1. There was a link to a video that proves the muck magically kills every card. The broad got to pick out the two cards she thought were hers and were clearly retrievable and she was flat out wrong. Case closed. Muck is just that...the muck...some random mass of cards.

2. I'll start listing more of them shortly, but the one that irritates me quite often is rules governing how long players can leave their seats. Every casino has their own rule...which is fine...but the enforcement of the rule is extremely weak in some casinos and it hurts the game. This is especially true in LA where you'll have several players missing from the game at the same time. And, in some places you need a papal bull to get someones chips picked up no matter how long they are gone. For example, Commerce high limit section. There are a number of players who'll sit down, maybe play one hand and then leave for hours while they go play the asian games or leave the casino altogether. It doesn't matter how much you browbeat jack about it, he won't pick up anyones chips. He will...eventually...hours later...but meanwhile the must move game is full and rocking and you are sitting at a table with 5 other rocks with several players gone playing a game of blind stealing. IMO, what all casinos need is a hard and fast third man walking rule that is immediately enforced. Enforce it and people will respect it. You descretion and no one will respect it.

Are you trying to tell me there are no sets of rules that are widely used? That's ridiculous. There are differences, but don't tell me there is no consensus among different groups about different rules. I wasn't talking about the video because I didn't watch it. I was talking about the link you described as spam but was actually an accepted rule (no, not everywhere, I'm sure). You're point number two: give me a break, man. Can I please list as evidence all those casinos that use these rules? Do you really think that all the rules say the muck cannot ever be touched and this is a universal rule that constantly gets circumvented by incompetence and bribery? Your gripe is with the efficiency and integrity (or lack thereof) of casino staff. And even this may be colored by your insistence that this rule must be observed everywhere without exception. By your last post I would just advise you to stop going to every casino you've ever been to. Clearly you're not satisfied anywhere (not to say its necessarily unjustified, mind you).

Another...I wouldn't call it a rule, but rather accepted ettiquette was that you'd hold onto your cards until the dealer pushes you the pot. These days the dealers are trying to demand you surrender your cards before they push you the pot. This leads to angling by palmers and those who haven't mucked their cards yet. Someone needs to tell the lazy dealers to make sure all losing hands are mucked before they try to force the winner to surrender their cards in order to receive the pot...or better yet...do what they used to do and give the pot to the winner who'd afterwards surrender his cards.

And, yes everyone, many of the rules that have regressed have been the result of lazy floormen and dealers who want to exert a minimum amount of effort to do their jobs and make their jobs as easy as possible. It's human nature. It's much easier to make up whatever rule is convenient for you at the time that try to learn and enforce a large set of rules, but hey, developing an expertise has its cost.

If you look at any other business, they have rules for everything...and any time something happens that causes a lawsuit, etc, they adopt a new rule to prevent it from happening again in the future. Poker seems to be going in the opposite direction...enforcing set rules less and less because floormen and dealers are too lazy to do their job right.

ENGLISH ONLY AT THE TABLE DURING THE HAND.

You see this rule everywhere. However, this rule is never enforced...and I mean never beyond a paltry timid "English only during the hand fellas" as the floorman darts away rather than deal with the obvious cheating.

I go to LA cardrooms these days and I don't know what country I'm in anymore...used to be maybe Vietnam back in the Team Ngyuen days, but now it could be Korea, China, Mexico, Israel, or Germany.

You talk a foreign language during a hand, you need to be bounced. Do it again and you are 86'd for life.

is it legal to use a comdom *wrapped of course* as a card-protector? what if the card in the much are live, then what's the point of protecting my unmucked hand. may as well save some money and buy lambskin.

Ok, but just like protecting your cards, at the end of the day its the player's responsibility. I don't care what a lazy dealer says, I'm not letting my cards get mucked until all action is complete and the pot goes where it should. Not to say that we should just accept such behavior from a dealer, but if they're going to be more ignorant than we must be more vigilant. If you're careful, there's no need for any rule or floorman to decide your fate.

Also, from the other side... Suppose you have the winning hand and they do get you to wrongfully muck your hand somehow and push the pot to the wrong player? If your cards are clearly retrievable (I understand the inherent potential for error) wouldn't you want the hand to end up how it should despite the dealer's or the floorperson's ignorance?

Again, just to be clear: none of this is an excuse for people who do their jobs very poorly.

u mad bro?

Toking floormen. I recall that Chipburner claimed to never allow the practice in his rooms. However, WTF is going on with rooms that allow floors to be toked when they are also allowing floors to make very descretionary rulings. It's beyond sick what I've seen happen to other people at Commerce. I go out out my way to avoid being angled so it doesn't apply to me, but I've witnessed floors make the most egregious decisions in my life against the testimony of the entire table on behalf of people who toked them. If you guys are worried about new players being driven away from the game, it won't be because of the muck, it'll be because of some floor who gets juiced by a regular and needs his angle to be validated by the floor in order to drag a cheap pot and pay his rent that month.

Isn't the point that they are talking during the hand? There are pretty clear guidelines and rules for that. I don't care what language anyone is speaking. The point is no one should be talking during a hand unless its two people talking to each other in a heads up pot. I don't really get your above comment regarding what country you're in. It has really racist overtones, unless your point is that you were comfortable with Vietnamese (or spoke that language?) but not Koreans, or even Mexicans.... all of this in LA cardrooms. This kind of makes it hard to listen to your points, you know. You come off like a hardline reactionary who just wants things the way they used to be, dammit.

No one is satisfied anywhere and that's why you see so many people griping about floor decisions. If there were exact rules to be followed, no one would have a gripe. But, you let some toked floorman start making descretionary decisions and you are gonna see an endless list of players finding fault.

I've been successfully angled for a pot one time in my life when I was young and it's never happened again since. I had just won a big pot after everyone mucked and I turned my hand face up so everyone could see I had the nut flush. The dealer then mucked my hand at which point an old local lady who had busted the previous hand and was just sitting there with her hands on the table waiting for more chips suddenly produced two random cards from the previous hand, complained, and was awarded the pot by the floor despite her having not even being dealt in that current hand. I got myself 86'd that night immediately afterwards for obvious reasons. Karma was restored when the cardroom went out of business a couple years later.
Since that day I've held onto my cards like a vicegrip and have been in numerous battles with lazy dealers who didn't want to ship me the pot until I surrendered my cards despite my opponents still showing their losing hand to adjacent players and/or having not yet otherwise killed my opponents hands.

What OP is saying is not entirely wrong.
Where I deal a hand touching the muck is dead.

There are no racist overtones at all. I'm merely pointing out what language I'm hearing at the tables most recently. It's changed over time. What used to be Greek, Yiddish, and Hmong has now kinda morphed into other languages. I pointed it out because it's kinda interesting to watch how things change over time in this way. I remember some years ago you'd never see a mexican playing poker at Commerce...and now there are truckloads....all speaking spanish during the hand like it was nothing. In fact, I think pointing this out is the opposite of racism in that I'm including so many countries in pointing what's going on. Heck, I've seen players of one country going ******* about players of their same country talking during a hand because they know damn well they were cheating and what they were saying...watched them complain directly to a floor about it who promptly walked away rather than deal with it. Effin Commerce.

BTW, go to hawaiian gardens casino and bring up the English Only rule and see what everyone tells you. Players will tell you there that it's unenforcable.

That's ok, Robert was the main author of that one also.

DEALERS NOT FOLLOWING PROPER PROCEDURE

The following happens quite regularly. Player(not in the SB) gets dealt card face up, gets mad, tosses it at dealer. Other player or two don't like their first cards so they muck their cards face up and say "misdeal". The proper prodecure is for the player who got dealt the faceup card to receive the burn card. However, the lazy dealer will just allow these other players to fold their cards and re-deal the hand. It's an angle used by players who don't like their first card. I know for a fact it's an angle because I do it to the dealer myself, but no so much as an angle to get new cards, but as a way to punish the dealer for putting too much air underneath cards and causing them to flip, so I make her hand shuffle, slow the game down, ask for a big scramboh, and hurt her tokes.

lol

So the solution to solve the problem of rules regressing over time is to cheat?

Ok, let's look at Mr Ciaffone's rules then(we'll give him full credit for the Hilton rules) and examine a few of them:

10. Playing out of a rack is not allowed.

Feels kinda antiquated with the NL we see these days where everyone just pushes out their racks and declares all-in a lot.

13. Pushing bets is not allowed.

When the hell is this rule ever enforced. Happens constantly. Everyone has a horse it seems. Hell, JRB would be mopping floors otherwise.

1. One player per hand.

Ya right...let's see that rule get enforced these days. Heck, you see people on the phone consulting others...even on tv at WSOP leaving the table to talk with their family about a decision.

2. No one is allowed to play another players chips.

Happens rather consistently in vegas and in California...always seeing players changing out taking shifts...husbands and wifes swapping turns...whatever.

14. Pushing an ante or posting for another person isn't allowed.

Never ever enforced...and sometimes actually keeps a short game from breaking.

28. Speaking a foreign language during a deal is not allowed.

We've addressed this, but someone who thinks robert's rules are followed everywhere please explain to me why this rule is never ever enforced.

" If the dealer fails to burn a card or burns more than one card, the error should be corrected if discovered before betting action has started for that round. Once action has been taken on a boardcard, the card must stand"

A card laid is indeed a card played. Guess we should rewrite "Lucky You"

4. In limit poker, for a pot involving three or more players who are not all-in, these limits on raises apply:
(a) A game with three or more betting rounds allows a maximum of a bet and three raises

Looks like almost no las vegas card room uses Robert's rules according to the above. Pretty sure 4 raises is pretty standard in vegas.

the first 2 pages of this thread were pretty lulz, but by the 3rd it was just tired, predictable, redundant and non lulzy

Who is cheating? Nothing is stopping the dealer from returning the correctly dealt cards to the players and then correctly redealing the new card to the player who had his card flipped up. But, dealers are too lazy to do their job correctly.

RUNNING IT TWICE OR THRICE

Ya, Robert says it's ok in Big Bet poker, but who the hell decides where the stratisfication of play is that determines big bet poker. Obviously, those players playing so big that they need to run it twice are playing too big for their bankroll. Either everyone should be able to run it twice or no one should.
And, really, no one should be able to run it twice because of the possibility of collusion by the two players running it twice who might be sandwich raising innocent players out of a pot and then attempting to split the money.
It's cheating, it slows the game down, and it makes for miserable TV exept in the one single case when the loose cannon hit 3 out of 4 long shots to quarter phil hellmuth. That was hilarious.

I mean c'mon...

Quit being an anal nit.