[bav]

What's the proper procedure to follow if two folks are heads-up in a cash game, all-in, and one tries to muck his cards before the dealing is done? In a tourney, this isn't allowed--no chip dumping, and all that. But in a cash game?

Tonight two guys got heads up and the first flipped over his cards showing trips. The other guy tossed his cards forward face down. Dealer put out the turn and the river, double-pairing the board (JJ44). Then the dealer just kinda stared at the guy who had mucked and waited. And waited. Finally two or three people at the other end of the table start babbling about what hands might be good now and the guy who had mucked reaches out and turns over AJ for the boat. Suddenly now the dealer figures out "oops" and says "I'm sorry, but you had already mucked" and starts to kill his hand. AJ protests. Dealer says "sorry". AJ protests and I suggest that we need a floor. Dealer doesn't want to call the floor, and tries to convince AJ to just give up the pot with a "do you really want to argue this?" AJ says "YES I want the pot!" Real floor isn't in the room and a dealer substituting for the floor comes over and says AJ wins because "it might not work this way everywhere, but we have a policy that we don't kill hands on a technicality".

I wouldn't have given the pot to AJ because... the dealer waited a very long time, didn't take the clearly mucked cards, and it wasn't until table chatter erupted that AJ finally figured out maybe he had something after all. Without the table chatter... well... I dunno. And if the dealer was going to claim the cards were dead because the guy mucked them already, WHY did he give the player 10 seconds to think about what he had and ultimately reclaim the cards? If he thought the guy's hand was already dead, the dealer should have just tucked the cards into the muck the instant the river was dealt (or sooner).

So if a player gives up like this before the dealing is done in a cash game, should the dealer kill the cards immediately and not even finish the deal? Should he kill it and finish? Should he leave them face down and finish the deal and insta-muck them? Or should he do like this guy and finish the deal and just stare at the player waiting for his approval to really bury his hand in the muck (I'm betting this is not the correct answer)?