TAJ Sunday Tourney, Blinds 300/600

UTG raised to 2600, UTG+1, calls, everyone else folds. The dealer then shoves the pot to the UTG+1 and received his cards, which go into the muck. UTG+1 states that the player to his right has cards, which apparently the dealer didn't see. UTG+1 now has the pot with no cards, and UTG has cards but not the pot.

What happened next, the subsequent actions and eventual ruling simply blew my mind, so let's start with:

1. What should the ruling be?

Not sure why you are interchanging UTG+1 w/ "older gentleman", but it confused me to no end. I believe this should clarify:

If UTG+1 cards are not retrievable, the pot is reconstructed (if intermixed with his chips) and shipped to UTG, who has the only live hand. While I would like to find a more fair ruling, I just don't see any other way.

This again brings up the age old warning, protect your hand...

I though the warning was: protect your hand, until you are shipped the pot. In this case, UTG+1 was given the pot by the dealer, and then his cards entered the muck.

I'll say give the pot to UTG since I think its kind of an angleshoot to wait until you got the pot and your cards are in the muck to speak up. All he had to do was just not accept the pot and keep his cards. Instead, he tries to steal the pot, literally.

So what happened, did they chop the pot?

In this case though, he is at fault just as much as the dealer. After all, he called the raise! Did he think that the initial raiser just surrendered?

Scout's honor, this is what happened. I was simply sitting there in shock at how poorly this was handled:

The dealer realizes the mistake, and tells UTG+1 to tell him his cards, so that he can retrieve them from the muck. UTG+1, clearly flustered, yells at the dealer: "I had F**KING ACES!!". The dealer shuffles through the muck in front of him and find red aces, and hands them back to UTG+1!!!! preparing to deal the flop.

At this point, people at the table speak up, saying that the hand can't go on heads up with one player's cards exposed. UTG (who has 66) offers to chop the pot. The floor is called over.

The floorman decides that all action is void, and chops the pot up to give everyone their chips back---each player is give the 75 ante, the 300/600 are returned to the blinds and UTG and UTG+1 are given their 2600 back.

How do people feel about this ruling?

(UTG+1 was an older gentleman, as stated before , and he was fairly calm the entire time--prior to this. He screamed at the dealer, and when the floor came over, complained that they f**k him every chance possible. The "floor" was two large men, men I wouldnt talk to like that. He screamed every possible curse word while they gave the chips back, and after the floor left, he continued to berate the dealer, who eventually got fed up and talked back. I am surprised it didnt escalate further).

Worst attempted fix by a dealer, ever.

Pretty bad ruling by the floor too.

I hear you, but based on what he had, this wasn't an angle. I really can't figure out why he gave up his cards.

In your opinion, what would be the correct ruling?

Before reading past post #8, let me just say this:

There hasn't been any comment on the dealer yet, whether they were good or bad. Good dealers (like me ) are hard to fool when it comes to who has cards and who doesn't, even if some douchebag is intentionally concealing them. Therefore a dealer who's really on the ball will not make this mistake very often.

That being said, players who intentionally (or even just thru their own inexperience or sloppiness) conceal their cards from the dealer, especially those who, like in this case, don't speak up when the time comes, really do the game a major dis-service. No dealer, not even the very best, can prevent situations like this every single time if someone is hiding their cards. This is why your dang cards need to stay in the dang view of the dang dealer already, on pain of a KITN, from yours truly.

I'm sure that did little to settle the debate on this thread. You're welcome.

Now I shall continue with post #9 and see what develops.

BTW my ruling would depend on what the dealer said, what the players said, and what my impression was about each player and their intentions. Thus, so far, it could go one of several directions. However, if forced to make a purely default judgment, I'm not going to commit just yet so pffffft.

[QUOTE=Al_Capone_Junior;15664322]Before reading past post #8, let me just say this:

There hasn't been any comment on the dealer yet, whether they were good or bad. Good dealers (like me ) are hard to fool when it comes to who has cards and who doesn't, even if some douchebag is intentionally concealing them. Therefore a dealer who's really on the ball will not make this mistake very often.


The dealer had just sat down, only his 2nd or 3rd hand, didnt have a feel for him yet. Dealer was 60-65, and when the players continued to yell at him, calling him incompetent, the dealer remarked that he has been dealing at the Taj for 13 years.

As a floor, of course your first priority is trying to make a ruling that is fair to both players, as well as to the rest of the field. With that said, if his disruptive behavior and berating of the dealer are not allowing me to gather information, any sympathy I have for him or any desire I have to help him goes out the door.

If he's not helping me do my job, I'm not inclined to help him by deviating from the letter of the law (which in this case, is "Sorry Sir, but you have no cards").

He gets one or two, "Please be quiet so I can understand what happened. I'll hear what you have to say in a moment" followed by a "There's no need to curse, this is your first and last warning". If the F-bombs continue, UTG gets the pot with no further discussion and security probably gets involved.

EDIT: Don't forget, UTG+1 made the same mistake as the dealer. While you can't say they share the fault evenly, he is not completely absolved here. After all, he CALLED a raise!

OMG OMG OMG!!! We're gonna need to call the



on this hand... FOR ME!!!



This has got to be one of the most tragic instances of dealer stupid-itis I've ever heard of. I've already got sore feet from playing hoop today, and now this!! Holy cow, this game is hard on your footwear too!!

This is the only correct thing for the dealer to do in this situation. Ever. No matter what.

At this point

How about the hand can't go on when a dealer, who failed to call the floor, starts digging in the muck for someone's "aces" ?

The floor's ruling wasn't really so bad here. Looking at the idiocy he had to try and unravel, a "do-over" might have just seemed like the most sensible, fair and easy way to unravel this quagmire and get the game moving again.

It does seem that the floor should have hung around after the decision, given how upset Methuselah was and how he was acting. I personally like to hang out a bit after a tough decision to make sure things go back to running smoothly, and there are no "additional complications."

In this case, the additional complications would likely have resulted in a penalty for geezer-boy.

That's about the biggest KITN-ing that's been on this board since the $500 thread.

al

So he's probably surly and incompetent then.

I think that the dealer felt bad about his mistake, but he was getting abused pretty badly.