[Rottersod]

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I think one of the most important lessons here is that a hand is never mucked until it's actually in the muck. Rulings on this do vary from place to place, but a hand that a) hasn't been properly tabled and b) is irretrievably mucked can't risk being ruled "live" under almost any circumstance.

When I have conducted dealer training I have always emphasised the importance of mucking folded hands quickly and irretrievably. This eliminates many grey areas, and means that arguments such as this one simply don't arise. It also makes the floor's job much easier when they are called over to disputes such as this.

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In this case it wouldn't matter if the cards hit the muck. Action was complete(all in and call) and the cards were tabled. Cards speak.

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I disagree.

In a cardroom where dealers are trained to pull into the muck folded cards as the OP described and Brettski talks about above, then only 1 live hand remains after the flop.

If only 1 live hand remains, there is no need for the dealer to put out the turn and river. The pot could reasonably be pushed to the sole remaining live hand, provided the pot is corrrect.

I realize this is a huge (potential) cluster f***, but when the player picked up his cards and threw them face down towards the muck, most places would have the dealer immediately pull them into the muck. It doesn't matter that he had previously proprely tabled the hand. That hand is now out of play and in the original post description there is only the one remaining live hand.

Since in the original description the dealer didn't scoop up the cards, the player can retrieve his own cards and re-table them face-up. The dealer created this mess by not mucking the folded cards immediately, thereby ending the need for dealing further board cards.

It would have been completely different if the tabling of hands had taken place after the board was complete. Then the properly tabled hands could have been read even if one of them was subsequently turned face down by the player.

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I'm not 100% sure how the floors in the rooms I play at would rule even though technically a tabled hand should speak. Since the hand was tabled it was identifiable to everyone, including the dealer so when a floor is called it can be retrieved but I'm just not confident that they would all rule that way.

I will say that in an all in situation with no further action if a player throws their hand to the muck but then reaches out and grabs the cards I have no problem with it.
A litle hijack:

The other day I was playing and the board had a flush. Seat 3 tabled his hand (playing the board) and seat 2 was looking at his cards and kind of held them out and was about to muck them when the dealer says "don't throw them away, it's a chop". He tables and they split. Needless to say most of the table went apesh@t and chewed the dealer out and she couldn't understand why everyone was giving her a hard time about it. She said something like "I've been dealing for years and I always tell them when it's a chopped pot". I had a nice talk with the floor in private later on.