When Mutations Breed

The game was Omaha eight-or-better, and Player X was pushing the betting. Player Y, having flopped both the nut-flush draw and nut-low draw, was pushing right back. On the river, Player X finally backed off, checking his top set out of respect for the possible straight that showed up.

Player Y also checked, having missed his hand completely. Or – had he? As it turned out, his preoccupation with his low and flush draws had caused him to overlook his thirdnut straight draw – and he was about to muck a winner after Player X showed down his trips. But when Player Z entered the scene, the plot thickened as he said: "Dealer, I want to see that hand." Please take note, reader – because this is key – that Player Z made his request while Player Y was still physically in possession of his hand. Why is this key? Because, as Player Z later explained, he had spent his entire poker career deliberately refraining from making such requests until his fellow players actually released their cards, in order to avoid being the cause of what happened next.

What happened was that Player Y, feeling the dual frustration of missing his hand (or so he thought) and having his privacy invaded, snapped: "You want to see my hand – there it is! Satisfied?" And because he turned his cards up himself, as opposed to the dealer doing it, they were still live – and he won the pot. (And the look on his face made it plain that he was more surprised than anybody.) Quite unsurprisingly, Player X was furious, for, clearly, Player Z had influenced Player Y to turn his cards faceup instead of throwing them away – and wasn't that, in essence then, a violation of the one-player-to-a-hand rule? In fact, Player X was so angry that he screamed: "You dumb – – -! Why didn't you wait until he folded before you asked?!"

What's most illuminating about this tale is that Player Z answered the question – and his answer draws a straight line right back to the original mutated concept. "I didn't wait," he replied, "because lately when I have waited, I've been told it was too late. The cards had touched the muck – not that I see what that has to do with anything. So, I don't wait anymore."

From the moment this muck "tradition" was born, it was on a collision course with a tradition that's actually important – that of waiting until a person releases his cards before asking to see them. By narrowing the window of opportunity for seeing a folded hand, this so-called rule has forced players to become incredibly precise in timing their requests. After all, if you want to ensure that your request is honored, while at the same time respecting the tradition of not interfering with the outcome, you must make your request precisely between the moment the many players like Player Z have simply abandoned their traditional habit of waiting. In fact, their adjustment -and the problem it creates – was as inevitable as it was utterly predictable. ♠