What to do with a "bum deal"?

Eoin

Folks,

What rules do you play when a "bum deal" happens in a home game (i.e. all chips remain in pot, and a brand new hand starts) - is there a standard rule, or does it vary from place to place?

thanks,

eoin_s

Iago

I think it varies, the most popular options being


1. redeal the hand
2. Use the card as the muck card before the flop and allocate a card from the deck (3rd from bottom)
3. Charge the dealer a fee and redeal the hand

Eoin

What if the bum deal happens after the flop? re-dealing seems to be the fairest thing you can do - but what about the chips already in the pot? just leave them there for the next hand?

henbane

Post flop you don't redeal the whole hand. Brendan or Marq should be able to clear this up.

Marq

What sort of Post-Flop Bum Deal? A four-card flop? No burn card?

if you don't burn someone notices, simply take the card that would have been the burn card and announce it as such - it doesn't play.

With a four-card flop, if you know which card came out of the deck last (i.e. would have been the burn card on the turn) then simply use that card as the burn card on the turn and carry on with the flop as normal. if you have no idea which cards should have been on the flop then you must reshuffle the remaining cards (excluding the burn card from the flop) and deal a new flop.

Eoin

Marq,

That's exactly what I was looking for - many thanks to everyone for posting replies!

Eoin

DeVore

I've seen a lot of weird things happen with bum deals post flop, to be fair its generally caused or compounded by the players. As Marq says it really depends what happen to cause it to be a bum deal. Some you can recover from (like not burning a card) and some are more serious (like dropping the deck or exposing cards inadvertently). The worst (ie: most unrecoverable) I've seen personally was a bloke who turned a second flop instead of the turn card! oops.

Players can and have caused these too, Danielle told me once of a bloke who deliberately knocked the deck from her hand! Players who, the moment there is a problem, turn over their hand and start to complain to their neighbour! Most mistakes are recoverable so you should just sit tight and wait for Luke or the TD.

I've never seen a case where the pot had to be split up and to be honest, considering the number of hands dealers deal in a night, often on long shifts and until 3am its amazing there arent more!

DeV.

Eoin

Thanks DeV,

I'm referring to home cash games, where the players are the dealers (and beer is more often that not involved, so the likelihood of bum deals increase as the night goes on!)

Normally the problem is that a card is not burned (normally post flop), so from what I can gather from the responses, the hand doesn't have to be abandoned.

Eoin

DeVore

Nope, you simply burn the card that was incorrectly put up as Fourth Street and place the card that SHOULD have been there on the board. Undoubtedly someone will whinge that it was a good card for them. Tough.

As I understand it, according to Mr Ivory, every effort should be made to be fair to all players and that the hand proceed as closely to the way the cards were set when the shuffling ceased. At that point the fate in the cards is determined and que sera sera effectively. Nothing annoys me more then players who *think* its a mis-deal and then throw over their, which can *cause* the hand to be abandoned.

DeV.

Eoin

DeV,

Thanks again for clearing that up - that definitely seems the fairest way to play: we were playing a few weeks ago when one of the guys hit a poker on the flop. The dealer made a bum deal on the river and the hand was scrapped as that was the rule we were playing at the time.

Coincidentally, the dealer was heads up against the poker, and probably knew he was well beind, as the other guy is a rock. Pure coincidence I'm sure :rolleyes: After that I decided to see exactly what the rules were...

henbane

eoin_s wrote:

Thanks again for clearing that up - that definitely seems the fairest way to play: we were playing a few weeks ago when one of the guys hit a poker on the flop. The dealer made a bum deal on the river and the hand was scrapped as that was the rule we were playing at the time.

That's the kind of rule that can end up with a fistfight.

Eoin

Actually, may as well ask: what do you do when the hand can not be recovered?
are the chips left in for the next hand, or do people take their chips back or what?

henbane

eoin_s wrote:

Actually, may as well ask: what do you do when the hand can not be recovered?
are the chips left in for the next hand, or do people take their chips back or what?

There are very few situations where the hand cannot be recovered unless someone is deliberately trying to fúck up the game. I'd make them double the pot and then fúck off home if they're drunk/ásshole enough to think that's acceptable.

Preflop if any of the first hole cards end up face up, it's just a redeal with the blinds staying where they were. After that there are many variations - you could probably search for a list of rules. Given what you said about the quads hand, it might not be a bad idea to print rules and let everyone read them before the game.

DeVore

yeah considering the guy is probably drawing dead I dont see how a bum deal on the river is fair. Better to have proper rules and stick to them. I believe the WPT have a rule book now, dunno what its like though.

DeV.