Originally Posted by IMLegend

Last night I was playing at Harrahs in St Louis and a hand came up that made me wonder if the ruling on the floor was correct or not. Was at a 1/2 table that I had been at for about an hour. I was on the cutoff when I look down at QJdd and since everyone folded before me I raised it to 10. SB and BB called. Flop comes A87dd. It goes check check so I fired out 16. SB folds BB calls. Now the BB and me had been going at it since I got to the table. I had already won 2 monster pots off him and didnt show so I figure hed be calling me down light. The turn was a 10h. He checks and bet again this time 35. He flats and the river is dealt a 2c. He checks and I fire one last time 95. He tanks for about 2 minutes and finally calls. But heres the thing. When he calls I turn my hand and look at it and say "ive got something decent" and just laugh a bit. He instantly throws his cards face down towards the center of the table and I turn my cards over showing I was bluffing. The dealer was about to grab his cards when he reaches out and takes them and says "I win!" and turns over 74. Someone at the table says "thats a dead hand. he threw his cards across the table". I always thought that if you throw your cards towards the middle of the table face down that indicates a fold. The dealer calls the floor and he comes over and the dealer explains that the guy put his cards face down in front of his chips and then turned them over which was not the case as me and another player at the table explained. He tossed his cards to the other side of the table. He was in the 1 seat and the player in the 5 seat had to help him get his cards back for him to turn them over. The floor stated since the dealer didnt touch the cards they were still live. I mentioned when the cards were thrown towards the middle of the table the dealer should of scooped them up anyways. Is this ruling correct or should his hand be dead??

Not really sure of the exact rule here, though it does seem kind of in-between/shady for his hand to still be live after an apparent muck. But two other things come to my mind.

1) It's really poor etiquette to rmisrepresent your hand after all action concludes. It's the equivalent of slow-rolling in my mind.

2) After you apparently get away with this deceit, you really shouldn't reveal your trick at all, but especially not until after youve been declared the winner and awarded chips.

+1 to villain for re-angling you.

 

Originally Posted by IMLegend

@ boneralert.. so youre saying I should of waited till the dealer scooped up his cards to put mine down?? That seems like deceit to me. I was just making a simple comment after the hand because my bluff didnt work. I didnt misrepresent anything. Its not my fault the guy threw his cards across the table. I feel like you should turn your cards over no matter what the other guy does or says.

There are two separate things here. One is what to do after the villain calls your bluff. "You got it" or "I didnt hit" or simply showing your cards face up is appropriate. Representing a made hand, even in jest, is really just not cool. Maybe at a friend's house or something, this would be okay, but not in a casino setting. Even if you didn't originally intend it as an angle shoot, it functions as one when the guy mucks his hand. So yeah, it was really stupid of the guy to muck his hand. But that doesn't absolve you of the original transgression.

The other question is what to do once the guy mucks his hand. If you want to be honest here, you can tell let him know that you didnt actually have a made hand and concede the pot. If you feel that well, if he's stupid enough to throw his hand away before seeing what you have, then you should keep quiet and politely wait for some confirmation that the pot is officially yours. You could theoretically even muck your hand after you collect the pot. I guess the dealer could show your cards or ask you to show them yourself, but it seems like once his hand has been dutifully mucked, your hand would be irrelevant to who wins the pot. Maybe you really did feel that there was no way his hand wasnt dead, but this seems like one of those times where I wouldnt want to jump the gun on that assumption.

Over here it seems to keep changing. Not only do rules appear to keep changing and differ between casinos, they sometimes differ in the same casino from week to week. Even experienced players are not always sure.

As far as mucking your hand is concerned, there used to be a line of action, so once you put your cards across that they were dead. Nowadays as long as the dealer doesn't put them in the muck or they hit the muck they are still live. However if another player touched them they should be dead. A number of players over here are sick of the constantly changing rules and quite a few of us think why not have universal rules for the game. If you're going to have universal rules then why not use wsop rules. If it's good enough for them it should be good enough for the local casino. Anyway, given what I've seen over here, the ruling would have applied, as long as they didn't hit the muck, the dealer didn't touch them, or another player didn't touch them. But it sounds as though another player did touch them, so they would be dead, by the rules I have seen applied.

A really low trick which I have known for a few years is shake your head and say "not good enough" declare trips, a flush, or basically something big when you're called, start to turn it over very slowly and hope your opponent throws his cards in the muck. Even I wouldn't do that unless it's against a complete tosser.