Yet another ruling question.

[TripleH68]

I enjoy reading the ruling posts and always knew I would be making one someday. Don't think I have seen this one yet?

10/20 at Greektown Detroit.

Hero is in the BB. The dealer passes by me the second time and as he gets halfway through the group and a single card is exposed a little bit, face up in the middle of the deck. Most at the table can see the edge of this card and notice/object so the dealer stops and calls floor. (FWIW I think the dealer knew this single card was face when he cut the deck but decided to deal the hand anyway.)

How do you handle the situation?

Results posted later.

[AngusThermopyle]

"Boxed card"

Finish the deal.
Carefully spread the deck face down and remove the face up card (if there are more than one, it is a misdeal).
Show everbody the card. It becomes the start of the muck.

If the card had been dealt to a player, the dealer should stop immediately and replace the exposed card with the next card (you do not wait until the end of the deal, like when the dealer flips over a player's card). Boxed cards are treated like they are a useless piece of paper.

[TripleH68]

Seems like you nailed the proper action. Thanks.

Floor at Greektown did rule that the card did not exist. The floor said it would remain where it was and be treated like 'tissue paper' when we got to it. It would just be thrown away. It was also revealed to the table as the Q /images/graemlins/spade.gif. It wound up just below the river card so it did not come into play.

Some ass in UTG+2 immediately mucks his cards face up preflop and declares "I guess I can't play these." Q2o.

It wound up being the biggest pot of the night capped six ways preflop. Your hero had KK on a flop of AJT. Not many queens left for my nut str8 now were there. /images/graemlins/mad.gif Of course I looked down and saw the cowboys before floor made his decision. har.