This is the situation: Hero and BTN involved in the hand, Board is A K 7 4 3; Hero has 45.
At the river, hero bets, BTN raises, hero calls.
Now comes the problema: At showdown, BTN that should show his hand, simply tosses his cards to the dealer, showing only one card, K, congratulating hero on the call.
The TDA is not definitive at this stage in the example. 1) While BTN would be the first to show in an order of show, he can elect to muck his cards (Rule 16, 2013); 2) If the house doesn't have a forward motion/ "mucking line" rule to kill cards at showdown, then the K and the downcard are still live and BTN can request to table them if 100% retrievable. (Rule 14, 2013).
The TDA does imply that the correct dealer procedure is to immediately push BTNs cards into the muckpile (Rule 14, 2013), but for whatever reason he fails to do that.
Dealer here didn't do nothing, and a third player (
) took the other card and put it face up.
Hero still has got his cards protected.
Floor is called:
I would decide for a FOLD.
I'lL write here my motivations after your answers.
The TDA also doesn't have a single rule on this either. If you listen to the video from Summit VI you will hear two very clear schools of thought, between which neither a consensus or super-majority could be achieved in 2013:
School 1 might be considered "old school", along the lines of the long-standing language from Robert's Rules Version 11, Section 3 General Rules, The Showdown, Paragraph 5:
"
5. Any player who has been dealt in may request to see any hand that was eligible to participate in the showdown, even if the opponent's hand or the winning hand has been mucked. However, this is a privilege that may be revoked if abused. If a player other than the pot winner asks to see a hand that has been folded, that hand is dead. If the winning player asks to see a losing player’s hand, both hands are live, and the best hand wins."
Applying the school 1 interpretation to your example, I think the closest analog is that the player who (inappropriately) reached out and tabled BTN's non-tabled card was "a player other than the pot winner". And under this language BTN's hand would be dead because he had mucked it forward. IF the cards were still in his possession, however, most houses would rule the hand live. Almost every house (and TDA penalty rules) would give a penalty to the uninvolved player for tabling the card also.
School 2 believes that "all cards tabled at the showdown are live". This school wants to get away from the "dealer tapping the muck" ritual, and doesn't want to have to parse whether a hand was shown by request of the presumptive winner or anyone else with a right or privilege to request to see the hand. This school sees all cards live as being a cleaner solution to all forms of showdown tabling.
Well during and after the Summit there was alot of controversy on this, so for now IMO this one falls under TD discretion.
Postscript: You say you would rule a "fold" here; and by that you mean that BTNs hand is dead. Fair enough, that's entirely within your prerogative under TDA rules as they are currently written IMO. But that does raise yet another not-so-minor issue, also not fully defined: Does "fold" mean anything at showdown? There are two schools on that one also: School 1 says that cards speak is the only standard at showdown; that "fold" is an action that applies only when facing a bet. Fold implies that a hand is immediately dead even if the cards are still identifiable whereas "muck" or "release cards forward" at showdown does not imply immediately dead cards unless the house rules so stipulate. School 2 says that if a player at showdown makes a verbal statement of capitulation such as "I fold", that declaration is as binding at showdown as it would be during a betting round.
Summit VI took huge steps on rules related to the showdown at Summit VI, but as you can see from the above, there is still some "cleanup" work to be done in the future.
Thanks for the great question.
BTW: my personal answer: My heart is with School 1 that still uses the old RRoP rule, but my head is with School 2 that wants the cleaner language that "all cards revealed at showdown are live". In this case I'm narrowly going with my heart because that old language is so well-established. Over-turning it, IMO, must be done carefully if at all. But that's just one person's opinion, there is a large contingent in School 2 and they make an excellent case for their position.
