[psandman]

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I charge the button with constructive knowledge if not actual knowledge, by that I mean that if he didn't know he had only three cards he should have known it. I know you believe that players have no obligation to protect themselves, but this is part of protecting your hand.

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There is something you are overlooking here. The button does not have the dealer deal to his left after his last card, so he doesn't get an opportunity to protect himself in this case because the dealer doesn't "pass him by." The other problem with this is the players up front often start playing before the dealer is done dealing so the existence of a bet and raise does not mean he wasn't on top of it to speak up the moment he didn't get get his fourth card. On the other hand everything you have said about consistent dealing procedures is correct.


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There may not have been a deal to the left, but the dealer now stopped brought in an exposed card and dealt an additional card to another player (maybe not the player on the immediate left of the button but still a very overt action which should have alerted the button).

As to the action before the the deal is complete, I took for granted that if there was an issue about the action happening early you would have mentioned it. While its not uncommon for a player to call or muck befor ethe dealing is complete, its a little less common for a raise and call to occur.