I was recently in a poker room where I saw some unexpected behavior from a dealer. I don't want to call the place out, but I do want to make it clear that it's not a small-time or shady operation; big-name national and international events are held there.
A NLHE hand was played to the river. By the time it reached the river, action was heads-up. After betting ended, one player announced "I've got the straight" and flipped over his cards to prove it. His opponent nodded and said "okay, you've got it," but instead of just mucking, he flipped over one of his cards to show that he had top pair. As the dealer was collecting the cards, she flipped the losing player's other card over so everyone could see it.
A few hands later, a similar situation occurred with the same dealer, except that the losing player folded to a turn bet instead of calling and losing on the river. Again, the loser showed just one card to prove that he wasn't totally bluffing. This time, he slid his cards towards the muck with the exposed card neatly on top of the other card. The dealer intentionally moved the top card out of the way to flip the bottom card over.
I had never been to that card room before, so I thought maybe it was a house rule that players couldn't choose to reveal exactly one of their cards. Later in the night, after a different dealer sat down, I asked about it, and everyone at the table — including the new dealer — agreed that the earlier dealer had been very wrong.
If I had been sure of the error back when the first dealer was still at the table, what would have been an appropriate way to point it out? Or, since nobody else at the table said anything (and there were definitely a few regs there) is the lesson that there's nothing you can do about a dealer who isn't following the rules?