Hey all,

I've seen this ruling numerous times during my time as a judge, and I feel like we don't all fix it consistently. The situation:

A player is drawing for turn, and two cards stick together. The cards don't touch their hand but they see both cards. When you get to the table, they have kept the two cards separated in a nice little pile. Both players will tell you the top card is the one they “should” have drawn.

By a strict policy reading, I think the solution here is to shuffle both cards into the library. I rarely see it handled like that, where instead I see that top card put into the hand and the other card shuffled away. However, for cards going to hand we rule that once the card touches the “set” of the hand we consider it part of the hand even if it's clear they just touched for a moment and pulled away. I don't know why we'd treat this one different and say we can still tell which card was the “top” for this set of two cards.

So I'd like to hear from the Ivory Tower about how this should be fixed exactly? Is my understanding of the L@EC policy wrong? Is it correct and we wink wink and just have them put that card in hand?

CJ,

Are you looking for an answer from an official source or general discussion? I can't tell who is part of the Ivory Tower anymore!

I think I'd like an official source, because it's been my observation that this is ruled pretty inconsistently and I'd like to know what's “correct” here.

But I also don't want to hold back discussion if there's discussion to be had.

Originally posted by IPG:

Shuffle any previously unknown cards into the random portion of the deck, then put any known cards back in their correct locations.

The “known card” applies to the fact that we know the card on top was, in fact, on top. That's an unusual circumstance - it's more common to decide that we can't be sure which was which.

Consider also this part of the Philosophy:

Players should not use this penalty to get a “free shuffle” or to attempt to shuffle away cards they don’t want to draw

The player was going to draw that top card, so the integrity of the game is preserved best by having him or her draw that card, not a random card.

d:^D

P.S. - sorry for the double post; forgot my wife was signed in… :p

Hey Scott,

I don't feel the current policy completely reflects that fix, which is why
it's ruled inconsistently.

Why are we worried about sleight of hand tricks when it briefly touches a
card in their hand, but not in this situation?

I agree with CJ – it does feel odd to me that we ever care what the players say is the “correct” card. If we're going to assume we can't know which card was which as soon as there's contact with the hand, because maybe sleight of hand happened, why are we OK taking players' words for what's what in a situation like this?

It would feel more consistent to me to give the thoughtsieze fix to the top two in these situations.

Well…I don't know if I'd go that far. We still need an infraction for the
accidental pickup, and L@EC fits nicely here. It was an error of dexterity
after all, the player did not intend to pick up two cards.

I think both cards should be shuffled away. I think if we suspect players
are using L@EC for a free shuffle, then we can cleanly put that under
Cheating so it's already handled.

CJ