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Mucking the Winning Hand
Home game, on the river, Player A bets 1200. Player B calls. Player A states that he has a flush and Player B throws his hand into the muck face down. Player A then throws his hand into the muck and starts to collect the pot. Another player states at the table he wants to see the winning hand and the dealer seeing the winning hand was laid on top of the muck flips the 2 cards over too see that Player A was lying. Then Player B rifles through the muck to find his hand and flips over his winning hand. Everyone at the table states that Player B wins the hand. Player A states that once the hand is thrown into the muck the hand is dead, saying that he knew that Player B would throw his hand in the muck if he said that. Other than this being an etiquette issue, whats the ruling? House rules have always been Casino rules…..
One Response to “Mucking the Winning Hand”
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November 17, 2008 at 9:22 pm
TDA rules are deliberately broad on this topic because there are so many variables that can go into this situation. In general, under TDA you’re given remedies of ethical fairness, warnings against miscalling, but also admonishion for all players to protect their hand until a winner has been declared.
In your referenced situation, just about every violation has occured, and there’s quite alot to sort out. As a starting point I would refer you to Roberts Rules on the subject at the following link:
http://www.robertspokerrules.com/the-showdown
I would also say at the outset that this kind of chicanery that Player A did by miscalling his hand USED to be a regular part of poker. And if it happened 20 or 30 years ago it wouldn’t have raised too many eyebrows. Today, we’ve tightened up on this sort of behavior because, among other reasons, there are so many new people coming into the game.
This said, you have several issues to sort out here:
1) First, above all, can you with 100% certainty reconstruct what these 2 players hands were? If you cannot… even if there’s just 1 or 2% doubt, in my opinion you have to award the pot to Player A because B folded (erroneously of course, and perhaps persuant to A’s bad behavior), but nevertheless B relinquished his hand. If you cannot definitively prove what Player A’s hand was then he gets the pot here, IMO.
2) BUT, lets assume that you can 100% establish his hand. The next question is whether he has to show his hand given that, although he was called to the showdown, his opponent tossed his cards. My answer to this would be that yes he does have to show them per the reasons given in the Roberts link. BUT, if he didn’t show them I wouldn’t consider that such a hand-killing gesture that B would get the pot, given that B mucked his cards first, so again we come back to whether you can establish to 100% certainty what A’s and B’s hands were.
SO, IMO, if you can establish it, then Player A is obligated to show his cards even if Player B mucked his hand.
3) NOW we are at the issue of a deliberate miscall of a hand. Yes, this is a stipulated violation and as TD’s we’re given quite alot of latitude as to how to deal with it. Everything from just giving a warning to awarding the pot to Player B to time off the table, just about you name it.
Roberts states: “…Although verbal declarations as to the contents of a hand are not binding, deliberately miscalling a hand with the intent of causing another player to discard a winning hand is unethical and may result in forfeiture of the pot…”