I also posted this in the home game group, but may get more visibility here since I feel like home game group is more holdem


So my home game plays 9 people and plays Big O. We do not utilize a burn card for the river. What do you do in a situation where there's action and 3 people in on the flop and the 4th person is thinking but the dealer burns and deals the turn?

Do you shuffle back the flop burn, turn burn, turn that came out and unseen river and mix those 4 cards together?

Same question if it's the river that's prematurely burned so then you only have 3 cards (river, and flop/turn burn cards)

What we've done in the past is when it's the turn we will mix the 4 back. When it's the river we just check it down and the best hand wins.

No idea what the correct thing is to do.

Premature turn, you finish the flop action then burn and put out the natural river (as the new turn). Then turn action. Finally mix the premature turn in with the stub, shuffle, no cut and put out the new river.

As far as premature river I would shuffle it in with the burns, again no cut.

I know this wasn't what you asked about, but I play Big O in a card room that handles this differently.

It's limit Big O with a half kill. Nine players are seated, but typically only eight are dealt in, with the player to the left of the big blind getting an "Ineligible" button. However, when the player in that position has the kill button and nine players are seated and eligible to be dealt in, then nine players are dealt in.

Deal: 45 cards
Burn and flop: 4 cards
Burn and turn: 2 cards

This leaves 1 card in the stub. The dealer takes this 1 card and the 2 burn cards and mixes them up face-down on the felt. It's not really a shuffle, more a 3-card wash. Then the dealer picks one of these 3 cards, turns it over, and that's the river.

This random selection is preferable to using the last stub card as the river because the last stub card could be marked or could have flashed to someone inadvertently.