[psandman]

Playing a low buy in NL tournament I had this situation come up.

There are three players in the hand. Player in Seat 4, Player in seat 6, and myself in seat 10. I don't remember exactly how the betting went, but I don't think it is relevant anyway.

As the result of the pre-flop betting Seat 6 who was the small stack at the table is all-in and there is a side pot between Seat 4 and myself (There is nothing in the side pot but we both still have reasonably significant stacks). The dealer puts up the flop and the player in 6 decides that he is going to show his hand to the player in seat 5 (folded pre-flop). But he does this in such a way that it is obvious that seat four can see the hand (both myself and the dealer immediately tell him to not show his hand. Dealer then calls for the floor and asks the floor if the hand should now be exposed (The player in Seat 4 says that he did in fact see the hand). Floor rules that the hand should not be exposed and merely tells the player in seat 6 to be more careful.

Now I end up betting and seat 4 folds, seat 6 flips over complete junk and I doubt that in this case his cards had any influence on Seat 4, seat 4 could not have been folding to seat 6's hand as I can't imagine that he didn't have it beat.


There are a couple of things by way of background.

1) Seat 6 is a regular in the game. We know this because the Floor and the dealers all know him by name and befor ethe tournament started his conversation made it clear that he plays this tournament frequently.

2) It is pretty clear by the way it happened that Seat 6 intentionally lifted his hand up at an angle for seat 5 to see it, but he genuinely seemed surprised that anyone other than seat 5 could see the hand. He was not trying to shoot an angle (and he would be better off with out anyone seeing his cards) but he was clearly acting in a pretty reckless manner.

My feeling was that once the player exposed his cards like this I should be put in the same position as the player who saw the cards.

What do you think should have happened?

Personally I'm not a fan of imposing a penalty of time away from the table here as I tend to think that penalty should be reserved for players intentionally taking shots.


BTW the player who flipped over junk hit a runner runner straight to take the pot. I had top pair top kicker, and I think it would have been good for any side pot.