What to do in this situation?

[David04]

Okay, this situation happened once or twice last night. Two players left in a hand, one player makes a bet. The second player is thinking about calling, but the dealer thought that the second player had called(we pass the deck, so mistakes happen every once in a while). So the dealer burns a card and puts the river out. The second player said "Hey, I haven't acted yet." No one knew what to do so I told them to muck the river, have player 2 make a decision and then deal a new river.

So player 2 called, and the new river was an Ace, giving player 2 trip Aces, and he won the hand. Of course, there was a lot of controversy because the original river would have given player 1 the pot, while the new river made player 2 a winning hand.

So what is the correct action to take, muck the old river, have player 2 complete his action and then deal a new river?

Thanks

[wingsfan]

I'm not absolutely sure on this, but I think the official rule is that you leave the burn card burned, pick the misdealt river up, shuffle the stub, then readeal the river at the appropriate time. That way, there's just as much chance that the misdealt river will come up as any other given card. When you muck it like you did, it takes a known card out of the deck which could greatly affect somebody's hand. I'm sure you'll get plenty of replies on this if I'm wrong.

[Stew]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not absolutely sure on this, but I think the official rule is that you leave the burn card burned, pick the misdealt river up, shuffle the stub, then readeal the river at the appropriate time. That way, there's just as much chance that the misdealt river will come up as any other given card. When you muck it like you did, it takes a known card out of the deck which could greatly affect somebody's hand. I'm sure you'll get plenty of replies on this if I'm wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're 100% correct.

[SamIAm]

Robert's Rules of Poker and the HomePokerTourney charts have good rulings on all these sorts of errors.

It's cool to keep a print-out handy, so you have a clearly unbiased source making these decisions. Even if you're the most experienced player at the table, it still looks sketchy if you make rulings while you're in a hand.
-Sam

[smoore]

wingsfan nailed it.