"I WANT TO SEE THAT HAND"

[MiamiDave]

I've seen someone removed from the table of a local Indian casino in South Florida for mucking their hands straight into the deck when the dealer was requested to show the hands.

The removed person in question had asked to see another person's hand for no apparent reason, and I guess it pissed the other guy off because it was a runner-runner beat. So the upset guy asked the next hand to see the removed person's cards and the person pushed them directly into the muck, instead. The dealer gives them a warning not to do it again, and they proceed to do so again a few hands later and the floor comes over and makes a ruling that he's had enough for the night.

So yeah, different casinos treat it differently. Like most controvery rulings there isn't much of an industry standard.

By the way, a good dealer is aware of how many cards are entering the muck on each hand to prevent cheating. Although I find it unlikely that a person would try to hang onto a card in a poker game, it's still a possibility, so if a dealer requests a player not to place his cards directly into the muck, I can't really see why I'd disagree with their request.

As far as the other scenarios mentioned above, I've never seen a dealer pull cards out of the muck when the request was made after the cards had already touched it. Once it hit the muck, I'd be extremely pissed off if a dealer pulls it back out at someone's late request.