What's the correct ruling on this situation?

TxRedMan · #1 06-15-2007, 03:28 PM

A player opened UTG for $15 in a 2/5 game. The BB defended.

Flop comes

Q-10-2 with two spades

BB checks, UTG bets $30, BB raises and UTG moves all-in and BB calls.

BB has Q-10, UTG has QQ. The action is sort of irrelevant.

BB turns his hand over, as does UTG. BB sees he's up against top set then picks his cards up and throws them forward face down about a foot in front of him. They never touch the muck. A player says to the BB "it could come spade-spade", and as the dealer turns a spade, the BB picks his hand up, pulls it back to him, and then the dealer turns over a river spade, making the BB a spade flush.

The hand never touched the muck, the dealer never touched the hand, but the BB did make a motion towards the muck.

What's the proper ruling here?

jinyk · #2 06-15-2007, 03:44 PM

As the hand was called (all moneys in) and the card could clearly be identified and recoverable, the hand is live. The ruling will vary on the card room, floor, and exact details of this "mucking" and how close the cards were to the muck, and the dealers and other player's confidence in their recall of what exactly happened, but I believe most floors would rule this way.

Note: The only player dumber than the BB is the "player" that made the comment. Don't be that fool.

PantsOnFire · #3 06-15-2007, 03:55 PM

I have seen this exact situation where the player flips over his cards and tosses them face down into the muck, thinking he is drawing dead.

The dealer pulled them out and set them beside the other hand and above the flop cards and dealt the turn and river.

Twistofsin · #4 06-15-2007, 04:14 PM

They are all-in, he doesn't have an opportunity to act until showdown. It sucks that someone opened his mouth and possibly influenced the play, but at the time the player threw his cards down he was acting out of turn. His hand was live when he retrieved it, and the best hand wins.

youtalkfunny · #5 06-15-2007, 04:18 PM

Big-mouthed player should get a "one player to a hand" warning.

atrainpsu · #6 06-15-2007, 06:16 PM

It could also come Ten, Ten. People mucking their hand on the flop after getting allin are idiots. There is almost always some sort of runner runner draw. At least twice I've seen ace high get allin vs. a set, and then 2 wheel cards hit and they try to dive into the muck and they are sh*t out of luck.
Anyway, where I used to deal, we were told to muck a hand once a player "mucked" it. Having already seen the hand should technically not affect this. Since the hand was retrieved by the player, it would stay live in most if not all casinos, although I'm sure a floor could rule that the player mucked his hand, and even though he retrieved it, it was still mucked and dead.

pfapfap · #7 06-15-2007, 06:38 PM

Was the hand tabled, or just held up for all to see and then mucked? If tabled, it helps even more, but I say the hand is live and the talky player gets KITN.

Cornell Fiji · #8 06-15-2007, 07:29 PM

Hijack:

If the player indeed throws his hand into the muck (not near the muck but right into the pile) after this flop, and if no one says anything, is the dealer trained to push the pot to the guy with the set and not deal a turn/river or is he supposed to deal the turn/river and then push the pot to the winner?

wizexel22 · #9 06-15-2007, 07:46 PM

It seems pretty clear to me at least that the hand is live. He already went all in and there is no way to "fold" or muck the hand at this point considering his cards didn't even touch anything else. I believe if he never showed his cards and then threw his hand into the pile of cards, his hand would then be "dead" I believe. But I think thats the only way to kill his hand.

I have a question though: Is the "big mouth" that informed him that he could catch two spades THAT wrong in doing so? I know people say he should keep his mouth shut, and so I don't blurt things out like that. However, I also don't really get that mad at people that do, EVEN if it cost me my pot. I feel like the cards determined the winner, and even if the guy says nothing, won't the dealer give the pot to the "correct" winner anyways? It's like a stranger pointing out that you recieved too much change for your purchase...then the cashier takes some money back. Of course you might think "mind your damn business!" but at the same time, it wasn't really right for you to knowingly take the extra change in the first place. I've seen arguments over pots like this and it actually annoys me that the person is trying so hard to get a pot that's not his. Seems kinda shady to me. Am I wrong here?

Jeff Diamond · #10 06-16-2007, 01:20 AM

I agree 100% here. The hand is clearly live, he was all in, his cards were clear and distinguishable, and at this point the action is done.

The player who mentioned that it could run spade spade isn't helping him play his hand, his hand is played. This isn't a one player one hand thing. I won't defend the action of tossing the cards in, that's plain dumb, but since they didn't touch the muck, they're not mucked, and his cards won.

The best cards win the hand here and the guy who mentioned spade spade probably wouldn't have made a difference anyway, as the dealer would have likely turned the cards up.