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 »

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 »

May 8, 2008 by frenchflush.

Hello,

Let’s try to find a ”final” method to rule the dealer worst errors. With “dealer error” I mean the dealer IS THE REAL & ONLY RESPONSABLE WITH THE ERROR and no help can be find with players being “not clear” or things like that!

Let’s go with the famous exemple: on a 6000 pot at the river player A bets 1000 - player B takes is time to act (while doing absolutely NOTHING wrong or nothing meaning a call) - the dealer announce “player B calls” (OBVIOUS ERROR FROM HIM for absolutely unknown reason) - so player A shows is hand (very good but no nuts) - player B ask for the floor because he wanted to raise … !!! ….

We allready treated this case BUT … I really don’t agree with the way it is usually ruled and MORE AND MORE  I decide to SPLIT the pot when the errors ARE CLEARLY coming from the dealers … here is why:  

Doing the error the dealer is clearly penalizing both players who are absolutely innocent and the “usual” ruling on this case allways advantage A or B depending of their hand at this moment. Let’s be more clear:

The traditionnal ruling would be to say that because B can’t play anymore with the advantage of knowing A’s cards … B is declared as only calling … so imagines the two situations:

If B has the winning hand … well … let’s say it’s ok because we can suppose A would have fold (so nothing change for him) or would have called the raise (would had been worth for him) …

If A has the winning hand … terrible for B who can argument (sincerely) that he would have BLUFF RAISE tho save his head on that situation … I REALLY CAN’T STAND SAYING TO HIM THAT THE BETTING ROUND IS SUDDENLY STOPPED BECAUSE OF AN DEALER ERROR … TAKING AWAY FROM HIM ANY CHANCE TO WIN THE POT ANYMORE! And don’t tell me about a “minimum raise permitted”: it would never work here as a bluff raise! In the other hand you can answer me that A would have paid any bluff raise from B ! … well … so …

I split the pot (and do it more & more often when the errors come ONLY & CLEARLY from my dealers)!

I will wait for your opinions with the usual respect but you know what? My method please a lot’s of people right here (even if they may look like ”no decision from coward floor” for anyone … lol!).

 GG

Posted in Fouled Hands, House Rules Different from Standard, Fouled Decks, Missing Cards, etc., Official Rules & Guidelines, General, Incorrect Pot Awards, Dealer Errors, Bad Flops, Etc., Mucking, Dead Hands, Etc, Chaos: Sloppy Mgmt of Tables & Tournament, Misdeals | Print | 5 Comments »

May 5, 2008 by wiredaces14.

I would like to know how this situation would be handled.

 Pot has been shipped to a player and before the next hand is dealt, the dealer realizes that there was a brown card in the green deck…hence making there a total of 53 cards in the deck.

 The dealer obviously calls the floor, what is your ruling?

 Same question if a player has a pair of suited 5’s, wins the pot then exposes them?  Same answer?

Posted in Substantial Action, Fouled Decks, Missing Cards, etc., Exposed Cards, Hand Discussion, Etc., Collusion, Cheating, Etc., Official Rules & Guidelines, General, Fouled Hands, Mucking, Dead Hands, Etc | Print | 5 Comments »