Commerce floor ruling
20/40 limit. I'm in late position against 2 opponents, a man in EP and a woman in MP.
The flop comes 5[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. They both check, I bet, they both call.
Turn is 6[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. It gets checked around.
River is 4[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]. It gets checked around.
EP guy tosses his hand face up into the middle of the table. I see two paint cards. MP woman turns up AQ. I table A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] and hold it in front of me. Dealer mucks EP's face cards, MP's AQ, and pushes the pot to me.
As I'm scooping the pot towards my stack (I keep my chips stacked in neat pyramid-fashion, so the pot is still scattered around the pyramid gathering and waiting to be stacked), 3 players at the table plus the EP guy start to object. They say EP had Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] for a flush. No cards are face up on the table except my AK (which hasn't been mucked yet by the dealer) and the board cards. The dealer thinks and nods, agreeing that the EP hand he mucked was indeed a flush. I'm wondering what the hell -- the pot is in front of me and I have the only live hand.
So I call the floor. I tell him what happened, and he asks if the AK hand is mine. Dealer says yes. Then the other players say EP had the Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]. Floorman asks the dealer if this is true, dealer says yes. Floorman asks the other players if they all saw it, and 3 or 4 of them say yes, he had a flush. Floorman turns to me and says, "Then sir, I have to award him the pot if he had the flush."
The dealer then starts digging around in the muck to turn up cards. Eventually he finds the Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] then digs around turning up a few more before finding the J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]. This satisfies the floor completely, and I take the pile and shove it over to EP myself.
I don't doubt that he had the flush -- even though I never saw it, I'm sure the other players wouldn't all lie at once. But why did the river check through? Also, shouldn't EP be punished for releasing his hand before getting awarded the pot? The rules state that my hand, face up, is the only live one on the board and thus should be the winner. If I'm a nit, I probably complain more -- but since I figured the guy with the flush deserved the pot, I didn't argue any more. Should I have?
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