Tricky Situation (Dealer not doing his job), could cost me 3.5K

pushing up the winning hand on the board is not done regularly in this casino (some dealers do, some don't), but he kinda pointed at my hand as the winning hand and said something to the effect of "looks like this is the winner here"
and then he still didn't fold this other guy's mucked hand (put in in the muck), but continued racking in the chips together in preparation to push me the pot, making change for the rake, while all the hands were still out there - which i think is plain wrong, before doing that he should finally muck all those not winning hands (by taking them in and putting them on the muck pile), bc up to this point the second guy could have still taken his hand back (in case he realized he had a hand down there that could beat a pair of 6s, which fortunately for me he didn't have)

Dealers do different things even in the same casinos.

I have had this happen a number of times. But as long as my hand is tabled I don't say anything because I don't want to cause a reaction from the player who mucked their hand.

I tend to only say something when the other player is supposed to turn their hand over first in a tournament. This can save me from turning over my hand.

In a cash game if a player is mucking, I just turn my hand over regardless of whether the dealer has put the mucked hand in the muck pile or not. Partly to speed things up, partly to let the other player not show their hand to the entire table, and partly because people make mistakes and I don't want them to think about it. Only twice in the 18 years I have been playing has a player then turned over a winning hand. Once it was a woman who said "missed" (she missed a straight draw with a small PP that beat my small PP). And once it was a guy who hated me and also said "missed" and wanted to see what I had. Moving forward they were the only two people I would not show my hand to until their hand was tabled or in the muck pile.

There are many dealers who push pots without putting the mucked hand in the muck pile. Assuming my hand is good the player who mucked can't turn up a losing hand and win the pot once my winning hand has been tabled even if it has been turned face down in the muck by the dealer.

Here you were nervous and saw the potential that the mucked hand could contain 88/99/TT and the guy thought the other guy had a K. But once the dealer pointed to your hand and called it a winner and the mucker still did nothing you were good to go. Again the dealer sucked this time for saying "looks like this is the winner here" which could get the mucker to think about it.

Processing feelings of anxiety, fear, anger, feeling threatened, etc. are key to doing well at poker. Yes the Dealer caused you to feel a lot of those stressful feelings. But they are just feelings and if you can experience them in the moment you can move on. Trying to make sure dealers will never make you feel that way again will almost definitely not work. If it happens again (likely in a slightly different way) just do what you do at the poker table. Don't let other players know what you are feeling and go for the win.

"the first guy just started and the second guy mucked, then i tabled"

So? He tabled it right away, when it was his turn.
Nothing wrong there.

This thread is maddening. This is what's ****ed up about poker today and honestly OP your actions (if I understand this nonsense as I think i do and I apologize if not) are very confusing to me.

You know his hand for a reason, he tabled his hand at some point (the Ax77 hand). As long as he didn't just state his hand outloud and actually tabled it at some point you and probably others saw it correct? If this is true, he won the hand. That's it, you're not getting COST anything. As others have said , youre trying to win a pot thats not yours.

Yes, maybe he's wrong to have turned it face down and not realize he had the best hand but this isn't a high stakes game exactly and you don't want to run off inexperienced players even though I do understand it is a sizeable pot.

And as others have mentioned, there's always a side pot but it appears your just arguing the dealer hadn't created a side pot or something at the time? That seems to be more confusion than anything else.

I hope I understood this, but if not I apologize. I just don't like angle shooters.

Well technically since he covered, he should be showing first for the side pot. The issue is that he said he immediately showed, but other players showed first. My point wasn't that he did anything wrong, but that the order matters when there are side pots, and it influences if and when the dealer should kill other hands. If OP showed first, and the other guy slid face down, then yes, that hand should be mucked right then. However, not if the only hand tabled is only eligible for the main pot.

No, you understood nothing,
He never tabled his hand,
The a77xx is part of the flop,
But I accept your apologies

I feel like the side pot thing is a bit of a distraction if we don’t know when OP turned his hand over. What if OP turned it over right away before the shorter stack? Then it doesn’t matter because we already see OP beats the main pot anyway. So there is absolutely no confusion caused by main pot turning his hand over since he can’t beat OP anyway.

In any case, when someone turns over their hand for the main pot out of order and they have… absolutely airball stone nothing, it doesn’t create any kind of confusion. What creates confusion is when a short stack turns over quads or something but there’s a tiny main pot and most of the pot is in the side pot. That’s when it can cause an avalanche of crap.

In any case with OP turning over his hand and beating the main pot player, the side pot vs main pot distinctions are now irrelevant since OP’s hand is in contention for everything.

Hallelujah… finally someone who understands that the side pot is a non-issue.

OP, I understand your frustration, but really all of this confusion happened because your OP did not have all the information required to determine what should have happened. And the side pot definitely IS an issue.

In fact, we still don't have enough information. Without knowing which villain had the bigger stack, it is impossible to tell if the dealer should have said something to the mucking player or not. If he had the larger stack, the dealer should have said something like "sir, we're first figuring out who won the side pot, that hand is not in play".

Of course, it was truly impossible for the dealer to get this right, because he had already made a different mistake, which was not having the side pot correct before moving on to showdown. I understand this is likely not the normal practice in your room, and it's sometimes not done correctly in the US either, but there is a good reason for that to be the proper procedure - because it helps to prevent problems awarding the side pot to the correct player.

Making the side pot right before the river is dealt (counting it out, putting it aside, and last but not least making clear to the players who is in what pot) is for sure the correct way to do it, but it is not done this way in this room all the time (and, for that matter, in other rooms all over the world as well) - sometimes, when it's quick and easy, they do it - sometimes, when there's for example multiple people all in, with different stack sizes, even the floor who is usually standing close by bc the room is not very big, says "lets keep it like that, we figure the side pot out later", so, when the biggest stack wins we have saved time and effort.

I have no influence over that, i accept it as a fact, and adjust accordingly.

no, in our concrete case, for sure there is more information available (as always), but to determine what should have happened here, we have all we need.

there is one clear misconception among the majority of you guys, i don't know why, bc it's crystal clear that you are wrong here. and i'm of course talking about this:

let's say (for the sake of argument), player B (the guy who mucked) had the larger stack of the other 2 guys, which means, he would have been in a potential side pot with me. (I assume that's what you meant, bc you are even quoting it wrong, the other way round).

The showdown was in order, without waiting for any dealer commands regarding side pot, A (BB) showed his hand right away (Q high), B (late pos.) looks at the Hand and then mucked his hand, and then i (Button) showed.

by mucking his hand he gives up on both side and main pot, it's simply part of the game and your own skill set (same as knowing that a boat beats a flush or whatever), to know that there is a side pot and to be able to get that side pot i have to show my hand (even and especially when the order of showdown was not according to "perfect side pot procedures", bc the dealer didn't handle it that way; if i think i have any chance of winning any part of this pot, side or main, i don't muck, i either show, or i tell the dealer something like "shouldn't you do the side pot first" and keep my hand to myself - but i for sure as **** don't muck it). End of story.

remember: at the time he mucked he had only seen player A's hand (the Q high), not mine, he apparently couldn't beat Q high, but had no idea if his hand could still be better than my hand that he had not seen at this point - yet he still decided to muck.

That is his mistake, not mine.

And i have seen this over and over again also in US-rooms like Aria or Wynn, that a player accidently mucked a loosing hand (for the main), without realizing or paying attention to the side pot, and then the side pot was rewarded to a hand that was worse than his hand (bc it was the only other live (not mucked) hand).

arguing about this, or even insinuating i was trying to steal something by illegal or amoral means (which was suggested by some guys in here), is not just very very stupid, but also ****ed up.

I didn't say, or even imply, that you did anything wrong, just that the dealer did.

I don't know what the exact rules are regarding this at Venetian and Wynn (or in your room) , but in many rooms this kind of mistake would not happen often, because the dealer would be actively trying to prevent the player only in the main pot from tabling his cards before the correct time to do so, and trying to prevent the other player from prematurely mucking his hand. It seems like you still don't understand this point, which is why you think it didn't matter who had the larger stack.

what's the point of arguing a theoretical (different) situation, when that is not what happened here???

you tell me i don't understand your point while you are obviously not even capable of understanding who would be in the side pot and who wouldn't ??? pls pls pls tell me you see the irony in this ...;-)))

at least you made it clear to me that trying to actually argue with you guys is a total waste of my time. my bad, should have seen this earlier ... but contrary to you i'm able to learn from my mistakes ;-)
have a nice day

I was referring to what should have happened here.

And I referred correctly to the person who had the larger stack, saying the dealer should tell him that the other person's cards were not in play for the side pot.

You tell me that I expressed myself incorrectly , but it is you who misunderstood. I am an educated native speaker of English, while English is clearly not your first language. Please tell me you see the irony in this.

YOU: What would you do here?

EVERYONE: There is not much you can do in this rare case, but here are the reasons why it shouldn't happen often.

YOU: WhAt'S tHe PoInT oF aRgUiNg AbOuT a ThEoReTiCaL sItUaTiOn???!?

Nobody is arguing with you man, you are struggling with the interpersonal and language issues that I described above. They are unrelated to poker.

Congrats on being snarky all while missing the point. You came here to ask a question and you made it sound like you were genuinely curious about the answer, but you didn't actually ask the question you really wanted to know: How do you get pushed the pot with a worse hand?

I want to thank you. You have saved me lots of time and thought in the future. You have saved ne that time by making it clear that you aren't here to learn or exchange ideas. You have made it clear interaction with you is pointless.

I appreciate the heads up.

Fro. Now I will remember that your posts are only for entertainment purposes. Providing an occasional laugh.