Dealer mistake

[spades]

Few nights ago happen a dealer mistake in my card room.
blinds 200 400
first  raise from the seat 4 1200 the seat 8 re raise to 3400 and seat 10 re raise 8200
seat 8 push all in and seat 10 (next to the dealer)open QQ and say call
the dealer didn t realize it (some noise was in the room) (he told me to get heard fold instead of call) and start to shuffle the card.
at that point the card were already mixed with the much 
what to do in this case....!!! 
wait for help....
regards

[Nick C]

Welcome Spades,
 I think we will need a little more information if you want the best solution. What betting round were you on? Why would the dealer think the hand was over? What happened to seat 4? I'm sure that we can help you but I'd like a little more detail. I'll wait for your reply.

[DCJ001]

Regarding which betting round that the error occurred in, seat 4 was the first person to put chips into the pot, and he raised.

This narrows down the possibilities to before the flop.

[Nick C]

DCJ001,
 Why don't we wait for the correct information. After seat ten raised, what happened to seat four? Were there only 2 players left? How many times have you read an incorrect post where a BET is called a raise? I'll wait for spades. Thanks for your help with this.

[K-Lo]

Sounds like all this action is pre-flop, with QQ being mixed into the muck.  I'm thinking if we can remember the cards (they have been tabled so everyone has seen them), we should be able to retrieve them from the muck, and deal out the flop, turn, river as normal despite the deck having been reshuffled.  Hopefully, the muck cards have not been mixed in with the deck yet, so they can be left aside.  If the muck cards have already been mixed in with the deck, I think we can still shuffle and deal out the board as normal, as this will give a random outcome almost all the time (except in the rare instance where a Q that might have been folded ends up showing).  If the QQ cannot be clearly identified, split the pot between seats 8 and 10.

This reminds me of one of the Hendon Mob situations:  http://www.thehendonmob.com/tournament_director4/dealer_mucks_both_hands_when_allin_and_called.  I don't disagree with the reasoning there.

[Nick C]

K-Lo,
 That Hendon Mob situation had some interesting suggestions. If there were only 2 players left, and the hands were both tabled before they were mucked, I'd lean towards splitting the pot. Consider the mistakes that had to be made for this to happen.
                The Players:
 Neither player protected their hand.
 The 10 seat player could have made his intention to call more clear.
 Both players should have stopped the dealer long before the situation got that far.
                The Dealer:
 Did not follow basic procedure, kill the loser and push the pot to the winner!
 
Most fault is with the dealer, followed by the 10 seat player and the least guilty is the 8 seat player. The only thing he did wrong was not hold on to his cards.

This is assuming it's pre-flop. My concern was the action from the 10 seat player should have been followed by the SB, the BB, and the 4 seat player, right? That is assuming DCJ001 is correct that it obviously was pre-flop.

[Stuart Murray]

all hands are clearly identifiable that have reached the point of the all-in, with the QQ being tabled the vast majority of the table will be able to identify the hand, return the holding to the player then reconstruct the stub in as fair a way as possible (even if this means mucked hands are now in the stub) and run the board, this is slightly different from a player who failed to protect their hand, and is more so dealer error, by failing to note the all-in and call, therefore I will retrieve the cards in this situation.

Splitting the pot would never be an option for me as I believe it to be against the best interests of the tournament, I would rather rule the player with QQ as a dead hand as return their bets.

Regards
Stuart

[spades]

thank you all and sorry for the short info a gave to you....
all the action was pre flop....
don t ask me why the dealer did that...
and seat 4 (the first to raise 1200) folded.

[spades]

also the seat 8 and 10 cards was still i front of the table and not mixed with any other cards
the problem was the much and the deck....
should i let them go to the show down with the deck reshuffle with the muching hands...
thanks
spades

[Nick C]

Stuart,
 I could only agree with a reshuffle if the muck were not involved. I just don't think it would be in the best interest of the game. I will also say that I would not object with your ruling if I were at that table. I would do it differently, that's all. There is no decision that I could call wrong because, both players, and the dealer contributed to the mistake.

 I'd still like to hear from spades again. We are assuming too much. *While I was writing this, spades added a little info, but it wouldn't change anything from my point of view.

[K-Lo]

I would tend to follow Stuart's approach, and deal out the board.  Ideally, if the mistake were caught early enough and the muck cards could be confined to say the bottom of one of the parts of the deck being shuffled (depending on how they were mixed in), I would even consider just reshuffling the top of the deck to minimize the possibility of mixing in muck cards.  But in the worst case scenario where the muck and the deck are completely intermingled, I think dealing out the flop, turn and river -- which is still a random outcome despite having mixed-in muck cards -- is the best of a number of not-so-ideal solutions.  Especially in this situation where the players cards' were clearly identifiable and still tabled, as clarified by Spades.

I also don't like the idea of splitting the pot in this situation which is basically 100% dealer error, because I feel that it doesn't protect the players, especially the last player to call the all-in, against possible dealer-player collusion. For example, let's say hypothetically, if a rogue dealer were working with seat 8, this would be a very easy way to "fix" a freeroll for seat 8 -- if seat 8 goes all-in and seat 10 doesn't call, seat 8 wins.  If seat 8 goes all-in and seat 10 (or seat 4) calls, the dealer kills the deck by mixing it in with the muck cards, and seat 8 gets his bets back with no risk.  I think forcing the board to be dealt protects all players in the tourney, and in general the integrity of the game, better than the alternatives, even if the mucked cards are mixed in.   

[Spence]

I think there is only two ways to approach this. Either the hand is dead and we return all bets up to before the final call was made (8200 is committed according to the statement) anything more than that should be returned and the hand killed. This is probably best if the hand is not retrievable or the baord is mucked or other integrity issues are involved. Secondly, Fish the proper hand out of the muck and run the board to completion. This is the best choice if only seat 10's hand is in the muck and was clearly identifiable.
As for this...

I also don't like the idea of splitting the pot in this situation which is basically 100% dealer error, because I feel that it doesn't protect the players, especially the last player to call the all-in, against possible dealer-player collusion. For example, let's say hypothetically, if a rogue dealer were working with seat 8, this would be a very easy way to "fix" a freeroll for seat 8 -- if seat 8 goes all-in and seat 10 doesn't call, seat 8 wins.  If seat 8 goes all-in and seat 10 (or seat 4) calls, the dealer kills the deck by mixing it in with the muck cards, and seat 8 gets his bets back with no risk.  I think forcing the board to be dealt protects all players in the tourney, and in general the integrity of the game, better than the alternatives, even if the mucked cards are mixed in.   

I know you said hypothetically but it seems a bit of a stretch to me. Perhaps not in self delat games(I may catch flack from Stuart on this) where there may be more opportunity to set something like this up but I don't see it happening enough to warrant ruling in favour of reshuffle for collusion reasons but is still a valid ruling for what I stated above.

[Nick C]

K-Lo,
 How do you figure collusion between the dealer and the player in seat 8? The player in the 8 seat pushed his all-in bet into the pot! If the 10 seat player pushed his chips instead of making an unclear statement, there probably would have been no problem.

 I said the dealer was the main source of the problem, but neither player should complain about getting their money back because they both deserve to lose for not protecting their hand.

 What I really dislike about the redeal of the board is, the loser will always feel he got screwed!

 Poker, 101 protect your hand. You talk of a scenario where the discards are not involved, that's not the same situation as the original post. If the muck were not involved, I could agree with the redeal.

[K-Lo]

If we're going to nitpick about facts, there is nothing in the original facts to say that seat 10 made an "unclear statement" so I'm not going to assume that there was.  For all we know, he could have YELLED "CALL", but the dealer was on auto-pilot and took in the mucked cards and shuffled anyways.  And we know how fast dealers can take the cards in... I don't think we can assume that both players sat idly by, looking into space, before trying to stop the dealer.  I also don't see from the facts that seat 8 is even questioning whether seat 10 called.  And since "the seat 8 and 10 cards was still i front of the table and not mixed with any other cards", it doesn't appear that either player failed to protect his cards.  Clearly, we can't expect the players to protect the deck in the dealer's hand from the MUCK as well -- that is the dealer's job.  

In any event, my point was simply that in situations that result from what is almost wholly the dealer's fault, the board should be dealt out whenever possible.  I do not agree with splitting the pot except under the most extreme of circumstances - having unseen mucked cards mixed in with the deck is bad, no doubt, but not serious enough to void the hand.  Note that the board hasn't even been dealt out once, so it is not like any player is getting a second crack at winning the hand.

Also, I'm not saying there was any collusion in THIS particular case.  My feeling is that this was an innocent mistake by the dealer.  But I presented a hypothetical example to illustrate a related but altogether different point.  

In my view, in general, voiding a hand and splitting the pot due to a dealer's "carelessness" in this type of situation is a dangerous precedent to set.  Consider that the historical basis of many "modern" dealing procedures is, in fact, to protect all players at the table from possible cheating that involves the dealer (e.g. no rolling of the deck - this is to prevent "peeking" by the dealer, ensuring the deck is cut - to better ensure a random deal, no rabbit hunting - prevent dealers from culling the deck, etc., etc.). If you have read some of the old books on "how to cheat at poker" or "catching poker cheats", you will better understand what I am getting at.  Many rules and procedures were developed to maintain the integrity of the game, and we don't have separate rules for "trusted" casino dealers and non-casino dealers.

Again, I am NOT talking about Spade's case.  But can you not see how routinely splitting the pot in situations where there is an all-in called, followed by a rogue dealer's deck handling error, can potentially set up a freeroll for the first player that goes all-in?  Dealing out the board where both hands are identifiable, even if mucked cards are mixed in, will not significantly favor any particular player in the long-run and best protects all the players at the table, especially from potential cheating.  Splitting the pot in similar situations may indeed be the easiest solution to enforce, but not necessarily the most sound or principled one, in my opinion.

[spades]

thanks for all the answers and the opinions.
I would like to make clear that first was a dealer mistake but in a good fate. The collusion was not the the issue at least in this case.
just to make clear something important the dealer didn t took the players card but just mixed the muck and the deck to start with the shuffle and then everything was stopped by the players realizing the dealer mistake.
thank you all for the support
regards
spades