Author Topic: The only exception to rule of "no misdeal once substantial action has occurred"  (Read 4200 times)

Max D

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I was re-reading RRoP and I came to the rule: "If two cards of the same rank and suit are found, all action is void, and all chips in the pot are returned to the players who wagered them."
After reading this rule I started thinking about substantial action and how it would affect the ruling?  I also searched the forum and  found this 2012 post (the rest is about fouled decks) where K-lo stated:

For completeness, I should add that the only exception to the general rule of "no misdeal once substantial action has occurred" (that I can think of right now) is if it becomes known during the hand that the deck is defective -- for instance, it becomes apparent during the hand that the deck contains two cards of the same suit and rank. 

I have only had to make this ruling once.  Two players were all-in, both had flopped trip sixes.  The turn was dealt - no change.  The river was another six!  The two women screamed ecstatically as they both rivered quads!  I thought, hmmm... they can't have both improved to quads while each holding a six in their own hand.  ;)   Sure enough, there were two sixes of diamonds in play.  Hand is voided, all bets returned.

Is this the 1 exception to the misdeal once substantial action has occurred.
Max D
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Dave Miller

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I remember reading / hearing recently that two boxed cards, found after the deal, can cause a misdeal.

The reasoning was strange: It would indicate that a player's hand was mucked face up, thereby giving an observant player the advantage of knowing that those two cards are out of play until discovered face up.

---

About 4 years ago at a local casino, I was playing at a $1/$2 game where the hand played out to the river, the dealer spread the stub, put the cut card on top, there was a showdown, the pot was awarded, the rake and bad beat was dropped, and the cards were starting to get gathered when someone noticed that the card on top of the stub was not the cut card, but a card from the other deck. "Floor!"

Floor comes over, and sees the issue, and sees a green light on the shuffler. He takes the shuffled deck out of the shuffler, and sure enough, there's the cut card, shuffled in. He starts counting the deck. I realize he's just doing that to give himself time to think. He finished counting and declares "Misdeal" and has the dealer unravel the hand to return chips to everyone. I immediately started to complain that that shouldn't be the correct ruling. However, I didn't even call the flop, so I didn't argue too much. Also, the pot was only $23, so nobody felt like arguing.

When I got home, I found two RRoP rules to support my belief that it's not a misdeal.

But now, upon thinking about the reasoning behind the two boxed card rule, maybe a misdeal was correct. After all, anyone who caught a glimpse of the face of the bottom card could have been erroneously using that info during the hand. It's why the cut card is there, after all...
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Brian Vickers

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Best practice if you discover a boxed card during the deal is to carefully spread the stub face down and see if any other boxed cards exist; this prevents many cases of discovery after sig action.  Regardless, I wouldn't cancel a hand for multiple boxed cards after sig action unless it I felt the hand was compromised: Once I had two all-ins and it turned out almost half the deck was boxed.  Cancelled that one.