Questionable Ruling at Cardroom

You got screwed. Cards have to be tabled, and not just vouched for by someone else sitting at the table. Dealer isn't authorized to make this sort of ruling. He could have either told V that you're the only one who properly tabled a hand or dealer could have called a floor supervisor over.

That said, there is no magic muck in most rooms. The fact that the card touched the much doesn't make it irretrievable by itself. If the floor had come and they'd made a claim to what the other card was, he/she *might* check the muck and retrieve it if in there, or might not.

Yep.

Cards touching the muck aren't automatically dead. If they are clearly identifiable and retrievable the hand will be live. With that said, the dealer should 100% call the floor, explain what happened and let the floor make the ruling.

Just blindly giving it to the other guy without any type of conformation is at the very least "Do that again and it'll be the last hand you deal" bad, if not worse.

If the second card was clearly identifiable they could flip it up and justifiably award him the pot.

They can't just award a pot to him because his neighbor said he had it. I've occasionally seen the floor look in the muck pile for two specific cards mucked by accident (ex. I had the Kc and Qd). I don't see how they could do the same thing for one card, because it's just too likely one card could have been discarded by another player then falsely claimed.

So in my mind the only way he should have been awarded the pot would be if the second card was clearly identifiable and had been flipped up.

OP, did other player ever table both of his cards?

Yes, we need to know this. It is unclear in the OP. It is not a small detail.

Floor should have been called over. For all you knew, the "neighbor" could be a friend of the villain's. Agree with the others that the other card has to be tabled before awarding the pot. And that "6" had better be the same suit as the "8" or both of them are done for the evening.

Yes, I believe he did. He was in Seat 2, I was in seat 8 so it was on the other side of the table & I didn't see his cards well. I only saw the 8h, which he said he was on a FD.

When he said he had 8-6 for the straight the 8 was still face up near the muck, the dealer picked up the top card in the muck & that was a 10, not a 6.

This doesn't make sense. The word 'muck' makes this very confusing and slanted in your favor. And I don't know that was the case.

Did he ever show the 6 face up on the table? If so, did he then turn it over and move it towards the muck? Was the 6 face up or down when it went into the muck?

It doesn't matter if the 6 is face up or not. What matters is if Villain tabled his hand. From what you say above it seems that Villain did table his 86s hand and then mucked the 6 face down. Its just that you didn't see the 6. However if by "showed his hand" Villain did not actually table it but showed it to people while still holding it, then technically the pot is yours because a hand must be tabled in order to win a pot.

My guess is that the reason the Dealer shoved the pot to Villain was that he had seen the 86 but hadn't realized it was a straight.

If there was any question as to whether or not Villain had tabled his hand then I would ask the dealer first if the hand had been tabled. Then if the Dealer says he doesn't know if it was tabled, I would ask for the Floor to come over to handle it because if the hand wasn't tabled regardless of what other people saw you would win the pot.

Ironically there is one casino I played in that ruled that if you muck your hand even after you table it then you lose the pot. That casino was on the US side of Niagara Falls. When I called a Floor over to confirm the rule, the Floor did. The Dealer had explained the rule to me and I just didn't believe it (which is why I called the Floor over). The actual event hadn't happened. And this was over 15 years ago, so its possible they changed their rule to something reasonable...

What he said or what the dealer picked up out of the muck is immaterial, as if whether you could see the cards clearly from your position. If he placed both of his cards face up on the table so they were readable, it is completely proper for the neighbor to call out his winning hand and for the dealer to award him the pot.

Seneca Niagara? My BIL used to deal there, I'll have to ask him if that was the rule when he was there!

Seneca Allegany had a rule where if the dealer pushed the pot to the wrong player they still kept the pot. A lot of us stopped driving up and playing there when it seemed to always favor local players friendly with the dealers.

Not to be rude, but you shouldn't want everyone's opinion, because nobody's opinion matters when it's a floor decision based on the rules of whatever room you're in. We're all just speculating based on what the rules in most rooms are.

Generally (at least in the rooms I play in):

1. If his hand was ever tabled, "the cards speak", and if he had 86, the pot should be pushed to him.

2. If his hand was NOT tabled, but the cards were also NOT mixed into the muck, such that the dealer / floor could still clearly identify exactly which cards were his, his hand would be considered retrievable / live, and they could be turned over. If he had 86, see above.

3. If his cards were pulled into / mixed in with the muck, such that the dealer / floor could NOT clearly identify which two cards were his, his hand would be considered mucked / dead, and nobody should give AF what he or the guy next to him claims he had. It's each player's own responsibility to be able to read the board and protect / table their hand.

It's the dealer's responsibility to (hopefully, quickly) sweep cards into the muck whenever it's clear a player is folding / mucking, and to correctly read the board / players' hands and push the pot to the correct player. But sometimes, dealers make mistakes.

It's our responsibility to protect ourselves from being angled or free-rolled. If it takes an opponent a moment to realize they actually have the best hand, that sucks, and it may be an unintentional slow-roll, but it's not angling. If you try to take the pot away by claiming V mucked his hand when it was actually tabled, or still retrievable, that might be angling, and would definitely be scummy.

This. This is a very cut and dried situation. If villain places both his cards face up on the table and those cards were readable by the dealer and other players, it’s his pot whether he realized he had a straight or not (assuming he actually had 86). If he did not do so, but his cards are retrievable he may retrieve and table them to claim the pot. If he failed to table them, even if he showed his neighbor, and they are mixed into the muck, the he is SOL and you win the pot. It’s not clear from the OP which of these is the case, but those are the only three possibilities and there really is no gray area in the rules regarding any of them

From the result, it seems pretty cut and dry that the V tabled his cards as well.

I just don't remember the name of the casino. My memory says Niagara Falls Casino but that is what Seneca Niagara is also known as. If I remember correctly there were two casinos on the US side at the time I was there.

I think you might be thinking of the Ontario side. There were (and likely still are) 3 casinos in Niagara Falls. Seneca Niagara is in New York. Casino Niagara is on the cliff above the Rainbow Bridge on the Canadian side. Fallsview Casino Niagara is farther down past the Skylon Tower above the Horseshoe Falls, also on the Canadian side. Not sure which (if any) still has a poker room, but all did at one time

I was never on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. So maybe it has to be Seneca Niagara...