Turn Misdeal Ruling

[EasilyFound]

Does everyone follow the standard rule when the dealer mistakenly reveals the fourth card before betting has ended? The rule according to Robert's Rules of Poker, v. 7, is to put that card aside, complete the betting, burn and turn the next card, then mix the prematurely turned card into the deck and turn the river card without burning another card.

This happened last night, and one player disagreed, saying that the prematurely turned card should be mixed into the deck before dealing the fourth board card.

In the "Explanations" section of RROP, v. 7, #2 seems to criticize that general rule and suggests that a better rule would be to mix the prematurely turned card into the deck: "It would be better to reshuffle before the turn, preserving the chance of receiving the prematurely dealt card on either of the last two cards, as opposed to cutting that chance in half. THe superiority of retaining mathematical integrity by reshuffling right away is best illustrated if the prematurely dealt card makes a gut-shot straight-flush for a player who has not yet acted, thus having the dealer error influencing that player's betting strategy."

I don't think I agree with that criticism, but I'd like to know what other people do and think about this situation.

[Lottery Larry]

[ QUOTE ]
Does everyone follow the standard rule when the dealer mistakenly reveals the fourth card before betting has ended?

[/ QUOTE ]
I think many of us here agree with that, but we're poker geeks.

[ QUOTE ]
In the "Explanations" section of RROP, v. 7, #2 seems to criticize that general rule and suggests that a better rule would be to mix the prematurely turned card into the deck: "It would be better to reshuffle before the turn, preserving the chance of receiving the prematurely dealt card on either of the last two cards, as opposed to cutting that chance in half. THe superiority of retaining mathematical integrity by reshuffling right away is best illustrated if the prematurely dealt card makes a gut-shot straight-flush for a player who has not yet acted, thus having the dealer error influencing that player's betting strategy."


[/ QUOTE ]

Two things in play here:

1) In most home games, card order is a sancrosinct thing. The "standard" action preserves that, since the river card is 100% likely to be played that way.

2) Dealer error is dealer error. There's only so much you can do... and I think that Robert's adjustment may open up charges of cheating (dealer peeking at the deck and making a "mistake" to clean it up).

Plus, it adds extra time and drama to a problem situation.

I don't agree with BC that giving the river burn card a chance to appear on the board, and (most likely) changing the should-have-been river card, is worth letting the turn card get two shots at coming back.

We all know that it doesn't really "matter" in probability over the long term, but home poker is about the short term, as we also unfortunately know.

[PantsOnFire]

By reshuffling the turn card right away into the deck, yes you do preserve the chance of receiving that card in the next two up cards.

Of course, this would make gut-shot straight flush draw guy happy. However, if the orginal river card was his gutshot card then he wouldn't be so happy when the deck was reshuffled because he went from 100% chance of seeing it (on the turn no less) to about a 3% chance.

So people tend to come up with arguements on how to proceed when they see a card that would help them be relegated back to the deck and the odds of it appearing again greatly reduced. However, they forget that the unseen river card is equally likely to help them.

I haven't done the math on this but I think the rules in general of keeping the original deck intact as much as possible is the best way to go.

When you deal the river card as the turn card, only one card out of the original board of five is disrupted. When you shuffle in the early turn card and deal a new turn and a new river, two cards are disrupted.

[psandman]

personally i believe the card should get shuffled in right away, because I think this "preservation of the order of the deck" thing is bogus. However, every casin have dealt in or played in uses the standard rule and thats wha have come to expect. When I am poker room manager I may change that.

[ShaneP]

The criticism that BC puts forward is somewhat valid--normally when you're making a decision to draw to something on the turn, you're calculation for outs is something like n/47. Exposing and putting aside one card would bring that calculation to (n-1)/46 or n/46 (obviously the biggest change would be for small n, with the (n-1)/46 being the new probability of hitting), thus BC's gutshot example.

Since unseen cards are unseen cards, you've now got a smaller chance of filling on the turn if you just set aside the premature turn card, because you dont' know what the river card (that becomes the turn card) is. If you don't hit, then it's the same chance of hitting on the river in either case since the premature turn card is shuffled back in.

But, I just realized the following--this might be what other people were thinking, but--showing a card you need is in the deck gives you some more information about one of the cards you need, that it's in the deck and not in a folded hand. Thus, for that one card to come off, the probability is not 1/46, it is 1/28 or 1/30 (depending on how many hands were dealt). Might make the probabilities roughly equal to give the card you know is in the deck only one chance instead of two to come out.

[EasilyFound]

[ QUOTE ]
personally i believe the card should get shuffled in right away, because I think this "preservation of the order of the deck" thing is bogus.

[/ QUOTE ]

I very much agree about your "order of the deck" comment. I'm sure we've all played in a home tourney where it is shorthanded and the dealer deals everyone's hole cards before the button is moved, and more often than not, the players insist on moving the hole cards one spot over or, if one player has looked, collecting the cards, reshuffling, and dealing again. That just seems silly to me.

Of course, the solution that best preserves the "order of the deck" in a midealt turn situation is to put aside the next two cards, what will be the burn and river, put the prematurely delt turn card back into the deck, shuffle it, and redeal with turn without a burn card, bet, then burn and turn the two cards set aside for the river. But I suppose that would not be considered kosher except in the most friendly of games.

[pfapfap]

I agree that "order of deck" is silly, but the rule in place seems a rather simple compromise between the practical and superstitious. At least half the time when the turn is burned too quickly, there's no river anyway. Since you finish the old-river/new-turn betting before reshuffling, it saves the most time.

I play in a weekly game with a bunch of crazy poker nuts. None of them give two poops at all about "proper" order. If the button isn't moved, oh well. If someone is accidentally dealt out, it's two off the top. If four cards get mixed up through sloppy pitching, just pick two out of 'em. I tell ya, it's refreshing

[Zetack]

[ QUOTE ]

Of course, the solution that best preserves the "order of the deck" in a midealt turn situation is to put aside the next two cards, what will be the burn and river, put the prematurely delt turn card back into the deck, shuffle it, and redeal with turn without a burn card, bet, then burn and turn the two cards set aside for the river. But I suppose that would not be considered kosher except in the most friendly of games.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a great suggestion. I think the biggest argument against it is having a couple of cards sitting to one side opens the door a little more than usual to some kind of shenanigans. But this preserves your original river card and makes it come on the river and gives all your cards, including the exposed card, their appropriate chance to come on the turn. I like it.

Of course, from a practical standpoint, it should make no difference to anybody if you just reshuffled and redealt the turn and river, from a statistical standpoint, you wouldn't care whether the river is the one "pre-ordained" or not as long as its random. But try getting all nine other players to buy into that sometime.


--Zetack

[Lottery Larry]

[ QUOTE ]
But this preserves your original river card and makes it come on the river and gives all your cards, including the exposed card, their appropriate chance to come on the turn. I like it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think one reason that it isn't done that way is to speed up the game. Rather than make people wait for the shuffle, the river-as-turn card allows the dealer to shuffle the stub and exposed card while the game progresses.

"Of course, from a practical standpoint, it should make no difference to anybody if you just reshuffled and redealt the turn and river, from a statistical standpoint, you wouldn't care whether the river is the one "pre-ordained" or not as long as its random"

If you feel this is true, then why "preserve" the order at all, with this new method?

[Zetack]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
But this preserves your original river card and makes it come on the river and gives all your cards, including the exposed card, their appropriate chance to come on the turn. I like it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think one reason that it isn't done that way is to speed up the game. Rather than make people wait for the shuffle, the river-as-turn card allows the dealer to shuffle the stub and exposed card while the game progresses.

"Of course, from a practical standpoint, it should make no difference to anybody if you just reshuffled and redealt the turn and river, from a statistical standpoint, you wouldn't care whether the river is the one "pre-ordained" or not as long as its random"

If you feel this is true, then why "preserve" the order at all, with this new method?

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you see the last sentence of that paragraph where I said, but try getting the other nine players to agree? For your casual player the pre-ordained order of the cards tends to be very important. If it weren't, nobody would ever rabbit hunt.