It touched the muck - it's DEAD!

[psandman]

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No one mentioned the fact that one card (the ace) was visibly shown, while the other card (insignificant to the result of the hand) was the card in question.
From my experience, sometimes people will purposely show one card (usually when it is the only significant card for showdown) and will muck the other card. When this happens the dealer will say you need to show 2 cards and then it is shown and he is awarded the pot. I don't recall ever seeing a player penalized for doing this.

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I usually only see this happen when they put both cards in front and only flip one, not really mucking the other. I can't imagine someone actually mucking the kicker for a hugely contested pot intentionally. Does this actually happen?

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Sadly this does happen. I'm not sure what these people are thinking. I suppose that they think that their opponent will not want to win this way and will muck their hand when they are shown they are beat with one card.

[bav]

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Sadly this does happen. I'm not sure what these people are thinking.

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They're thinking "I've proven I have the best hand by showing a single card and this is enough to claim a pot in my home game."

It's not at all obvious that you have to show both cards to win a hand. This is one of those rules that n00bs have absolutely no way to learn until they violate it. And it's completely unfair to kill someone's hand for violating a non-obvious rule that they had no way to learn of prior to violating it. It's also not something you can learn from online play.

I always remember back to the first time I sat in a B&M game eons ago after standing at the rail for 3 hours watching. Floor kept coming over telling me I should just sit down. I replied each time "gimme a rule book to read first". "We don't have one." "Then I'm not sitting down with real money at risk until I think I've got a solid understanding of this game--I'm just gonna keep watching". But even after 3 hours of watching I doubt I woulda seen the "gotta show both cards to claim a pot" rule applied.

[HOWMANY]

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The correct response is to throw the muck at the FS, then tell him he touched the muck so he's dead.

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I knew there was a reason I kept reading the B&M forum posts no matter how boring I thought they were. This made my week, and the week only started 2 hours ago.

[jalexone]

Explain to the player/FS that he may not like the rule but the rule is the rule.

Discernable cards play at showdown.

He may file a written request to have the rules amended if he should so choose.

[SheridanCat]

This exact same thing happened at the Bellagio 4/8 one night a couples years ago. The card cartwheeled and was clearly visible to half the table. It landed, retrievable and face-down, on the muck. It completed the winning hand.

Of course, the other player was a nitty regular and called the floor who ruled that the muck really is magic and the hand was dead. Tough luck, tourist.

Terrible ruling. You ruled correctly.