Floor ruling, Excalibur $1/3 NL

I'm wondering what the correct ruling is for the situation below:

Seat 9 is in middle position and makes a standard raise for Excalibur's NL $1/3 game. His girlfriend in the cutoff, seat 2, calls and the big blind in seat 6 calls. I'm watching this all from the small blind in seat 5 (seat 4 has missed his blind).

Flop is all low cards, seat 9 bets $30, gf calls and while the bb is deciding whether to get in between them, the dealer loses her grip on her cards and they spill out onto the table. At least 7 of them are exposed right in front of seat 9. Gf later says she didn't see any of them.

The dealer collects the mess, expecting she will just be reshuffling them. But the floor says she has to return everybody's money because two of the players in the hand saw the exposed cards, while the third did not.

Of course, this is very upsetting to seat 9, who later says he had KK.

I later asked the floor guy if the dealer had not picked up the cards and instead showed the exposed cards to seat 2, whether the hand would not have to be redone.

He shrugged and said he was "just winging it."

What's the correct ruling in this situation and would it have changed things if the 7 exposed cards were shown to seat 2?

[Randy_Refeld]

[ QUOTE ]
The dealer collects the mess, expecting she will just be reshuffling them

[/ QUOTE ]

This is where the dealer goes wrong. WHen the delaer drops the deck he needs to call the floor. He should not gathter the cards or touch anything, he needs to call the floor.

If teh floor can determine whic cards were part of the stub he shoudl have those reshuffled, if the stub if mixed with the muck the muck should be shuffled in also.

[ThinkQuick]

Why do dealers always think they can remedy their mistakes themselves?

Randy's right in always being a proponent of calling the floor first

[Al_Capone_Junior]

Of course Randy is right, the correct action by the dealer is to immediately call the floor before touching the cards.

The hand was salvagable, the deck could have been re-shuffled, the exposed cards shown to all. "Winging it" is one thing if it's really an iffy situation, but this one wasn't really that hard to fix BY THE FLOOR. However, as is often the case, the dealer made the mistake of not immediately calling the floor, taking action on their own initiative, and thus screwing up the whole situation a whole bunch more. Given what happened, and the fact the third player did not see the exposed cards, it's not a terrible decision.

The situation does require a kick in the nuts for the dealer.

al

[Don Olney]

Yep, floor first is the call----
I do see many dealers not wanting to call the floor, and some I do not falt for this even if wrong not to-- to many working the floor are NITS these days. They have no real understanding of the rules of the house nor do they care...
A few houses here use a few dealers to fill in on the floor when one of the regs. are off for the day... BUT THE FILL INS SUCK AS DEALERS AND REALLY SUCK AS FLOOR WALKERS---Ohh well, such is the poker world today----
hummm,,,, might be time for poker rooms to hold floor training classes --- Teach them mothers how to do the job, amd how to do it right----
Rant over-- play one
see me at table 7 seat 8 ------

[Randy_Refeld]

[ QUOTE ]
They have no real understanding of the rules of the house nor do they care...
A few houses here use a few dealers to fill in on the floor when one of the regs. are off for the day... BUT THE FILL INS SUCK AS DEALERS AND REALLY SUCK AS FLOOR WALKERS---Ohh well, such is the poker world today----
hummm,,,, might be time for poker rooms to hold floor training classes

[/ QUOTE ]

A couple of things they could do to improve right away is make an effort to find people to work the floor. The best floormen I know are doing somethign else right noew either because the card room management isn't willing to pay them what they can make in other lines of work or the poker management prefers to use dealers from within rather than hiring form the outside.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

[ QUOTE ]
The best floormen I know are doing somethign else right noew either because the card room management isn't willing to pay them

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the primary problem. Someone who's actually a good enough dealer to be a floorperson will usually make soooo much more being a dealer they won't be bothered with the extra responsibility and headaches, plus being on their feet all night. It's a sad state of affairs brought on by upper management who has no real clue about poker, and doesn't see it as being profitable (per square foot) enough to bother with.

al

[MikeQ]

It doesn't matter what the exposed cards were. Shuffle them back in and continue with the hand.

[tripp0807]

[ QUOTE ]
It doesn't matter what the exposed cards were. Shuffle them back in and continue with the hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

It matters to the extent that one player knows what the exposed cards were, so he's potentially aware of outs. Once they're shown to all involved in the hand, then it is right to shuffle them in.

[MikeQ]

If they are being shuffled back in they can come back out. It doesn't matter who saw what. The only time you need to be aware of exposed cards is when they are being killed, and not shuffled back in.