Player grabbed neighbor's cards by mistake

[Brian Vickers]

This situation happened on a cash game, but I don't see that it would have been different in a tournament (other than the straddle).  It seems like all the fun floor calls happen on my days off, so I was not there for this.

$1-2 NL, Under the gun straddles to $5.  3 players call, and the big blind realizes he has no cards.  What happened is that the straddle player had grabbed the big blind's two cards and his two cards were sitting out on the line still. 

Floorperson gave BB his $2 back, killed the straddle's hand, and let the hand play out.

I don't agree with giving the BB his $2 back, so my suggestion was that we probably should have killed both players hands.  Alternatively, since the BB's cards were the ones that were shown, I suppose it would possible to just expose those cards to everyone and kill that hand only and then let the straddle player take his own cards and play those.

/discuss

[MikeB]

Interesting situation Brian. It's very non-standard, there's not a solitary rule that applies to it. You have to use a) best interest of the integrity of the game; b) protect your own hand; c) misdeal rules; and d) substantial action rules... to arrive at a solution. I'm pretty sure there will be some disagreement on this one because of the assortment of rules that apply.

Here's my problem: why wasn't this noticed until after 4 players had acted ?  The answer is that for a time period during which 4 players acted we have absolutely no idea what card was in what hand...

THEN we wake up and surmise that the straddler swapped his hand with the BB's hand. And we surmise that the two cards floating on the line are the straddlers rightful cards and the straddler is holding the BB's rightful cards... But how do we know this to 100% certainty if we haven't been watching the cards during the action of 4 players???  How do we know this anymore than we might surmise that one of the BB's cards is mixed up with one of the straddlers cards?  And how do we know that whatever happened happened during the initial deal and not later? We have reason to believe it happened later because we have right to assume that the BB was watching the initial deal to see that he got two cards... then he lost track of his hand. That's as logical as him posting his blind and paying no attention to the fact that cards weren't coming to him...

SO, at the end of the day I see this as "two messed up hands". And a messed up hand is a dead hand if substantial action has occured, which it clearly has. While we might say the BB is the most injured player here, he contributed to his injury by not protecting his own hand or speaking up during the ample time he had to bring attention to the problem. I really can't see returning his BB here, and I'd rule both hands dead. In the long run I think this will also contribute to the integrity of the game by teaching players that they must protect their hands and they must speak up promptly if they see a problem.  Thanks for a very interesting post.

[Nick C]

This is an interesting post and I can understand why the decision could have gone any number of ways. I do agree with killing the BB's hand and the UTG stradler's hand. Whether the BB gets his $2 back is debatable but, I think the call by the floor to let the hand continue was fair. The 3 callers all had their proper cards and the mistake had nothing to do with them. Let the hand play-out.
 Mike I agree with you on killing the two hands. It is unclear to me if you are in favor of letting the hand play out?

[MikeB]

I'd definitely let the hand play out.

[Brian Vickers]

That is the ruling that I told the other floor I would have made.  Kill BB and Straddles hands and let hand play out, their money is forfeit to the pot because of hand protection and substantial action. 

He did the same thing, but he gave the BB his $2 back... which I wouldn't have done, but... meh.

[mooredog]

I have had this happen more than once and handled as such. The player who picked up the wrong cards has forfeited his right to play by committing a breach of ethics and has a dead hand. The big blind is given those 2 cards and the hand plays out.