03-22-05, LearnTexasHoldem:

Dealing Error

Question: I was dealing in a cash NL game and I made a mistake. After the flop, the player acting first bet and he had a caller. One other person was in the hand but he had his cards hidden behind his hand while he was thinking and I forgot he was still in the hand. I flipped over the turn card before he acted. Fortunately, he shrugged and said "I was going to call anyway," and the hand resumed. Being a friendly game, that was the end of it and the card didn't seem to impact anyone's hand but I wonder what the official rules say when something like this happens.

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Answer: That isn't completely the dealer's fault. A dealer is responsible for keeping track of whom is the hand but a player isn't supposed to hide their cards under their hands or chips. You should protect your hand at all time, but not cover it. There are two options for how to "fix" this and which one was used would depend on the floorman at the cardroom.

One option is that you use that card for the burn card and deal a new one. The second option is to put the card back into the middle of the deck, and go through the shuffling routine again before dealing the next card. I like the second option more because it doesn't give anyone an edge they would have had because of an error. The card has the exact same probability of being dealt again.

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