Floor decision correct?

[inishowen]

FW 10/20, full table. 4 see the turn, board offers flush and straight draw possibilities, ep bets, call, raise, call, re-raise, call, call, call, very nice pot. Attention goes back to dealer for the river card. For some reason the dealer kind of panics and mucks the remaining deck into the discard pile????????? Never seen that before. Floor is called over, after calling a second floor person over it's decided that the only cards eligible to be dealt on the river are the previously 2 burned cards. Dealer is told to shuffle those 2 and deal. Longest 30 seconds of the night was watching this guy go thru the full 3 riffle, cut, 2 riffle, cut, riffle, cut and deal with only 2 cards. Turns out the burned card/river pairs the board giving the button a set, beating the CO's top 2 pr. CO goes ballistic claiming misdeal. Very odd.

[tylerdurden]

He should have protested *before* the river was dealt.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

Wow, that's a crazy situation, major can of worms there.

If the top of the deck is 100% non-identifiable, I guess the decision isn't a bad one, as the floor did successfully ensure that no card from a mucked hand could show up on the river. The decision could definitely have been worse.

I'd like to hear Randy Refeld's and other floorpeople's decisions here. That's just plain crazy!

al

[AngusThermopyle]

I have never seen them use just the burn cards.
They have usually taken the muck+deck and used that.
True, you may put up a card from a discarded hand, but you have a chance to put up a the proper river card (or one from what was the stub of the deck that might be put up in a "river was put up too soon" scenario). Using the burn cards, you have 0% chance of getting the 'real river card'.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

[ QUOTE ]
True, you may put up a card from a discarded hand, but you have a chance to put up a the proper river card (or one from what was the stub of the deck that might be put up in a "river was put up too soon" scenario). Using the burn cards, you have 0% chance of getting the 'real river card'.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good points. I suppose I personally would be more offended if a card from someone's folded hand wound up on the river than I would if a burn card (i.e. not the true river) wound up there. It's sticky tho, and there could be several possible courses of action that I would deem acceptable, including just reshuffling all but the burns.

Probably the most important thing here is that the floor should try to make the fairest decision he or she can make (given the mess they have to clean up), and once it's made, it's FINAL and everyone will have to live with it, regardless of the result.

al

[NatalieR]

[ QUOTE ]
the 'real river card'.

[/ QUOTE ]

IMO, there is no "real river card" until one is turned up.
The river card is a random draw from the set of cards that
have not been dealt to any player, including the burn cards.
Until any such cards are exposed, all are equally likely.
Any single such card, or a random draw from a set of such
cards, produces the same marginal distribution for the
river. The only way to mess things up is to include card(s)
from the muck. Thus, I think the floor's decision was
a great one, because it ensured the correct marginal
distribution.

If a portion of the unused deck was clearly distinguishible
from the muck, another fine decision would have been to
deal from just that portion.

This is my point of view as a mathematical statistician.
With the same perspective, I think the whole concept of
"burn" is silly from a random sampling point of view
(ignoring cheating, etc). Any card is as good as any
other. And the cards could be dealt to players in any
pattern as long as everyone ends up with two cards.
And the flop could be dealt from the bottom or middle
of the deck. It doesn't matter.

I'm sure I'll take a lot of heat for that viewpoint.

[brokedickrooster]

I had this same situation happen at the same casino last June. The floor decision at that time was to pick up the stub and the entire muck, shuffle the whole thing together, and deal out a river card.

[TomBrooks]

Sounds like the best solution. If anyone had a problem with it and didn't make it known before the ruling, they have certainly forfeited any right to complain after they see the result.

[Chipr777]

If you can't determine the top of the deck the only option in my opinion is exactly that. Shuffle all remaining cards minus the burns and proceed.