What is your ruling on this preflop mess?

[Seitz333]

Hi All,

Here is a hand that happened last night. Home tourney, how would you handle this action.

UTG+1 calls
folds to cutoff, cutoff calls
folds to BB, dealer thinks BB is just another limper so the dealer burns one card and counts out the 3 flop cards (does not turn them over)
BB says wait I want to act on my option. BB goes all in
UTG+1 folds
dealer forgets about the cutoff and thinks the hand is over and mixes all the muck cards and the burn card and the 3 flop cards.

Don't use that dealer any more, lol. But really how do you proceed?

In all other situations I'm the TD, but I was in this hand so I did not want to make a ruling. So I left it up to my head dealer (very good and stays up on the rules) and a good floor person, and 1 player (not in the hand) that was a dealer in vegas. There was a lot of discussion during and after.

Thanks,
Chuck

[Nick C]

Welcome Chuck!

 I would rule that the hand should play out because of substantial action. First the cutoff must call the all-in...the deck stub should be reconstructed and proceed as normal. No cards were exposed, and two players are involved...the hand plays out. That's my ruling...what do you think?

[Seitz333]

Why would the cutoff be required to call the allin?

[Nick C]

Unless I'm missing something...the cutoff made a bet that was raised by the all-in, correct? If he decides not to call, the hand is over with no need to deal any further.

[Seitz333]

The cutoff limped along with the UTG+1. I agree substantial action occurred, where I have a problem with the hand continuing is reconstructing the stub with the mucked cards from the original deal.

The decision made was to declare a misdeal and replay the hand.

[Nick C]

Seitz,

 First of all, how many players were in the deal? why did the UTG+1 act before the UTG? In any event: Substantial action occurred even before the BB went all-in. UTG+1 folds leaving 2 players, correct? The remaining player (the cut-off) still needs to call the all-in.

 Your ruling: a misdeal was a floor decision that apparently was accepted without incident...so, I'd say it was okay. It was not the call I would have made. I don't like the idea of ever using mucked cards to complete a deal but, in this case -because no cards were exposed- I'd much rather play the hand out than re-deal.

[K-Lo]

I agree with Nick here.  We recently discussed some similar issues in this thread:  http://www.pokertda.com/forum/index.php?topic=1107.15

Obviously, we'd prefer not to reconstruct the stub using mucked cards, so if we can salvage at least a portion of the proper stub that would be most preferable. However, as Nick points out once substantial action has occurred, the hand needs to be played out to completion.

Practically, I'd ask the player who has yet to act, to act first. If he says "I fold", then there is no need for any decision obviously. The way it was ruled, however, he now has the benefit of getting all his bets back because a misdeal has been declared with no risk. Good deal for him -- hopefully he and the dealer are not friends ;-)  Just kidding. But in all seriousness, this is the game integrity issue that is involved with allowing misdeals to be called too loosely: It would give the incentive for a dealer who is in cahoots with a player/friend to kill the deal when it looks like the player/friend who is substantially invested in a hand might look to be in trouble.

[Nick C]

Thanks, Ken,

 I'm glad somebody else chimed in. A misdeal should always be the last resort. Although, we are always "safe" with current (weak) rules...good old #1 can always bail us out.

[Seitz333]

8 or 9 in the deal. Blinds were 150/300, level 5. BB had about 12k, UTG had about 8k, and Cutoff had 5k

UTG-Folds
UTG+1 Limps for 300
Folds to Cutoff
Cutoff limps for 300
Folds to BB
Dealer puts out the burn card and deals the 3 flop cards without turning them over.
BB goes all in
UTG+1 Folds
At this point the dealer puts all the mucked cards, burn card, and flop cards in the muck.
Action is now on the Cutoff to either fold or call.

IMO the 300 limp amount of the Cutoff was not a factor. If it were to happen again I would have the Cutoff make a decision and if he calls then I would add the mucked cards to the deck, reshuffle and play it out. But I'm not happy with adding the mucked cards back into the reshuffle.

Thanks for the input guys!
Chuck

[K-Lo]

If it were to happen again I would have the Cutoff make a decision and if he calls then I would add the mucked cards to the deck, reshuffle and play it out. But I'm not happy with adding the mucked cards back into the reshuffle.

Thanks for the input guys!
Chuck

Yep.  Making the best out of a crappy situation.

A lot of time when this happens, the dealer "accidentally" shoves the deck together with the muck, but everyone can see that only the bottom half of the stub is truly mixed with the discards. Sometimes you may get lucky and the dealer just plopped the stub onto the discard pile in preparation for shuffling. In these cases, you should really try to recover the top portion of the proper stub if at all possible to avoid using the mucked cards.  At that point in the hand, you really only need to be sure that you have the top 4 cards intact.

[Brian Vickers]

There is a provision in the "recommended procedures" section of the full rules that if that last player decides to call the all-in, we would create a new stub from the stub, burn, muck, and board cards.  If the stub was still sitting there and only the burn, board cards, and muck are co-mingled, than use existing stub and play hand out.

[Spence]

Playing out the hand is really the best option and the only ruling I would make.  As for the contents of what the remade stub contains I'm less worried about it then everyone else I think.  Assuming that no portion of the original stub can be found then shuffling everything together and dealing a new board isn't so bad.  
Yes it may contain cards that were from someone's hand but the integrity of the Math from the start of the hand would not be corrupted.  If everyone on the table immediately forgot what they had when they folded it there would be no problem shuffling the folded cards back in.  There's a stigma that a card may hit the board that was in someone's hand.  But before they were dealt that card who knows what might have been in their hand or on the board.
I'm not sure if I'm articulating this properly but there is an "equal chance" to win or lose the hand if the cutoff calls.  Mathwise...

[BillM16]

There is a provision in the "recommended procedures" section of the full rules that if that last player decides to call the all-in, we would create a new stub from the stub, burn, muck, and board cards.  If the stub was still sitting there and only the burn, board cards, and muck are co-mingled, than use existing stub and play hand out.

The way I read Chuck's steps and the above procedure - I'd use only the stub and complete the hand.