Muck preventer?

Hey All,

Greetings from Oklahoma. My wife and I are blackjack players but are starting to learn and enjoy Texas Hold 'em.

My question to all of you. Where online can a person buy a muck "preventer"...if thats what its called??

Description: Last April..first time ever..I played the Binion's pot tournament..$500 pot. Well I came in third on my first time and fifth on my second time...ever to play.

Sitting across from me was a lady with a little gizmo on top of her dealt cards. I asked her what that was, and she told me to prevent a muck. The second quesrion I asked..." Whats a muck"?? Sucker written on my forhead??...nope.

So....now that my wife and I are ALOT more knowledgeable and having fun, I want to buy her one of those muck preventers for her cards. Just a surprise and to make her look the part...LOL.

Should I call Gamblers General Store in Vegas? Been there a million times...never looked at nor needed one until now. Would a Silver Strike Coin in the plastic case work?....I got a million of those.

Help on locating them and help on WHAT THEY'RE CALLED.

Thanks!! Cohiba

 

it's called a card cover. it's nothing special, you can use anything you want to cover your cards. the most basic cover that lots of players use is a chip. you can just place a chip or two from your stack on your cards. lots of players do this and this is where the cover idea started. but then people decided to bring their own things to the table to cover their cards. the best cover is something that is important to you for some reason. so maybe your wife already has something that would work. or maybe you can think of some little thing that she would like and give it to her.

but a cover doesn't really "prevent" your cards from being mucked, it just helps. i've seen where people have a cover on their cards, but somebody gets upset and flings the cards really hard across the table and they get stuck under the cover and mixed up with the other guys cards. that guy's hand was declared dead and he was pissed because he had a good hand. sure this doesn't happen very often, but really the only way to really prevent a muck is to keep your hands on top of your cards at all times.

 

Thank!!! That's what I thought...a Silver Strike coin.



Cohiba

 

They are Card Protectors and can be virtually anything. You should always place something on your cards, be it a protector or chips, in case someone tosses his/her cards into the "Muck" and they hit or get in with yours, thus disqualifying the hand which will be also "Mucked" (disqualified).

http://www.pokerguard.com/

Just of the top of my head, I've seen people use all sorts of chip protectors like old silver dollars, other types of coins, nuts/bolts, miniature pyramids, and once, even a bottle of nitroglycerine (heart pills).

 

For the exact reason that shifter says, my muck protector is my hand or hands. I keep them fully over my cards particularly when others at the table are acting on their hands. To the point where I can sometimes be annoying to some who may think I am out of the game. When someone has complained, I have simply said "If you can promise me that nobody will throw their card when they get pissed and accidentally muck my hand, then I will take my hands off" Which then causes a discussion of what is a mucked hand. It's amazing to me how many people do not realize that if someone else's hand touches your hand, it is mucked. No matter whether you can pick out your cards or not. There's always two or three people arguing the point, and in some cases, the floor is called to explain it.

The explanation usually goes something like this...

Player: "If somebody throws their hand and it hits my cards, my hand is mucked???"
Floor: "Yes"
Player: "Well that's not fair"
Floor: "If we didn't enforce that, then two people could work together and throw their cards at the other hand and then we'd have to take their word for whose cards were whose...it would be a mess and impossible to prove"
Player: "Oh, I guess that makes sense"

End of discussion.

 

As was said you can use just about anything as your card protector, though there are going to be limits to overall size and height as well as taste (so you can't use something big, bulky, tall or distasteful).

If you don't have anything you can usually buy ones that are small metal discs with some writing or design on them from the casino gift shop or most souvenir stores for anywhere from one to ten dollars... or you can get more elaborate ones for more than that.

 

Someone's catds just touching yours does not mean they are mucked only if the hand can not be positively identified is the hand dead or mucked and any floor that says otherwise is wrong in fact if your hand touches the muck after the river face down then you turn it up realizing the hand was a winner it is still live as long as the hand is identifiable. As far as card protectors go like everyone has said pretty much everything is fine I have a custom coin that they will make at a kiosk at fashion show mall and can put pretty much anything you want on it for about $35

 

It's important to protect your cards.

Some years ago I was playing in a room that ran one-table sit and go tournaments that paid out to 3 places after a given number of hands were dealt.

One time, there were three players in contention for the final hand. The player in the #6 seat had the chip lead and the player in the #8 seat was second in chips. The player in the #2 seat was blind and all in for less than $100.00 after the first bet. The player in #6 takes #8 all in for the final pot. Everyone else just folded and held on to their chips.

At the showdown #8 seat had the winning hand, knocking the #6 player out of contention for any prize money, and a side pot of less than $400.00 for which the #2 seat had a claim. When he saw it, the #6 player flung his cards away in disgust - but they flew across the table, mingling with the upturned cards of #8's winning hand.

"The dealer immediately calls "Dead Hand!" And a supervisor is called for. Since the cards had touched and were co-mingled, despite everyone agreeing on the outcome of the showdown, both hands were declared dead, and the whole pot was given to the #2 player, who won the 1st place payout.

The player who started with the third highest stack got 2nd place money and the player who had the fourth highest stack (Me!) ended up with 3rd place money.

Needless to say, there was pandemonium at the table and security had to be called to escort #8 out of the card room!

So always protect your cards.

 

Technically, the card protector protects your hand from a dealer mucking them. A protector on top of your cards lets the dealer know you are still either involved in the hand or contemplating playing the hand. I have been in many casinos and just not realized it and not had anything on top of my cards and been told by a dealer to throw a chip on top or else they might just grab them and throw them in the muck pile.

 

covering cards without committing a tell?

i play in a weekly home game, and we try to keep things moving, despite one player who has watched too much tv and is short on brain power anyway and plays slow, so we all tend to call hands we should not, but only because the bet is a nickel or dime.

so, when i find myself in a casino game, i am in a speedier mode than many others, always look at my two cards when i get them, not waiting until action is around to me before looking. try not to move toward a dollar chip and throw it on my cards prematurely, but am almost sure i do sometimes.

could some experienced player add any insight to this, as far as watching when opponents move their card cover onto their cards...like before their turn? realizing that could also be used as a decoy and set up someone to think they have a tell on you.

 

that's incorrect. if the hand was already turned up and everyone saw it, it doesn't matter what happens after that. cards can only be mucked when face down.

that's definitely incorrect. you will never see that allowed in any tournament or any live casino game ever. if you muck your cards face down even before they actually touch the muck or the dealer takes them, they are dead.

 

I've seen someone us something that was big, bulky, and distasteful. Then again, this was in our private tourney we had the Horseshoe run for us and they might have been a bit more tolerant with our group...

Myself, a board member had some chips made up for our big get together a few years ago and I've used those or a small rubber ducky. Some have used those tiny bottles of Tabasco sauce they give with the room service trays and even a small Jesus pencil topper. Basically, it could be just about anything, but it's more fun if you have something that is more of a conversation piece.

 

actually I have seen it happen may times in las vegas at MGM venetian Bellagio and I play 40+ hours of poker every 5 day trip i make and it absolutely is correct there has been a recent thread on this exact topic on AVP recently as well with floor persons from mirage and PH that would both agree with my statement in full so I stand by my statement. the dealer is not allowed to turn your cards over but if you turn them over even after they have touched the muck as long as they are 100% able to know they were your cards they are in fact live


An example of this is last month 2 guy are in a fairly large pot at mgm on the river the first player shoves and the other guy calls the first player says 2 pair but doesn't show his hand yet the other guy mucks and the first guy turns over no pair so the second guy reaches over and turns over top pair and they award the pot to him the floor was called and the first guy made a huge scene but in the end the floor said his hand was not dead since it was still face down but obvious it was his cards. The first guy was then warned for trying to angle shoot and told if it happened again he would be removed. This is exactly the reason that they allow a hand that is touched by mucked cards to still be live. If a friend of someone could just throw his cards into yours and force a muck it would invite tons of angle shooting.

 

Just as a clarification this is only at a showdown not if you fold to a river bet then when a bluff is shown you decide you want to call ect. or even if you just fold on your action this is only when the hand is complete and it is at showdown.

 

that's precisely why you never muck until you see the winning hand. of course that's a shady thing to do, but it's your fault if you fall for it. i've never heard of getting your cards out of the muck even if you know which are yours. i think if you're dumb enough to believe a guy and muck your hand, you deserve to lose.

 

obviously this is a shady thing to do I am just telling you what the floor ruling was and that the pot was awarded to the player who mucked then turned over his hand and that multiple floors at multiple casinos in las vegas agree with what I stated and you said was incorrect when in fact i have seen first hand opposite of what you said would never happen and have seen floor persons say they would always rule the way I stated to prevent exactly what happened in my example which is a shady player shooting angles.

 

ok, well they certainly ruled it differently than i've seen anywhere. but man that was one long sentence.

 

I have been drinking tonight that tends to happen when I do that

 

I'm with everyone except equalizer on this one...I've never seen that happen. But I guess every room does things their own way. I know I have seen that same or very similar situation happen more than a couple times and every time, the other guy got the money. Didnt matter whether they could pick out the 2 cards from the muck or not. Once, it was one corner of one of the cards that barely was touching the muck and the hand was dead.

It is likely that they gave that guy a break because of the angle shooting. I'm willing to bet if the guy said two pair and the other guy mucked, then remembered he had 3 of a kind or a higher two pair, they wouldn't have allowed it.

THIS is why the best dealers are the ones who PAY ATTENTION and put all folded hands into the muck immediately to avoid any kind of "those were my two cards" kind of problems. It's also why I keep my hands on my cards almost at all times. Maybe it is because I once had someone throw their hand, it hit mine and one of his cards ended up barely touching my hand, and the dealer declared my hand dead...even though I had the nuts on the turn. Was the only time I was happy to see what I would have had get rivered...but it left a lasting impression on me.

 

By rule, co-mingled hands are dead. Mucked hands are dead and are not allowed to be retrieved even if possible.

HOWEVER, Robert's Rules of Poker and the Poker Tournament Director's Association rules provide a provision that the floor can make a ruling in contradiction to the established rules if the floor determines an alternate ruling is in the best interest of the game.