Retrieving Card's Triple Up Play

[Stuart Murray]

Interesting one, and I am interested in knowing who would and who would not retrieve the cards in this situation:

3 players remaining, NLHE, Flop is out, Heads Up, Raised Pot, 6000/12000/a2000, around 60,000 in middle, 375,000 in play. Player 1 Announces all-in and player 2 immediately announces call, at which player 1 shouts something along the lines of sh*t or f*ck and throws his cards over the table, with 1 landing face up and the other landing face down in the muck pile.

Now the muck pile is now 3 cards, I wouldn't want to go into the muck and retrieve those cards because of the etiquette violation, but they are both all-in, the card is easily retrievable and the player not in the hand knows what he folded.

My TD at the time ruled the hand live and retrieved the wayward card from the muck, and the player hand improved with running cards to make a straight by the river! I am not a fan of retrieving the card but I feel in this situation, that my TD did the correct thing, but would be interested to hear from others what their opinion is.

Best
Stu

[Brian Vickers]

"they are both all-in, the card is easily retrievable and the player not in the hand knows what he folded"
Sounds like you have enough reason to inact rule #1 and let the hand play out.

[Nick C]

Stuart,
 In that situation (only one other player), I guess you could make that call. I would make sure that the player knows, next time he might not be so lucky. In fact, by the book, he left himself at the mercy of the TD. His hand could easily have been ruled DEAD. It would have been better if he lost the hand, ha ha. It usually doesn't work out that way, does it.

[Brian Vickers]

at which player 1 shouts something along the lines of sh*t or f*ck and throws his cards over the table

Make sure you give him a 1-round penalty afterwards

[Spence]

Brian is all over this one. I guarantee that if the player was given a penalty it would NEVER  happen again. Not that late in a tourney.

[Dave_The_Maori]

IMO, retrieval of cards should only happen in showdown situations with a valid grievance (e.g. They were covering their cards, etc.) Therefore, NOT able to be retrieved.

As a side question, are there any Dealers that cover / protect the muck during betting rounds?

[Stuart Murray]

thanks everyone, I hoped to hear a bit more from the 'not retrieving' camp, but looks like the majority are for retrieval.  FYI he got a 2 orbit penalty after the hand (6 hands) which seemed reasonable.

Regards
Stu

[Guillaume Gleize]

Same for (late) me:

All the efforts must be done to retrieve the hand because "they are both all-in, the card is easily retrievable and the player not in the hand knows what he folded" ... so it MUST STAY ALIVE!

But in the case of confusion or doubt about the mucked hand I would rule it dead plus a penalty to the player for folding a hand that SHOULD HAVE BEEN SHOWN!

[Nick C]

Brian,
 That is the only way to properly train dealers. Protecting the muck is the best way of preventing many of these serious problems from occurring. Good dealers will immediately slide a discarded hand into the muck but, will also protect a player from mucking their hand when they are unaware that they are in for all bets. How many times, as a player, have you pushed your cards forward towards the muck, only to have the dealer push them back to you and remind you that you were the BB?  Improperly discarded hands should be "frozen" by the dealer until the floor is called to resolve the issue.