Folding cards when all-in.

[DocWilson]

Tournament situation :
Situation : Player A goes all-in, everybody folds except player B.
Player A doesn't pay attention and folds his hand before player B has time to make his action. (wanted to call)
Player B wants player A's hand dead ...
Ruling?

[Spence]

Return any uncalled portion of players A's stack and ship the pot to B. In this situation I would imagine that it would be only the blinds plus A's amount to call the blind.

[Nick C]

Spence,
 I don't object to your ruling but, would you see anything wrong with the dealer isolating the hand from hitting the muck and returning it to the all-in player? If the hand were discarded into the muck, I fully agree...the hand is dead.

[K-Lo]

Agreed with both statements.  The dealer should prevent the "accidental" muck, if there is still a player to act.

The uncalled portion should be returned to A, but B will win the pot.  To be clear, the uncalled portion is the portion that B was required to call to force a showdown, but did not.  Some players get upset because they believe they should be entitled to the whole pot because it was As fault, but the fact of the matter is, B never put the amount of the call at risk so why should he be entitled to the corresponding portion of As stack? 

That being said, some very strict TDs may take a harder line, and ship everything to A under "chips that go into the pot in turn stay in the pot" but I don't think this is the standard anymore.

[Spence]

We run a fine line here by returning the "accidental" muck. We were discussing on a different thread about the BB folding his option. If we return the hand and the BB wins then we open a can of worms. Here the situation is slightly different but the reaction might be the same. Even if B says that he wanted to call, when he does and loses you may have to deal with a complaint about folded hands and when is it binding and so forth. I don't consider myself a "hard line" TD but this is something I do enforce. For that matter how do you define folding? When is it binding? These are all things we've argued elsewhere too.
If a player releases his cards in a forward motion towards the dealer or muck, face down then that seems to me like a binding fold. I don't define it here for these specific circumstances, just in general for the sake of argument.

[Nick C]

Spence,
 This is how I define Folding: If a player makes a forward motion with cards, this indicates his intent to fold. Is the hand dead if he changes his mind? No, not if he can retreive the cards.  That decision could put the player at the mercy of the floor, especially if that player has a reputation for making such moves. However, ruling a hand dead, that is not in the muck, is wrong.
 
 Taking a good look at the situation, we need to understand who is at fault. The first mistake is the all-in player who thinks he's in an uncontested situation and folds his hand.
The next person facing the responsibility of controlling the situation is the dealer. If he returns the hand to the all-in player and tells him there is another player still in the hand, play continues. If the dealer mucks the hand (which he has every right to do), the hand is dead. That's it! The all-in needs to protect his hand and the dealer needs to control the action at the table. I look at all of the situations that are debated every day on this Forum, and I blame the dealers for most. Good dealers will control the action by letting you know where the action is and when it is your turn to act. They will stop you from acting OOT before substantial action occurs. They will recognize an improper action, or bet amount, and correct it before the problem occurs.

 The original situation posted by DocWilson indicates to me that the all-in player obviously thought he won the pot. What player would push all-in, and then fold the hand, knowing another player was still holding a live hand? 

[K-Lo]

I feel that it is the dealer's job to prevent irregularities from occurring.  This includes preventing players from folding when fold is really not an option.  The Dealer shouldn't be actively mucking hands that really ought to be live.

In the all-in situation, the hand is not over, so I feel that the "fold" should be returned to the player.  In the BB situation, fold is also not an option (it should be check OR raise), so I also have no problem returning the hand to the player.  Yes, it is true players might be upset to see a "folded" hand win, especially in the BB situation, but hey, they didn't raise so they are equally responsible for the outcome.

[Spence]

I stand behind my ruling. The argument about binding folds and such do not really affect how I go about my ruling in this particular scenario. I only brought it up for the sake of argument or clarity in similair types of incidents. Reading the post again it says player B wants to call then the next line says that player B wants the hand declared dead. Perhaps there is something to this as well... Why does he want it both ways? If he really wanted to call the all-in he would be asking for the hand to be returned to the player would he not?

[K-Lo]

Just to be clear, I agree 100% with Spence's ruling on the situation regarding the original post.  My subsequent comments were only directed to the general issue that Nick brought up about whether there was anything wrong with the dealer stopping the hand from going into the muck with action still pending.

[DocWilson]

Thank you for your views and comments.
Btw : The hand was ruled dead and pot awarded to player B.
We are very strict about the line on the poker table : player pushed his hand over the line = fold (when there is action pending)
But in retrospect my ruling will be different the next time.
Again your comments are much appreciated.

[chet]

But Doc, now you are changing the circumstances.  Your original description did NOT include a reference to the "line" and the fact that you strictly enforce "the line" in your house.  Had you said that I suspect your responses would be considerably different.

Personally, I would NOT have ruled Player A's hand dead based on your original description, but I would have ruled his hand dead based on your most recent post.

Chet