn card.
3) Other or combo of above?

Floor called and Button explains he only looked at his first card as it was dealt and "It was so bad I knew I was going to check my option."

With any other seat at the table we have a pretty much cut and dried dead hand with the PF action, but since we have the Button 'closing' PF action and we know where the second card is (being the first burn) and only the one check by the SB is that enough to 'not' correct the error?

Yes, there is a very small angle that B doesn't like the Flop and wants a new one, but they don't have a legal hand to win a pot with anyway ... AND would have to be a pretty quick thinker to come up with all that in such a short period of time. It was pretty obvious that this guy was not messing around ... He was very concerned about wasting his $5. GL

Dead hand. Most players only have until there is (significant) action to figure out they have the wrong number of cards. By special rule, the button gets until his action to do so. He definitely does not get a card after you've already put out a flop. His hand gets treated like any other player who discovers they have the wrong number of cards that late in the hand - he has a dead hand.

his hand shouldn't be dead, he just has to play one card.

It’s way too late to give him a second card, no matter if he straddled or not.

House rules decide if he’s allowed to play with one card or not.

Dead hand.

It is the player's responsibility to ensure that they have received a legal hand.

Dead hand. RROP is clear on this. You must have the required number of cards to have a live hand.

In Hold'em there is absolutely no benefit to playing with one card instead of two. I see no reason to kill his hand instead of allowing him to play with one. RROP is wrong here.

I suppose if a player started with two cards and discarded one intentionally at showdown he could conceal information, but that's not the same as what happened here. Even there RROP is wrong IMO and it shouldn't be a dead hand, just a warning. One card can play in Hold'em.

Yeah, some rooms allow him to play one here.


That's what the rules would be if I were in charge.

His hand is dead 100%. He had his chance to ask for another card before the flop came out but instead he wanted to get cute.

You have to be pretty stupid to think you have two cards but only have one. He's FOS.

Does he get his straddle back if he didn't look at his hand?

Nope.

Why would that matter? He checked his option preflop and had sufficient time to address the situation.

Although there were a few rooms that allowed a Player to play with only one card ... those days are long gone. (So we think)

Small room, 'large' thinking solution?

In an effort to keep 'everyone' happy the Floor got pretty inventive here. The B was the whale and was on a rush. No telling if he would've gotten up and left had this ruling not gone 'his' way ... But what about the other Players still left in the hand?

1) B gets the 'burn' card, since it should've been his anyway
2) Floor has Dealer turn Flop over and mix up cards ... Floor picks two for the Board and the other is an 'exposed' 1st burn card.
3) Top of stub is 3rd Board card
4) Continue Flop action with the 'original' Turn and River now placed in the stub 'correctly'

Pretty inventive by a small room Floor in an attempt to keep the natives all satisfied. If this spot goes bad then the room might have lost 20% of it's income that night due to the game breaking at that time.

Certainly not condoning bending the rules just to keep the Players happy, but I think the Floor did a very quick assessment of the situation and provided a compromise that both the B and others involved could accept. GL

PS .. The B went broke and added on another $800 in chuncks before the game broke at he cashed for $420.

It's a terribly ruling, obviously. Maybe it keeps all the regs happy, maybe not (whale stacked someone? what if they complain to gaming afterwards?), but no matter how you slice it it's not being done by any remote connection to a rule.

If you're going to go out of your way to keep the whale happy, just give him the top card off the deck and don't go through all the rest of the nonsense.

I don't like step 2 above, unless the dealers are terrible at dealing flops. With a legit dealer and legit procedures, you should be able to tell the actual burn card and the two cards that belong on the flop. Of course, many dealers don't spread the flop properly when dealing, so without taking time to review the tape, maybe there's no way to know what should have been the flop.

For example though, I'm playing PLO one night, get it all in on the flop and agree to run it twice. This specific casino has just started allowing you to run it twice in bigger games and all PLO games. The dealers still don't always seem sure of what they're doing unless they play cards themselves (which is about 1/5 of the dealers). Dealer does great with the first turn and river, but then gets confused for the second turn and river. Instead of burning a card and dealing the turn, she burns a card and deals a whole new flop. Luckily, she dealt it in such a way that it was easy to determine the correct turn and river (basically, the first and third card on her "flop" should have been the turn and river, with the middle card being the second burn).

But in the OP's post, the idea of mixing up the three cards on the incorrect flop and just picking two to be the flop seems like an absurd choice. But, on the other hand, we're talking a small-ish pot and if no one really complains, it seems like an interesting solution instead of killing the button's hand.

Small room or home game? Sounds more like the latter. "Interesting" resolution.

That ruling is exactly as “inventive” as declaring the hand dead and handing the guy a $20 bill so he can buy some ice cream later. That also keeps everyone happy.

Awful ruling

I'm curious in any rooms I've seen it come up people can play one card or three in plo
Where are you guys playing that it's not allowed?

I don't have any problem allowing them to play with fewer cards if the room rule allows it, but that is not the standard rule.

I don't know what my local room does, because I have actually never seem this come up in person.

Although I agree that most Dealers can be counted on to spread the Flop in the same manner every time, allowing for a reliable recreation of the stub order, the trend I've seen in 4-card Flops is to mix up the cards and pick 3 (or just pick one to be the appropriate burn) for the Board.

There's no question that multiple rules were stretch and combined in this spot in order to ...

1) Keep the whale in the hand for the whale's mental state
2) Keep the whale in the hand for the other Player's interests
3) Keep the whale from getting upset and raking up over $5
4) Maintain as much of the 'original' hand as possible

Just to be clear, I told the whale that his hand was probably going to be dead, but that we should call the Floor over to be sure. I certainly don't like being 'wrong' but in this case I didn't mind a little egg on my face to keep the table dynamic in place.

The Floor and I talked after closing and keeping the table up and running was their primary concern during the spot. The 'crack in the door' that it was the Button led them down that path. Had it been any other seat then it would've been a dead hand due to too much action already taking place ... in that room. GL

You mention closing, was this a charity room? Or was it a casino where the poker room actually closes?

Charity room ... As seen in the posts I don't think we get anywhere near this kind of Floor 'generosity' in a casino. Although when fully explaining the spot to some casino Floors they didn't object to what actually happened. They were just thinking that they would've ruled so quickly that this multi-faceted solution wouldn't have come to mind. GL