Dealer drops deck on floor (1 Viewer)

[Dugthefish]

Home cash game. Drunk Dealer (DD) had just won a massive pot and has chips all over the place in front of him. He deals out all the hole cards, sets the stub on top of the rail to start cleaning up his chip mess, and you can guess what happened next: entire deck ends up on the floor.

Player A is short stacked UTG and open shoves all in at the exact moment DD says "oh shit" as the cards take their a dive.

Ruling?

 

[cpac54]

Never encountered this situation - is it even covered in Roberts Rules of Poker?

If it were my game, I’d probably void all action and return the chips to the respective bettors and re-deal the hand (as well as tell sir drinks-a-lot to pay attention).

Curious how others here would deal with this.

EDIT: re-shuffling the stub as others have suggested makes a lot more sense to me.

 

[trever]

My first thought was that you misspelled "dead" in the title, glad everyone is well

Pick up the stub, leave out all mucked and burn cards, reshuffle and resume the deal.

 

[BEANO52]

TDA Ruling:

RP-4. Disordered Stub

When cards remain to be dealt on a hand and the stub is accidentally dropped and appears to be disordered: 1) first try to reconstruct the stub in its original order if possible; 2) If not possible, create a new stub using only the stub cards (not the muck & prior burns). These should be scrambled, shuffled, cut, & play proceeds with the new stub; 3) If when dropped the stub is mixed in with the muck and/or burns, then scramble the mixed cards together, shuffle, and cut. Play proceeds with the new stub.

 

[OfficerLovejoy]

Significant action has taken place so no way I'd return bets and rule this hand dead.

Reshuffle the stub and deal normally.

 

[cpac54]

TDA Ruling:

RP-4. Disordered Stub

When cards remain to be dealt on a hand and the stub is accidentally dropped and appears to be disordered: 1) first try to reconstruct the stub in its original order if possible; 2) If not possible, create a new stub using only the stub cards (not the muck & prior burns). These should be scrambled, shuffled, cut, & play proceeds with the new stub; 3) If when dropped the stub is mixed in with the muck and/or burns, then scramble the mixed cards together, shuffle, and cut. Play proceeds with the new stub.

I clearly need to make myself familiar with TDA. This doesn’t seem to be covered at all in Roberts Rules of Poker (unless I’m grossly mistaken).

 

[CdnBeerLover]

RRoP, irregularities #17
https://www.homepokergames.com/roberts-rules-poker.php

"If the deck stub gets fouled for some reason, such as the dealer believing the deal is over and dropping the deck, the deal must still be played out, and the deck reconstituted in as fair a way as possible."

 

[cpac54]

RRoP, irregularities #17
https://www.homepokergames.com/roberts-rules-poker.php

"If the deck stub gets fouled for some reason, such as the dealer believing the deal is over and dropping the deck, the deal must still be played out, and the deck reconstituted in as fair a way as possible."

This has been a good reminder for me to re-visit these rules regularly. Thanks.

How did the OP‘s game deal with it in the moment @Dugthefish??

 

[ArielVer18]

I always thought once cards hit the floor, they're dead. In my mind, this is a cheating prevention rule since it's ludicrously easy to swap cards underneath the table when no one's watching. However, I looked thru Robert's Rules of Poker and don't see this mentioned anywhere.

I don't mind reconstructing the stub if it's possible to do it with only one person and all other players watching from a distance. I don't think the TDA's recommended procedure accounted for the stub to fall onto the ground since this essentially is an impossible event with professional dealers. The stub should always be in the dealer's hand. If the dealer must use both hands to do something, set down the stub and put a chip on top of it.

btw, RP-4 is a "recommended procedure" in TDA and not a rule because not everyone agree this procedure is a good idea. There are still a lot of people who believe there is an "order" to the stub that must be preserved and will not like that the new "randomly" reconstructed stub is "different."

If it's not possible to reconstruct the stub, declaring a misdeal is fine since the "significant action" occurred at the same time as the stub taking a dive.

Regardless, the next hand needs a new card setup. If this is not possible, spade the deck in front of everyone to ensure you still have 52 unique cards.

 

[Dugthefish]

A lot of very good, well reasoned replies.

In game, everyone besides player A was ready to call it a misdeal. After a couple minutes of checking RRoP and not finding anything really specific (I consider Irregularities #17 but felt that, since half the deck had been exposed, we weren't getting the genie back in the bottle), I gave up and called misdeal. Player A doubled up a couple hands later, then busted and left. DD proceeded to drop 8 or 9 buy ins, which was only a fraction of what he'd won on sportsbook that day.

 

[Colquhoun]

TDA Ruling:
3) If when dropped the stub is mixed in with the muck and/or burns, then scramble the mixed cards together, shuffle, and cut. Play proceeds with the new stub.

So, it’s possible that cards that were dealt to other players in that hand could possibly end up on the board? Very interesting.

 

[casinochipper22]

wow. casino ruling, 100% hand is over with. all money is given back, and a new set up comes in the game.

home game ruling, depends on if the cards landed face up or face down in my opinion. If a good amount of the cards land face up, then players can see and that is an advantage. misdeal. If somehow, all (or most) cards land face down and nothing is shown, then someone out of the hand can pick up the deck and shuffle it and take over the deal.

 

[casinochipper22]

The closest ruling I've had to make to this is when I was called to a 1/3 table. on the turn, about $200 in the pot. I walk over and see what looks like the dealer spread the entire deck out across one half of the table. She explains that the 9 seat went to check and slammed his hand down towards the felt to check as the dealer was moving her hand with the deck in that same spot. his hand comes down and smacks the deck out of her hand. Cards slide out of her hand and spread out across the table. By some miracle, none of them turn over, and it was pretty obvious where the deck was, luckily way away from the muck and other players hands.

I had the dealer get the deck back in tact, and then I made her shuffle. A couple of the players got upset over this, but I feel like I had to protect the slight possibility that some cards flashed or something became exposed.

 

[facinfears217]

deck hits the ground if no cards are turned over and no player touches the cards you shuffle the deck /cut/ and resume play. ie in a casino this has to be verified from upstairs if cards are scattered under chairs and table its game over take a 30min break because all cards will bagged and discarded and new decks put into play!!!

if 1 card is turned over or any player touches a card all action is voided bets are returned to players (btw floor and eye will rip you a new one! we hate to have to review this yes it happens often!!!

 

[brains613]

Home cash game. Drunk Dealer (DD) had just won a massive pot and has chips all over the place in front of him. He deals out all the hole cards, sets the stub on top of the rail to start cleaning up his chip mess, and you can guess what happened next: entire deck ends up on the floor.

Player A is short stacked UTG and open shoves all in at the exact moment DD says "oh shit" as the cards take their a dive.

Ruling?

Ruling? Stop passing the deal to drunk people....

You know not everybody has to deal, right? Just skip the drunk people. Same with people who are bad at shuffling, pitching, paying attention, counting bets, keeping the action going, or simply just in a weird corner of the table...

Just ... don't have them deal.

 

[Machine]

wow. casino ruling, 100% hand is over with. all money is given back, and a new set up comes in the game.

+1 - this is how I would handle it.

 

[Frogzilla]

In my house I’d probably call misdeal, but charge DD the small blind and big blind, award it to mr shoveypants, and redo (after counting down the deck)

That is certainly nowhere in any poker rules but feels fair. Dropping onto the floor is a little egregious

 

[surfik]

Pick them up, make sure all cards are accounted for and shuffle...
Continue action.

 

[upNdown]

I don’t know how it’s fair to play on if the stub lands face up and the people in the hand see what’s in the stub.
On the other hand, I don’t like the idea of killing a hand where significant action has taken place, AND I wouldn’t want to create the precedent that all you have to do is drop the deck and a hand is over (in a self-dealt game.)
If it does land face up and they players see the cards, I wonder if a better practice might be to shuffle in the muck and burn cards, just to dilute the value of any information gained.