05-18-09, Clark Jensen:

(Un)friendly Home Game Etiquette

We were playing a no limit holdem home game and came to the following situation: Two players were left in a hand on the river, player A is first to act and checks. The board is: A Q 9 Q K. Player B checks and asks player A to see what he has and if he caught trips.

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Player A does not show and reverses the question: What do you have? Player B says I caught a pair of nines. Player A says: well, I got two pairs

Player B flips his cards and throws them towards the middle saying you got me beat? Player A goes to throw his cards down without showing and the dealer flips the cards to reveal pocket 5s.

Player A starts to take in the chips and player B says: No, no, my pair has you beat. Who wins? Is this an issue of etiquette? Should player A have shown their cards when requested?

Thank you, Darick

 

Hi Darick

First of all, this shouldn't happen in a home game, in fact, it shouldn't happen anywhere. A home game without the prefix "friendly" is not worth playing at all. With that said, I'll try to straighten out the situation.

When both players checked on the river, player A was supposed to show his cards. That's not really a question of etiquette, that's just the rules of the game. Consequently, player A made the first mistake. However, cards that touch the muck are always considered dead. So when player B threw his hand into the middle he basically gave up the pot.

In a casino, this would not have happened. Player A would have been forced to show his cards after it got checked to him. But if player B would have mucked the best hand anyway, player A would have won.

But the question remains: is this a friendly home game and did player A make an honest mistake? If that's the case, the pot must go to player B. And if I look at the board and the pocket cards I suspect that this was a small pot anyway.

So according to the rules I suppose that player A is the winner. But if he has some common courtesy he gives the pot to player B.

Regards,
Clark Jensen
Learn Texas Holdem

 

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