\"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

I was at Foxwoods the other night and a situation came up that I think was extremely questionable, was wondering how you guys would feel about it.

There was a 4 spade board, including the 4, 5, 6, and 8 of spades. Two older ladies went to showdown, one of them flipped some high spade, and the other showed the table her 7 of spades, made a :/ face, and mucked face down, obviously thinking she only had a 7 high flush. Dealer swept her cards into the muck and actually put the muck pile onto the deck and started squeezing the cards into a clean formation.

Someone decided that NOW they'd speak up and yells out "7 spades, she had a straight flush!" and the dealer grabs what seems to be a totally random card from the deck without looking and miraculously tables the 7 of spades. She then pushes the pot to the woman who mucked it, while the woman who showed the high spade just stared at the floor (as in the ground) shaking her head and looking absolutely crushed.

First off, she mucked her hand. Shouldn't it be dead the second it touches the muck, unless swept into the muck by dealer error? Second off, it wasn't even clearly identifiable in the muck, I have no idea how the dealer managed to table that card. And also, don't you have to show both cards to win a pot at a showdown? I believe she flashed her other hole card prior to mucking but it wasn't involved at all when the 7s came out. This just seems really ridiculous to me and I think the woman who didn't muck should have gotten the pot.

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

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First off, she mucked her hand. Shouldn't it be dead the second it touches the muck, unless swept into the muck by dealer error?

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no



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Second off, it wasn't even clearly identifiable in the muck,

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It looks like it was since the dealer knew where it was.

The dealer should not be doing this without a floor there. From the description it sounds like she might not have made a claim for the pot, but I know people often tell these stories in a way that advances the decision they want.

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

Ridiculous. Had she tossed her cards down, realized on her own that she had the winner and quickly grabbed them back, she would have a claim on the pot. As described, there are a number of reasons why she doesn't.

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

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The dealer should not be doing this without a floor there. From the description it sounds like she might not have made a claim for the pot, but I know people often tell these stories in a way that advances the decision they want.

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I agree on the floor thing. I'm not slanting this at all to "advance" the responses I want, I'm retelling this as accurately as I can. She never made a claim to the pot, she never said a word. She mucks, dealer collects muck, someone not involved in the hand speaks up, pot gets pushed to her once the 7 gets tabled (the dealer probably had the 7 "bookmarked" with her finger knowing the lady messed up, that would explain how she pulled it out like that). She was pretty sheepish about it.

Care to elaborate on the mucked hands are not automatically dead point? What are the exceptions to this?

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

I do believe there is a rule that if a hand is clearly shown and is the winner, all reasonable effort should be made to award that player the pot.

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

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Care to elaborate on the mucked hands are not automatically dead point? What are the exceptions to this?


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Anytime they are retrievable. Hands don't become "dead" at the showdown. If someone's cards are still there they can turn them up and show them. I think hands being dead for touching the muck is possibly the biggest myth in poker.

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

So what you are saying is that both cards were shown, the player actually had the straight flush and her opponent didn't complain, but you object?

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

I don't know how you can take this specific hand out of the muck because you don't know what the other card is, you still have to have a full two card hand to be a live hand.

Also, this breaks the one player to a hand rule in a big way because another player is the one that spoke up about the lady being the winner of the pot. It says she just flashes a card, which is different than tabeling the hand then getting the cards mucked accidentally. That would be no different than a player looking at his hand in omaha h/l, not knowing he has a low, and another player saying something like... oh you have a eighty-five low then the player tabeling the hand for half the pot.

This should probably be a dead hand every time.

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

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I think hands being dead for touching the muck is possibly the biggest myth in poker.

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Robert's Rule
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2. Cards thrown into the muck may be ruled dead. However, a hand that is clearly identifiable may be retrieved and ruled live at management’s discretion if doing so is in the best interest of the game. An extra effort should be made to rule a hand retrievable if it was folded as a result of incorrect information given to the player.

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But, in this case, it seems like this rule applies more:

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5. Any player who has been dealt in may request to see any hand that was eligible to participate in the showdown, even if the opponent's hand or the winning hand has been mucked. However, this is a privilege that may be revoked if abused. If a player other than the pot winner asks to see a hand that has been folded, that hand is dead. If the winning player asks to see a losing player’s hand, both hands are live, and the best hand wins.

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The OP doesn't say the cards were thrown into the muck. It seems to me that she folded her hand, and then the dealer mucked the cards. A player not in the hand asked to see the cards. Hand sure seems to be dead now.

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

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But, in this case, it seems like this rule applies more:

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5. Any player who has been dealt in may request to see any hand that was eligible to participate in the showdown, even if the opponent's hand or the winning hand has been mucked. However, this is a privilege that may be revoked if abused. If a player other than the pot winner asks to see a hand that has been folded, that hand is dead. If the winning player asks to see a losing player’s hand, both hands are live, and the best hand wins.

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The OP doesn't say the cards were thrown into the muck. It seems to me that she folded her hand, and then the dealer mucked the cards. A player not in the hand asked to see the cards. Hand sure seems to be dead now.

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Someone decided that NOW they'd speak up and yells out "7 spades, she had a straight flush!"

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I think you are really stretching it to say this is a case of IWTSTH.

Wonder what the OP means by "shows". Flashes one card? Tables both cards but then picks up and tosses face down?

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

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Wonder what the OP means by "shows". Flashes one card? Tables both cards but then picks up and tosses face down?

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She flashed both cards, but didn't turn them face up on the table. She flashed them, then tossed them toward the muck face down. Dealer then swept them into the muck.

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

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I was at Foxwoods the other night and a situation came up that I think was extremely questionable, was wondering how you guys would feel about it.

There was a 4 spade board, including the 4, 5, 6, and 8 of spades. Two older ladies went to showdown, one of them flipped some high spade, and the other showed the table her 7 of spades, made a :/ face, and mucked face down, obviously thinking she only had a 7 high flush. Dealer swept her cards into the muck and actually put the muck pile onto the deck and started squeezing the cards into a clean formation.

Someone decided that NOW they'd speak up and yells out "7 spades, she had a straight flush!" and the dealer grabs what seems to be a totally random card from the deck without looking and miraculously tables the 7 of spades. She then pushes the pot to the woman who mucked it, while the woman who showed the high spade just stared at the floor (as in the ground) shaking her head and looking absolutely crushed.

First off, she mucked her hand. Shouldn't it be dead the second it touches the muck, unless swept into the muck by dealer error? Second off, it wasn't even clearly identifiable in the muck, I have no idea how the dealer managed to table that card. And also, don't you have to show both cards to win a pot at a showdown? I believe she flashed her other hole card prior to mucking but it wasn't involved at all when the 7s came out. This just seems really ridiculous to me and I think the woman who didn't muck should have gotten the pot.

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WOW - This is first and formost horrible dealer technique. The dealer, when having each player flashed one card, should strenly ask the players to show their cards,

Second, if a player releases her cards to the dealer, they should be SLID INTO THE MUCK in order to be mixed in and not revealed.

Third, I still don't know if the player with the 7SP ever showed her other card. Far as I know, she had an UNO DRAW FOUR as the other card.

As a floor, it is hard to make these decisions, but I cannot see how the lady with the 7 spades gets the pot. She did not table 2 cards, she did not protect her interest in the hand, and she surely did notask for her cards back.

If the other lady has 2 live cards, she gets the pot. Simple.

As to 'touching the muck', most stores have a retrieve rule iif the PLAYER can retrieve the card and it is obviously the card in question.

If the dealer would only do their job properly and muck the cards when released, there would be no issue.

Finally, I think an issue greater that IWTSTH is one player to a hand, which would render another player calling the lady's 7SP invalid since she DID NOT TABLE 2 CARDS.

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

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Finally, I think an issue greater that IWTSTH is one player to a hand, which would render another player calling the lady's 7SP invalid since she DID NOT TABLE 2 CARDS.

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I think it is a rule of card's speak. She showed a str8 flush and the pot is hers.

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

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I think it is a rule of card's speak. She showed a str8 flush and the pot is hers.

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THE SHOWDOWN

1. To win any part of a pot, a player must show all of his cards faceup on the table, whether they were used in the final hand played or not.

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She didn't do that. She folded.

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

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Finally, I think an issue greater that IWTSTH is one player to a hand, which would render another player calling the lady's 7SP invalid since she DID NOT TABLE 2 CARDS.

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I think it is a rule of card's speak. She showed a str8 flush and the pot is hers.

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But in this instance the cards do not speak, because the hand was not "tabeled" properly. There are specific things you must do in casino poker for a hand to be read. The hand must be face up on the table, with BOTH cards there to be read.

From what the OP has said, neither of these things had happened. She flashes her one card to another player, throws her hand in, dealer mucks them, then a player says that she has a straight flush.

IMO, that hand should have never come out of the muck.

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

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I do believe there is a rule that if a hand is clearly shown and is the winner, all reasonable effort should be made to award that player the pot.

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Yeah, I tabled my 4 card hand in Omaha 8 once and then mucked it but the dealer saw what I had and that it beat the villain (I didn't even realize it) and pushed me the pot.

However if the woman did not table both her cards in this situation then she is not entitled to the pot as far as I know.

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

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Also, this breaks the one player to a hand rule in a big way because another player is the one that spoke up about the lady being the winner of the pot. It says she just flashes a card, which is different than tabeling the hand then getting the cards mucked accidentally. That would be no different than a player looking at his hand in omaha h/l, not knowing he has a low, and another player saying something like... oh you have a eighty-five low then the player tabeling the hand for half the pot.

This should probably be a dead hand every time.

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Regarding your later point either I misread or perhaps you have two harsh an interpretation of when "one player to a hand trumps "cards speak".

For example if a player appears to not know he has the pot (or in your O/8 example the low half) and gets help while holding his cards up how does a competent floor know he wouldn't have eventually figured it out before tossing his hand in? His hand shouldn't be ruled dead in this case.

Now let's say the player looked for this sort of commiseration from a neighbor and then tossed his hand forward and face down toward the muck (assuming all action is complete) and then the neighbor tells him he had a low/back door flush/straight whatever and the player now retrieves it while it's still discernible. Here we have quite a different situation. That hand should be ruled dead by a reasonable floor (thinking that it would be highly unlikely that the player would have retrieved the hand on its own).

~ Rick

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

what I meant there is a player holding his hand *not tabled* in his hand, another player looking at his hand and mentioning that he has a 85 low, then the player tabeling his hand for half the pot.

No matter if a player would figure that out on his own or not, another player cannot assist a player in this way.

Maybe I wrote it a little unclear. But above is what I meant.

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

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what I meant there is a player holding his hand *not tabled* in his hand, another player looking at his hand and mentioning that he has a 85 low, then the player tabling his hand for half the pot.

No matter if a player would figure that out on his own or not, another player cannot assist a player in this way.



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But you cannot kill his hand because of his neighbor. Otherwise I can "kill" the hand of the jerk next to me by "telling" him what he has before he has a chance to table it. The penalty, if any, should be on the neighbor who doesn't keep his mouth shut.

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

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But you cannot kill his hand because of his neighbor. Otherwise I can "kill" the hand of the jerk next to me by "telling" him what he has before he has a chance to table it. The penalty, if any, should be on the neighbor who doesn't keep his mouth shut.

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We are not talking about killing a live hand where that happens... I am just saying it is not allowed... espically when a hand is in the muck already where a neibhor says you have a low hand... you cannot retrieve that hand and table it.

In the instance of the neibhor telling a player who is trying to figure out his hand telling him what he has, we will warn that player that he cannot do that, and if he keeps reading other players hands for them when they are not tabled he will not be playing for the day.

We had a very bad incident of this happening in our 5-5 pot limit a while back where a player had no idea he had a full house, he is getting ready to throw his hand in, and his neibhor says turn your cards over you have a full house. He turns over the full house and scoops a 7,000 dollar pot.

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

Seems to me that the OP's story it was a dead hand and she shouldn't have been awarded the pot. As Rick pointed out she didn't know she had the winning hand and she didn't table her hand, she went to muck it and flashed it to the table so they could see. So it falls under the one person to a hand rule.

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

Sounds as if there was no dispute that she did indeed have the 7s, and therefore had the winning hand. It’s unclear whether she properly tabled either of the cards.

It’s also unclear whether the player with the X high flush tabled both her cards.

Since no one at the table is disputing that the player showed a straight flush, I think it is clearly in the best interest of the game to award the pot to that player. (Along with a warning about protecting her hand.)

In my experience, most floor people at Foxwoods rule that the muck has magical hand-killing properties. Therefore, the odds are that if a floor had been called, the straight flush would have been ruled dead. On the other hand, Foxwoods does have some floor people who do not believe in magical mucks. I have seen them rule that a player who flashes the winning hand and unknowingly mucks it is still entitled to the pot in the best interest of the game. (I long ago gave up trying to find out what the room’s “official” rule, if any, is on this point.)

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

There is nothing unclear. The OP says "face down".

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

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There is nothing unclear. The OP says "face down".

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Really? So I suppose all the players who saw the 7 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] were wearing those cool X-Ray glasses then?

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

some people possess a special skill which allows them to view objects even when they are not laying on a table

Re: \"Un-mucking\" a mucked hand
 

I always hate to see the best hand lose on a technicality. Any hand that has been turned face up and is abviously the winning hand should never lose on a technicality or dealer error.

On the other hand, turned face up means both hole cards visible on the cameras, as well as your neighbors.

In either case the dealer has no business retrieving mucked cards, and was WAY out of line not calling the floor.