Turn card face up in deck

[Willy Gee]

Here’s the situation: My wife and I are playing in a tournament. The blinds escalate every fifteen minutes. Because the blinds were pretty high, the players were trying to shuffle as quickly as possible.

My wife is dealing. Two guys are heads-up with two spades on the flop. First guy bets, second guy goes all in, and is called. My wife burns a card and starts to deal the turn. The turn card is a king of spades. But it is face up in the deck. No one had seen the card, but it was facing the wrong way as she started to place it on the board.

The spade would’ve made the second guy a flush. However, first guy claims the card is dead because it was face up. This seems ridiculous to me, but the person running the tournament agrees, and says that the deck needs to be re-shuffled. Further, he says that the king of spades must be removed from the deck, so it has no possibility of hitting the board again. Now I know that must be wrong. However, I don’t know what happens when a card is face up in the deck? Is it dead, even if no one had seen it previously?

Thanks.

[Lottery Larry]

"My wife is dealing. ... The turn card is a king of spades. But it is face up in the deck. No one had seen the card, but it was facing the wrong way as she started to place it on the board."

From Robert's Rules:
"A card discovered faceup in the deck (boxed card) will be treated as a meaningless scrap of paper. A card being treated as a scrap of paper will be replaced by the next card below it in the deck, except when the next card has already been dealt facedown to another player and mixed in with other downcards." (the last part doesn't apply here)

So, the dealer gets a kick in the nuts :P and the next card is dealt in place of the dead Ks. I think it's done to make sure no one potentially had an advantage, in case the boxed card was seen by someone.... and to keep the game moving.

I could see where the house rule could be to reshuffle, but the tourney director STILL screwed up. Of COURSE you shuffle the Ks back into the stub, so it WILL have a chance to come up again (no burn card before dealing the replacement turn, BTW).

[Willy Gee]

Thanks for the response. While I appreciate the proposed penalty, I think I’ll find a better way to discipline the wife tonight.

[pfapfap]

The dealer did nothing wrong, and the guy who said it was a dead card was right (just move on to the next card). The director is the one who deserves a kick for screwing up twice. If he's not going to shuffle the dead card back in, why reshuffle at all?

[Lottery Larry]

[ QUOTE ]
While I appreciate the proposed penalty, I think I’ll find a better way to discipline the wife tonight.

[/ QUOTE ]

You haven't been here long enough to know that my penalty was the standard penalty given on 2+2 for dealer screwups (though this wasn't a dealer screwup).

As for the rest... WAY TMI! (ewwwwww....)