Playing 8/16 Omaha at the Orleans. There is a raise and a call, folds around to the small blind who exclaims that she has 5 cards. Dealer calls over the floor. The floor says that he is going to shuffle her 5 cards, take one back, expose it, and it will also be the burn card.
I ask isn't it supposed to be a dead hand? He informs me that there has already been significant action. I agree and say that is why her hand should simply be dead. He says no and takes a random card back, exposes it, tells the dealer to use it as the burn!

One player says you have to do that, or if you kill her hand then you have to give her the small blind money back. I reply no you don't, that's part of protecting your hand, she loses her SB. He gave me a puzzled look.

Fast forward 1 hour. Different dealer, gives the SB a 5th card AND the big blind as well! BB deflects the card saying that she already has 4 cards. Floor is called and rules to back up the card from the BB and then is going to do the shuffle thing again with the SB!

Isn't this a misdeal?!? You have 1 player with 5 cards and now also an additional card has come off the deck. I was UTG and hadn't acted yet. He says no, backs up the card from the BB and then does his shuffle thing again with a random card from the SB hand.

Anyone heard of such a thing? Everyone else seemed fine with it. Am I the only one that thinks this is absurd?

Sounds kinda weird. But if the card room wants to handle it like that, and most importantly rules it that way consistently, I don't see a problem with it. Lots of poker rooms have non-standard house rules, looks like The Orleans is one of those.

I would be upset if a different floor would rule the situation differently though.

If you are 100% sure which card was dealt 5th and the player didn't look at his cards yet, then take that card back and use it as the first burn.

If you don't know which card it is or the player looked at all of them, the hand is dead in this case because significant action has happened. If no significant action, misdeal.

If you play Omaha at the Orleans you're going to have to deal with some weirdness. They let the players get away with murder. Likely they were trying to kill someone's hand and he yelled and screamed so they did the scramble thing. Now they have to keep doing it for everyone.

Why are you so mad about it? I think they handled it in a fair way. If they can avoid killing players' hands and time consuming misdeals, then I'm all for it

It's bad because it opens up the opportunity for collusion between the floor and the player (I'll put the card I don't want on top...), but the likelihood of this is so remote, particularly in a low stakes game, that it almost certainly not really going to be a problem.

But yes, the typical rulings in these cases are dead hand and misdeal, respectively.

Actually the problem is that a player who looks that their hand and likes it, doesn't accept the 5th card and it goes back to the top of the deck. But a player with a bad hand accepts the 5th card with the hope that the hand will improve.

Players should not get this option...

This seems like the appropriate ruling for a penny ante homegame.

In both cases because it was the SB there is an open door here for the 'shuffle' procedure to kick in. Robert's has a loosely worded phrase that allows play to continue if the top card on the deck can still be dealt 'properly'. Since the SB was involved (and the card from the BB was 'returned' to the top of the deck in the 2nd case) the top card on the deck was the proper 'next' card to be dealt.

In any other position it will probably be a dead hand (with action) or a misdeal ... even though the top card on the deck is 'correct'.

The backdoor fine print is that we don't know when the SB got the extra card, which is also the case for the other table positions, but they give the SB a pass by assuming the error occurred with the last pitch.

The shuffle procedure is also used on 4-card Flops as well. GL

PS .. If you watch DNegs Vlog you would've seen a Stud hand where a player got two cards on 7th and they (incorrectly) declared his hand dead instead of shuffling all 4 of his down cards and taking one out.

PSS .. The shuffle procedure would've drastically changed one of poker stories that DBrunson has told about a Player who was dealt a Steel Wheel and bet basically his whole roll into the middle only to find out that he got two cards on 7th .. and his hand was declared dead at showdown for having 8 cards. He, of course, went ballistic and never recovered from the ruling.

I never heard this ruling, but I like it!

It's ok to like new things, guys.