How Would YOU Rule Here?

An interesting rules interpretation came up at a local, private, in-person tournament this week. The format was a round-of-each, with the game changing from no limit hold’em to pot limit Omaha, and back, every time the button passed to seat 1.

At the final table, a PLO hand got to the river with two players involved (not including me). After a sizable river bet, the pot was pretty large. One player had amassed the biggest stack at the table. For purposes of this blog, I’ll call him “Zee.” Zee called a large river bet, then turned over his cards to show top set.

The other player – for purposes of this blog, I’ll call him “Drew” – visibly flashed his cards, but did not table them. He placed them face down and muttered something about having a ton of outs. Very quickly, before the dealer pulled Drew’s cards towards the muck or pushed the pot to Zee, Drew yelled “Wait, I have a straight” and flipped his cards face up showing that he did, indeed, make a straight on the river. Drew had been so focused on his flush draw that the straight card didn’t immediately register.

The cards weren’t in the muck or touching the muck or in any way difficult to confirm they were Drew’s cards. The dealer had yet to touch the cards nor in any way said or did anything to declare them dead.

Being a critical moment in the tourney, the dealer called over the tournament director to make a ruling.

Okay, armchair tournament directors, what would you do?

For me, the first question is whether this private game has its own set of tournament rules? Does it follow Robert’s Rules of Poker? World Series of Poker rules? Make every decision on the fly?

If Robert’s Rules are being followed, this language appears in the general poker rules:

Cards thrown into the muck may be ruled dead. However, a hand that is clearly identifiable may be retrieved and ruled live at management’s discretion if doing so is in the best interest of the game.

The WSOP has the exact same language – see Rule 109.

I contacted one of the hosts of the game to ask what set of rules they use to resolve matters like this. His answer… “we use Robert’s Rules for most issues.”

Does any of this change your opinion as to the correct ruling?

What actually happened is the tournament director ruled Drew’s hand dead. His rationale was that once the cards hit the table face down, either dropped or pushed forward in the manner we all understand as a fold, the hand is dead regardless of the other facts – not in the muck, not touched by the dealer, easily identifiable. He awarded the pot to Zee.

Another player, who wasn’t involved in this hand, stated that the same thing had happened to him at this venue a few weeks (or months?) ago, and since his hand had been ruled dead back then, Drew’s hand must be ruled dead now. For him, the most important thing was consistency in the rulings, with no concern about whether the original ruling might have been incorrect. Despite not having a horse in this race, he quickly became the most tilted person at the table. “If they did that to me, they HAVE to do it to Drew.”

My opinion (although you still haven’t told me yours, despite my asking twice) is that Drew’s hand should have been ruled live, and the pot awarded to him. Cards speak! There was no angle shooting involved. The rule quoted above allows management discretion to retrieve cards from the muck. Here, Drew realized his own mistake with no help or intervention from another player. I cannot conjure up a reason why a ruling to kill cards that never made it to the muck nor touched any other cards would be “in the best interests of the game.”