People disagree on the question if a player can fold his hand at showdown. I don't think folding is a possible action at showdown, only showing or mucking with mucking != folding.

I've always been torn with why rooms with a betting line don't enforce the same line for cards as well. The obvious discussion here is what do you do with 1,2,8,9 and 10 that very easily could 'muck' without crossing the betting line. My suggestion to this was to actually label the line bet/muck (see craps table betting areas) and have the Dealers educate the players along the way. Thus not allowing Seat 1 to muck 'sideways'. The Dealers would have to get verbal/physical confirmation of the muck from these seats before pulling in the cards.

"Forward motion with release" was the big phrase at a lot of rooms that I played in that was used for quite some time. An OMC would 'finger' his cards forward a 1/2 inch and expect the Dealer to know that he mucked. I still think that this should be the rule with the caveat that a player's cards 'can' be retrieved if another player or the Dealer (for whatever reason) had moved the cards towards or into the muck pile and they are still identifiable. We don't allow a player to change their mind when they put chips in .. why should we allow them to change their mind about their cards?

Whatever the room decides to do there is always going to be variables in how each Dealer enforces or executes the procedures. I don't agree with the mythical 'touching' of the muck pile/board as a dead hand but I also can't say that it's really any better or worse, or opens any more or less 'doors', than a line or motion also create. GL

there would be no mucked ? not mucked? debates
IF YOU SIMPLY TURNED UP YOUR CARDS

as you said you went all-in on a straight draw

so the other players see that. BIG WHOOP

diddo!

I was at the table in a big pot and the player mucked his hand face down, then quickly realized he hit a runner runner straight, and turned his hand face up. It was originally ruled dead, and the floor was called who put the pot in the well and we waiting about 15min for surveillance as action resumed.

The ruling was since his hand never left the top of his cards before he flipped them face up, even though he originally mucked face down towards the middle of the felt, the hand was ruled live and he won the pot. His opponent was livid and ended up leaving. So if he lost control of the hand, it wouldn't have been ruled live and OP clearly lost possession of the cards after mucking them.

I think that's the correct ruling.

If we start to rule "forward motion" at showdown, maybe even including a (potentially imaginary) betting line into the discussion, we get into spots where hands might be dead because a player moved his cards forward for other players to see them better before/while turning them over. Ruling a hand dead in a situation where the player is still holding on to them sounds really bad. If you are at showdown and didn't release your hand, it should be live.

good post answer20

and of course if holding your cards your hand stays live unless you remove it under the table out of sight or personally push it into other cards. etc.

in poker you get punished for making mistakes. and mistakes of your own doing is where you get punished the most. and rightly so.

Because they can gain an advantage from changing their action and there is no advantage to be gained from starting to muck and then turning them up instead,

thats true as long as the person is in control of his hand. once it is touched even by the dealer no one can be sure that something was not switched.
some may not care in a 40 dollar pot but in big pots or a tournament i want the hand dead.

I don't disagree with your comment ... other than the 'advantage' of raking in a pot v not raking in a a pot.

The issue is where do we put the 'hard' line in the sand? We have a line for the chips, so why not use the same line for the cards?

We 'create' (allow) all these spots that can occur if/when the cards do/don't get 'fully' mucked. Why put this responsibility on the Dealer when it should be on the player? GL

How can you not see a flash? Тhe flash is so bright...

$2-5 game couple months ago
player A and player B are all-in ;pot roughly $900
player A tables Jack high straight
Player B shows his hand to players on his left and right stating I missed my flush draw and tosses his cards toward the center of the table face down.
player to his left grabs the cards before the dealer and yells: "you have a Queen high straight and drags the hand back. Player B then flips his cards up and sure enough he has a Queen high straight" Who gets the pot?

Yep.
When the 8 seat tables his hand in front of him and the 2 seat tosses his hand face down in the vicinity of other face down cards,
and he grabs them back (or the dealer gives them back), how can the 8 seat be 100% sure those are the same cards?

I saw a similar spot last month where THE DEALER was shown the hand and actually turned the cards over after an attempted muck. Floor ruled that the player 'lost' the pot via muck.

Technically you have a OPTAH violation here BUT the cards were not fully mucked so they can be turned over for a showdown .. winner Queen high. Typically OPTAH violations result in warnings and hands are not killed so 'Jack High' can now give 'Player on Left' a really good stare down and we move onto the next hand.

The 'adjustment' in Player B's story certainly may have helped him win the pot but this is actually a pretty easy ruling unless the room has specific rules regarding the muck. GL

player b should never get that pot. one another player grabbed his cards. no one can prove or be sure the same cards were turned over. yea this does happen folks and more than you think.

the with the squeaky wheel thing i talk about he complain enough and made a story that the floorman could use to let him win. happened similar to me a few times and i also complain just a little louder and claimed that those were not the same cards that were folded and somehow i am getting screwed. those i won.

If you think grabbing another players cards should automatically kill that hand, I'll wait for a pot large enough to be worth getting 86'd and grab yours after you called my all-in bluff.

Come on. You know he is talking about a player releasing control of his cards and then someone else handling them.

No, he's talking about the possibility of somebody altering the cards. For that to happen, a player doesn't have to release control of his cards, as seen multiple times on AGT.

In fact, another player in the hand touching his cards should make it way more likely for the hand to be altered compared to an uninvolved third party doing it.

I highly disagree with a hand being dead just because another player touched it. Now we can argue if the hand should be dead because of a OPTAH violation and I still think "no", but I feel way less strongly about that.

i am talking about after folding the hand and someone grabs it it should be dead same as if it was in the muck or the dealer handled it.

if you are holding or in control of your hand and someone grabs it then that person should be barred from the game . and it shouldnt be dead as long as it is proven those were the same cards. it is your responsibility to protect your hand. and that includes holding it until the pot is pushed to you. anytime you send it away things can go wrong and that becomes your fault.

there are always exceptions thats why they have a floor person.

The rule on this is VERY house-dependent. AND a lot of it is up to the floor's discretion. So basically, you need to learn exactly what the rules are and then see if the floor ruled accordingly. If you feel that the floor seriously butchered the ruling then very diplomatically and tactfully complain to one of the shift supervisors. Very diplomatically because with this rule specifically there is a TON of discretionary leeway that the floor has. The rules are not super defined on this. As they will likely tell you every situation is somewhat different and floor has the right to exercise discretion. In this case A LOT of it.

I got in one of these situations a few months ago at my local room that has a racetrack line in the center; any action past that line is definitely considered a binding move (bet, muck, fold). I had flopped TPTK and turned TTP on a turn that could have completed a reasonable open ended draw as it was myself and 2 other players.

I tend to durrrrr stare into the felt when I'm in a hand and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw Player A who was first to act move a stack of chips into play, I slide my cards towards the center and probably get them about halfway over the line. I'm about to lift my fingers off the cards to fold and the dealer slides the cards back to me and announces "sir there was no bet or raise ahead of you, he checked, action on you sir." Apparently Player A did move his chips (debatable if he was angle shooting or just playing with them) but not in any forward motion and his forward motion was just his hand tapping the felt to check.

Immediately Player B to my left who is still in the hand yells out that I in fact mucked my hand and my hand should be ruled dead. The Dealer fires back and states that I couldn't have mucked my hand because there was no bet or raise ahead of me and even if I wanted to fold to a check, the cards did not touch the muck and I was still touching the cards."

At this room the muck are any chips in the pot or any cards in the center (burn cards, dealer cards, board cards, folded/mucked cards). A few players at the table start chiming in that I did indeed muck my hand, dealer insists I did not. I'm embarrassed here, because I fully understand my error could have been perceived as an angle, but stay silent and just stare into the felt.

Floor comes over and starts debating. Players not in the hand start taking sides (which I hate, if you;re not in the hand stop playing table cop). Cameras are checked, dealer repeats to floor that because I did not release my cards and they didn't touch the muck the hand is live. Another player not in the hand asks if my hand would be dead had Player A raised and the dealer said yes if I made forward motion with my cards AND released them or let them hit the muck. Player A confirms he did indeed check. Floor rules that dealer is correct.

After about 15 min of this, dealer announces I have to act, Player B asks dealer if I'm forced to check it here, dealer says no, I have to bet to protect my hand, Player B groans and calls, Player A folds, river comes, I make a small bet, Player B calls, I win the hand. I apologize to Player B for my mistaken hand motion with my cards and offer to buy cover his drinks for the evening because hey I made a mistake and look like an ass. He said he didn't blame me, he blamed the dealer for not making a better judgement call "because mistakes happen."

So my long tale aside, basically if your cards leave your hands crossing that bet line OR leave your hand and touch the muck the hand is dead. This is why people use card protectors and keep their cards well back from the betting line.

someday your just staring at the felt instead of watching what is going on around you, may get you knocked out of a million dollar payout in a tournament . hope you change your ways .

I'l let you fold. I'll quietly bury you hand into the muck. =)

I'm a dealer. In my room, even if the cards touch the muck, as long as the hand is 100% identifiable without any doubt, then the hand can be turned over as live.

This is as long as the dealer can 100% confirm that the two cards you are saying are yours, are in fact yours. If they get mixed into the muck, then that's a different story.

I actually had this happen the other day, and I mucked the cards on top of the muck. The player wanted the floor, and the floor came over and asked me if those cards were 100% the players. I said, yes 100% without any doubt those are his cards.

That's why when it goes to showdown, I always muck them on top of the deck. Just in case they need to be retrieved.

Funny, most dealers here say they deliberately do the opposite.