Yet another Floor Decision question (the magic muck)

[Brettski]

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"dealer didn't quickly and irretrievably muck a hand" The dealer is not a hired assassin, trained to kill hands at every opportunity. If you think he is, then it sounds like you hate the idea of awarding the pot to the best hand, whenever possible, in the interest of fairness.

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No, dealers are not hired assassins. However, when ambiguous situations like this are permitted to occur (eg. did it touch the muck, is it actually in the muck) they can result in the floor being called to make tricky, line-ball decisions. And let's face it, that's what floor staff are there to do. But procedures that minimise the need for this are, in my view, good poker room management.

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When you permit a pot to be divided up by mutual agreement, you are jeapordising the integrity of the game This line alone sewed up the Nit Award for you. There's no "slippery slope" in the OP's story. Unusual circumstances sometimes call for unusual solutions.

I can just imagine both players agreeing to chop the sidepot; the entire table relaxes, relieved that a fair solution was reached; the calm is then shattered by The Lone Nit, who rises out of his seat to give a fiery speech about life, liberty, truth, justice, and "jeapordising the integrity of the game..."

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In the example given by the OP, a decision was made that one hand was dead, and the only remaining live hand would be awarded the side-pot. What is so unusual about this situation that it required an unusual ruling to be made? In what other situations would it be acceptable for players to chop a pot? How similar would they be to the OP's situation? Where do you draw the line?