holdemrulesreport

Recently at a live Casino poker tournament we had this ruling imposed by the casino floor supervisor. The ruling caught my attention because it wasn't so clear cut, especially after I though about it longer. There were in fact 3 supervisors involved before they actually handed down the decision.

After the flop.
Mike to act raises
Jim All in (shortest stack)
Brian Allin (bigger stack)

But before Mike acts, Jim asks Brian "what do you have?". Brian reaches over and puts his cards in Jim's face. No one else could see. Mike then demands that he should be allowed to see Brian's cards "show one, then show all". Floor is called and after several minutes tells Brian he must show.

Brian turns over AK.
Mike tanks and finally calls.
Mike had 9-9
Jim 2 had A-Q
Brian 3 had A-K

I felt his was a bad ruling. Show one show all is fine after the hand has ended but as applied here, the showing of cards prematurely by an all in player to another all in player (albeit wrong) did not impact the action in anyway. On the contrary TDs forcing of Brian to expose his cards had an impact on Mike's decision. Was do you think, is this correct?

Poker Rules Professor says:

The actual ruling is probably correct, but an experienced floorman might have waved it accordance with the situation of it not having effected the hand as of yet. The only thing that is of concern is a "tell" by either Brian or Jim when they knew the hand in question. Of course those two were foolish to do so and might well be penalized, but the bottom line is how it effected the hand. This one could go either way depending on the accuity of the supervisor in charge of the poker rules at the time.