December 14, 2008 by ChicagoMike.

Interesting situation came up yesterday in the Kansas Championship. I was TD on the No-Limit mixed games tournament and in a round of No-Limit deuce-to-seven Kansas City Lowball the following happened:

 1) The starting hands were dealt out and the first round of betting was completed.

2) The dealer was forgetful and set the stub out of their hand on the table.

3) During some confusion either a mucked hand or some cards discarded (for draw replacement) out of sequence were hopelessly mixed into the stub. Further to that, when this dealer reached for the stub there was some confusion as to whether they may have inadvertently started mixing up the stub as though the round was over. All this occuring while players presumably were deciding which cards to toss.

4) When I was called over the top 15 or so of the stub cards looked pretty well intact, sitting on a less orderly set of cards.

5) I pointed to the “intact” set of cards and asked everyone if they had any doubt that this was indeed the original stub in it’s original order. Nobody was particularly certain that it was.

6) Add to this there were a few discards sitting away from the “stub mass”. When I asked the table about it, they were certain those were discards, but they were equally certain that at least some discards and/or mucked cards had found their way into this stub mass.

 Because we couldn’t ultimately be certain the correct original order of the stub I had decided to re-shuffle it. Correct?

The question in my mind was whether to add the small pile of known discards to the stub before the re-shuffle. What would you have done?

Ultimately, I did add ALL the discards to the stub… reason being that because some of the discards were already blended into it, that ALL the discards should be. If it had happened another way, where NONE of the discards had reached the stub, and the only thing had happened was a scrambling of the ORDER of the stub, I wouldn’t have added the discards, but because some discards were blended hopelessly into it, I decided it was better procedure to blend them all into it, re-shuffle, cut and deal the draw cards.

I haven’t found an exact rule on this… how would you have handled it ?

Posted in Fouled Decks, Missing Cards, etc., Fouled Hands, Lowball & Razz, Mucking, Dead Hands, Etc, Dealer Errors, Bad Flops, Etc. | Print | 1 Comment »

December 11, 2008 by MrVickers.

We had this happen in our room and I would like to know what the correct decision should have been.  As the dealer was bringing out the turn card it bent on the table in such a way that it somehow sprung off the table and onto the floor.  Would this card still be live?  What would be the ruling if it were one of the flop cards or river cards?

Thanks

Posted in Dealers Responsibilities, Errors, Partial Faults, Etc., Fouled Decks, Missing Cards, etc., Exposed Cards, Hand Discussion, Etc., Dealer Errors, Bad Flops, Etc., Misdeals | Print | 2 Comments »

November 19, 2008 by PurePoker.

Hi Guys,

been an avid reader of this blog for quite some time and thought I should post a couple of questions that I have run into over the last couple of months.

Guy in middle position declares All-In and places his remaining chips (about 10 pieces) on top of his cards and moves them towards the middle over the betting line. Guy on the Dealer button calls, Big-Blind calls as well, both have more chips. The bets are collected and the flop is layed out. While BB considers his options, suddenly the person all-in says: “Where are my cards?” The dealer realizes he has mucked the cards, because they layed on the wrong side of the betting line.
How would you rule?

Somebody on the table folds his cards so strongly, they fly into the cards of another player. The dealer cannot identify whoch cards where folded.
What is your ruling?

Somebody is playing aroung with his chips, holding a large amount in his hand. Suddenly he drops the chips in his hand and the fall into the stack of his neighbor. It is not possible to identify which chips belong to which player.
What should the TD do?

Thanks,
Denis
Pure Poker Lounge

Posted in Collusion, Cheating, Etc., Chip Counts of Pot & Opponents Stacks, Fouled Decks, Missing Cards, etc., Dealers Responsibilities, Errors, Partial Faults, Etc., Fouled Hands, All-In Bets; Re-Opening Betting, Side-Pots, Split Pots, Dealer Errors, Bad Flops, Etc., Etiquette, Behavior, Play Procedures & Penalties, Mucking, Dead Hands, Etc, Texas Holdem | Print | 2 Comments »

October 30, 2008 by thornny.

pls help,  came to the end of a hand,  two players left in hand,  each had the same hand,  easy  huh?? split pot??  then one player discovered he had been dealt three cards.  what happens???

Posted in Dealers Responsibilities, Errors, Partial Faults, Etc., Fouled Hands, All-In Bets; Re-Opening Betting, Side-Pots, Split Pots, Official Rules & Guidelines, General, Dealer Errors, Bad Flops, Etc. | Print | 2 Comments »

October 17, 2008 by davethedealer.

This situation came up in a tournament i was running last night. It was the last hand before the break.  Self deal game so no house dealer. Just as the break had started Player A who was the dealer, said he had just awarded the pot to Player B, but just realised that he should have won the pot. Player A said he had KJ and Player B had J2 and that the board was 329 J 9. Therefore Player A should have won with 2 pair and a higher kicker.

Both players cards were turned face up at showdown. But Player A thinking he’d lost mucked all the cards and the board, although they didnt get mixed with the remaining stub. As the next hand hadnt started i felt i should try and reconstruct the hand in the best interests of the game. I worked out what the pot was  and figured if i could be 100% sure what the board was ,and that Player A had KJ and Player B had J2 then Player A should be awarded the pot. As in the rule  cards speak etc.

In the end i awarded the pot to Player B who had J2 because only one other person at the table would confirm that Player A had KJ. Either the other players at the table hadnt noticed what happened or didnt want to get involved.

I do believe Player A had KJ ,but without the other players at the table speaking up i felt i couldnt award him the pot without being 100% certain. I feel i made the correct ruling but id be grateful for your comments.

Posted in Dealers Responsibilities, Errors, Partial Faults, Etc., Protecting Hand, Dealer Ruins Hand, Player Responsible, Incorrect Pot Awards, Chaos: Sloppy Mgmt of Tables & Tournament, Mucking, Dead Hands, Etc, Showdowns & Pot Awarding, Dealer Errors, Bad Flops, Etc. | Print | 7 Comments »

September 29, 2008 by al_78.

Situation came up the other day. Dealer thought there was no one left in the hand and awarded the pot to player A ,not realising there was still  player B with cards. All the cards were mucked except for player B’s. It was said player B’s cards were not in full view as he had his hands over them. Who gets the pot?

Posted in Dealers Responsibilities, Errors, Partial Faults, Etc., Protecting Hand, Dealer Ruins Hand, Player Responsible, Fouled Hands, Chaos: Sloppy Mgmt of Tables & Tournament, Mucking, Dead Hands, Etc, Dealer Errors, Bad Flops, Etc. | Print | 2 Comments »

September 17, 2008 by herb.solo.

Ok, last week we had the following situation:

Heads up, the flop is there, Player A is thinking for a long time, the dealer is exchanging chips from the pot in the meantime. Then, A checks and the dealer immediately burns a card and deals the turn, while player B makes a bet.

Now B wants A’s hand to be declared dead, A wants to call, insisting it wasn’t his fault, the dealer confirms that the bet and the turn came simultaneously and A had no time to react.

(we checked it on the camera-system later, it really went that way)

You’re called to the table, how do you rule?

Posted in Dealer Errors, Bad Flops, Etc. | Print | 3 Comments »

August 17, 2008 by lnufnu.

I was dealing a rather large Texas Hold’em tournament the other night and I ran into a huge mistake that I made.  The scenario was as follows:

Blinds were 25-50 (rather early in the tournament).  Player A (seat 9) was under-the-gun and has pocket Queens and raises to a total of 300.  Player in seat 10 folds and Player B (seat 1) calls (Player B has pocket 7’s).  Everyone else folds and player in seat 8 says to Player A, “Oh, you won the pot!”  I, as the dealer, listening to what player in seat 8 said and totally forgetting that player B had called, moved all the chips to player A and threw all the remaining cards into the muck pile.  Player B says, “Hey, I called.  Why did you throw the rest of the cards into the muck pile?”  Realizing I had made a huge mistake and that legal action had already taken place I took all the cards, including those that were in the original muck card pile (since there was no way that I was able to determine what cards were what), re-shuffled, and brought out a burn card and the flop.  The flop included a 7 and Player A’s Queens were cracked.  Player A went all in and, of course, Player B called.  Player A was eliminated from the tournament.

Was I correct, regardless of human error?  If not, please tell me the correct way to correct this “MAJOR MISTAKE!!!”

Posted in Exposed Cards, Hand Discussion, Etc., Fouled Decks, Missing Cards, etc., Verbals, Gestures, & Actions: Bet Raise Fold, Dealers Responsibilities, Errors, Partial Faults, Etc., Fouled Hands, Incorrect Pot Awards, Dealer Errors, Bad Flops, Etc., Mucking, Dead Hands, Etc, Chaos: Sloppy Mgmt of Tables & Tournament, Misdeals | Print | 1 Comment »

July 29, 2008 by g3rt.

hell0!

 first i’d like to apologize for my bad english, my native language is swiss german, i hope, you can understand me.

following scene occured yesterday night in a single table sng:

it was self-dealining. the dealer threw one player’s holecard face up. Someone said ’Let’s make this the burn card and continue dealing’. No one objected. But after the deal was complete, the dealer didn’t put the face up card on the top of the deck - he left it face up on the table. During the the pre-flop betting round nobody requested to put it on top of the deck, so that it could take its function as a burn card.
At the end of the preflop round, the dealer burned the top card and started dealing the flop when several players yelled out:”stop, you must not burn a card”. they wanted to discard the third flop card and put the burn card face up. I said, that everything is alright the way it is, because the face card wasn’t on top of the deck, so it wasn’t a burn card. therefore the dealer is right to burn another card.
everybody besides the dealer disagreed with me.
later on, i found out, that they do it always like that. they just call the misdealed card a burn card, but they don’t use it as one, they keep them face up one the table. I think this is so, because almost nobody seems to actually understand why the top card of the deck has to be burned.

my question is: was it still right to claim that the top card should be burned? what do you think about this situation?

An answer would be very appreciated, as I’m still rather irritated.

Posted in Dealers Responsibilities, Errors, Partial Faults, Etc., Exposed Cards, Hand Discussion, Etc., Dealer Errors, Bad Flops, Etc., Uncategorized | Print | 6 Comments »

May 31, 2008 by bill.buckley.

I was recently playing in a cash game where the players usually hold back on showing thier cards and qucikly muck if they are the losing hand.  I had a hand where I clearly got conterfited and elected to show my cards first when they were doing their normal holding back.   I flipped them over annoucing I had pocket 7s (not saying anything else about the hand).  The dealer picking up quickly the 7s were counterfited, without waiting to see if others would show thier hand announced my hand as  Queens and 8’s with a 7 kicker,  it appeared to me she was doing this to keep other players from volunteerly mucking thier hand.  I do not feel I did anything ethically wrong in annoucing my hand since I did not try in any way try to announce I won.  My question is what is the dealers responsiblity in this situation.  Should she have aided the other people in reading the hand before they showed, or waited until they either showed or mucked before specifying my actual hand.  Since I was conterfited and another player then showed thier card they out kicked me and won the bet. 

A related situation also happened on another day in a tournement.  Player A had A 7, Player B had A 3 the river was A Q 8 8 J (another counterfit situation - this time resulting in a split pot).  Player A showed his hand (A 7),   Player B then showed he had and A but not realizing  the counterfit situation left the other card turned face down, made a comment about being outkicked  and pushed them forwared and released them.  In this case it was other players that realized the counterfit situation and told player B to turn over the other card, Player B confused by the two or three players telling him this did nothing, but a third player (player C not in the hand) reached forword picked up player Bs downed card, showing it and announcing the split pot).  The dealer then commenced to divide up the pot and award it to both player A and player B, while player A was telling the dealer he did not think that  should be correct but that player As cards should be considered a muck.  After awarding the pot and starting to rifle the deck the dealer then acknowledge back to player A that he was probably right but it was too late to fix it.  However, most of the other players probably did not hear this since there was still a lot of discussion going on with player B to help him understand why it was a split pot.   What should the outcome of this hand been?

Thanks

Bill

Posted in Official Rules & Guidelines, General, Fouled Hands, Exposed Cards, Hand Discussion, Etc., Dealers Responsibilities, Errors, Partial Faults, Etc., Incorrect Pot Awards, Chaos: Sloppy Mgmt of Tables & Tournament, Etiquette, Behavior, Play Procedures & Penalties, Mucking, Dead Hands, Etc, Showdowns & Pot Awarding, Dealer Errors, Bad Flops, Etc. | Print | 8 Comments »