In a head to head situation, one player with pocket kings and the
other with pocket aces, the player with the aces inadvertently turned
up his cards after the turn card.  He thought five cards had been
turned.  The player with the kings tried to take the hand, saying the
aces mucked by showing cards.  The aces insisted he could show cards
any time and still play.   Who was right but more importantly, where
can the answer be found in the rule books?

Hi airpinto,

According to most sources, the player with the aces could still play them.

The most commonly reproduced set of poker rules on the World Wide Web
is Robert's Rules of Poker by the well-known poker author and expert
Robert "Bob" Ciaffone.  In the General Poker Rules chapter, Rule 12
under Irregularities says "A card that is flashed by a player will
play."  It also says "Procedure for an exposed card varies with the
poker form, and is given in the section for each game," but the
section on Hold'em Poker only covers irregularities in the deal, and
doesn't say anything about the consequences of a player exposing
cards.

http://www.readybetgo.com/poker/rules/general-poker-rules-217.html

The United States Playing Card Company has a set of Laws of Poker in
its Card Game Rules Archive.  The relevant Law under Irregularities
says "There is no penalty against any player for exposing any part of
his hand, and he has no redress."

http://www.usplayingcard.com/gamerules/poker.html

The TexasHoldem-Poker.com website has another detailed set of rules. 
Rule 40 also supports the viability of the aces:  "A player who
exposes his cards during the play may incur a penalty, but will not
have his hand killed."

http://www.texasholdem-poker.com/holdem_rules.php

The only dissent I found was on the Hendon Mob website.  (The Hendon
Mob is a group of four English professional poker players.  Their
website claims to be Europe's biggest poker portal.)  A page in the
You Are the Tournament Director series described a hand where one
player raised on the river and the other player, with a better hand,
showed his cards without calling the raise.  Four of the six
tournament directors who gave opinions on this situation said that the
second player should be allowed to call the raise, but two said that
by showing his hand, he killed it.

http://www.thehendonmob.com/tournament_director/exposing_cards_in_error.html

So the player with the kings is not totally without support, but it is
clear that the preponderance of authorities is on the side of the
player with the aces.


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Search strings used included:

poker official rules
poker exposing cards
robert's rules of poker
poker rules irregularities


I hope this is a satisfactory answer to your question.  If you need
any further information about this, please feel free to ask for a
clarification.

--efn

---

Clarification of Answer by efn-ga on 12 Nov 2006 22:34 PST

Another source:  Rule 29 of the Tournament Directors Association Rules
says "Dealers cannot kill a winning hand that was turned face up and
was obviously the winning hand."

This rule does not appear in the rules available from the TDA website
due to defective document formatting (rules are numbered in sequence
and rules 29 and 30 are missing), but appears in copies of the rules
on other sites, such as:

http://www.checknraisepoker.com/about/games_and_rules/tda_rules.php

A very thorough response to a question that had proven difficult to
get a verifiable answer.  Thanks so much.

See if this helps:

http://www.learn-texas-holdem.com/questions/showing-hand-too-early.htm