Another Situation with Mucking an All-In Player's Hand
Earlier in the day, a rare situation happened where a dealer mucked a player's cards during an all-in situation. Our friend Martin Harris from the PokerStars Blog wrote this one the situation:
Have a curious, unfortunate story to report. Unfortunate in a couple of ways, actually, as we haven't the primary protagonist's name to share. But the events are compelling enough, hopefully, to carry the narrative.
The tale begins with a raise to 3,500 from the cutoff, followed by a reraise to 12,400 from the button. It folded to our protagonist in the big blind who shoved all in for 35,000 or so. The cutoff folded, but the button snap-called, tabling 
to our hero's 
. The board ran out eight-high, and the big blind was down to less than 5,000.
A couple of hands later came another raise, this time from UTG to 3,100. It folded to the unfortunate one on the button who reraised all in for 4,100. The blinds folded and the original raiser called. Again, the poor soul had run into a pair of bullets as his opponent showed 
. Mr. Tough Luck was still smiling though... until he noticed his hand had been mistakenly swept into the muck by the dealer!
The floor was called over, during which time the all-in player explained he had held 
. The cards were unretrievable, however, and it was ruled his bet would be a call rather than an all-in raise. And, it goes without saying, he'd lost those chips, meaning he was left with 800. Curious, yes. And most certainly unfortunate.
The player decided, however, he'd had enough and left immediately, letting those 800 chips go as antes over the next four hands. An understandable response, given the sequence of events he'd endured.
A similar situation also just occurred on the money bubble of the tournament.
Action folded to Regis Kiles in the cutoff seat and he open-shoved all in for over 200,000. Everyone left to act behind him was short stacked. Regis Copotinha was in the small blind and made the call. Everyone else had folded. Now, after the all-in raise and call, the dealer pulled in Copotinha's hand into the muck. There was a big commotion at the table when this happened, but this time the floor called over almost immediately before the dealer could fully pull the small blind and big blind's hands completely into the muck.
Tournament director Mike Ward was on hand to give the ruling and first reprimanded the dealer for having pulled in Copotinha's hand. His cards along with the big blind's cards were just outside the muck and Copotinha stated that he had pocket jacks. Ward looked at the first card of the four and it was a jack, the . He looked at the second card and it wasn't a jack and then the third, which wasn't a jack either. The fourth card was the 
though and it was ruled that Copotinha's hand was now live because it was retrievable.
Copotinha was all in for 54,500 and up against the 
for Kiles. The board ran out 
to give Copotinha the double up and continue on with bubble play.