Both Players Mucked

tundrabear

I'd like to know the rule / people's opinion on this situation in a friendly house game:

Short stack is all in with less than the ante. Two others are in with the full ante, meaning there's a smaller side pot. Short stack wins in rather dramatic style (trip tens) and the other two players BOTH muck their hands at the same time. Who gets the side pot?

Milo

Assuming this is a tournament, they cannot muck their hands when all-in (is that the case? the OP is a little muddled). Once the three are all-in, ALL the cards should be face up, and the best hand wins.

In the scenario given, can the hands be identified clearly? If so, turn them over and the cards speak. EZ game.

Jacen299

I read it to mean there was a side pot, but they had chips back. So not all in. They probably checked it down.

Milo

Jacen299 wrote: »

I read it to mean there was a side pot, but they had chips back. So not all in. They probably checked it down.

Yeah, that is a possibility, too . . . so again, tourney or cash game, if the hands are identifiable, turn them over and let the cards speak. If not, I would say split the side pot between the two dummies and give 'em both a KITN.

tundrabear

Milo wrote: »

Yeah, that is a possibility, too . . . so again, tourney or cash game, if the hands are identifiable, turn them over and let the cards speak. If not, I would say split the side pot between the two dummies and give 'em both a KITN.

It was a tournament and yes, the two muckers were not all in, so none of our cards were turned. They mucked into the muck pile and probably could have identified their cards, but what the did was split the side pot.

The other possible option we discussed was giving the side pot to the player to the left of the button.

We've been playing under a house rule that a muck is always dead, and splitting the pot as we did was done reluctantly. However, in researching this ruling, I've discovered that there is a provision in the rules that if a mucked hand can be clearly identified, it can be returned to the player and used, as long as it was an accidental muck and there were no additional developments in the hand after the muck.

Can you tell me how prevalent this rule of returning the muck is? Our friendly neighbourhood game includes a couple of guys who go to Vegas a couple of times a year and they always talk about how "in Vegas, a muck is a muck, you can't get it back". Is this generally true, or can you usually get your mistaken muck back?
Cheers.

Milo

I have read countless posts from people more knowledgeable than I that state, "the muck is not some magical thing that kills your hand." As you pointed out, if the hands were easily identifiable they should have been retrieved and the best hand awarded the side pot. As there seems to have been some question about identifying the hands, splitting the sidepot between the two players involved would seem to be the most equitable solution, as no one else has a logical claim to those chips.

What you can do is save a copy of the TDA rules, or print one out, so that you have a quick reference for something "new" that happens in your game . . . because "something new" is always going to crop up at some point.


As for the comment that, "a muck is a muck . . .", well, like most things in poker, that depends . . .

tundrabear

Lol ! That's very true. And thanks for the good advice!

JohnnieH

Always hang on to your cards until you see a tabled hand that beats yours. Simple as that.