I've seen a few threads recently and over the years where people ask WWYD when the guy next to you (drunk or just a sloppy peeker) keeps flashing their cards to you. The most common answer I see is "I'd warn them once." I don't mean to be the moral police, but if you know what the guy next to you has on every hand, you've got an advantage over the rest of the table, and probably not an insignificant one. And I'm pretty sure that's cheating. So I guess I'm asking if anybody has ever seen the dealer or floor intervene in a situation like that.
I have struggled with this over the years.
Yes, knowing someone else's cards over the course of a hand offers you an unfair advantage over the rest of the players.
But to call this cheating is a step too far. Cheating takes intent, and we're talking about a situation that was foisted upon the player, who has presumably made some good-faith effort to prevent the issue.
Moreover, what is the alternative?
We can try to not look at the cards, but some players make this virtually impossible, and of course others may be seeing them anyway. Moreover, it's unfair to have to sit in a less-comfortable position hand after hand, or even avert our eyes, which may cause us to miss out on important details happening in that direction. And folding our own hand to protect the flasher is frankly madness.
So we arrive at the situation where we will see the perpetual flasher's cards, at least sometimes, despite our best efforts. We can't reasonably avoid it. What now?
This is where I have trouble. If, in the interest of equal information, we announce his cards to the table, this is a whole new problem. It's not like he'll get new cards like he would for a dealer error. Now the flasher has an effectively unplayable hand. For this to happen once would suck. For it to happen repeatedly is unacceptable.
But we, the hapless player stuck next to the flasher, are now in possession of extremely valuable information that the rest of the table doesn't have. What to do?
I guess we could announce that we saw the player's cards but not say what they were (until the player is out of the hand, assuming we're still in). It strikes a middle ground, and in fact it seems like the
only middle ground that doesn't unfairly disenfranchise anyone.
It may humiliate the flasher if you have to say this over and over, but I think that's called for. He's not protecting his hand in a way that puts everyone around him in a predicament. If his discomfort is necessary to the rest of the table overcoming the problem he has created, then let him be uncomfortable.
All this said, I think there is a case for the floor to become involved, just as there would be if the player were intentionally flashing cards to active players. The reason why it's a problem is the same, really.
