This happened at our weekly bar league tourney. I looked at QJ of spades and decided to call a preflop raise. The hand ended when I made a river call against a player who tried a bluff with an ace on board after I had paired my queen. When I called, the player said "good call" and flipped up T5, total air. I said "queens" and flipped up my cards.

When I did, there were 3 cards. Somehow the a red 3 had gotten into my cards. I have no clue how this happened. Nobody saw a misdeal, and when I checked my cards preflop I definitely didn't see three cards. The only other possibility I can think of is someone mucked and their card slid under mine, which still seems very unlikely. (I asked the woman next to me, whom I have played with many times and been friendly with, if she had the 3, and she said no.)

My question is how should this hand have been resolved? By the letter of the law, I assume I didn't have an argument since I had 3 cards, no matter how the third got there. On the other hand, it's obvious what the intent of the hand was: villain bluffed river and got called down. Obviously I wasn't calling him down with the 3. I wouldn't have called preflop with J3.

We called over the tourney manager, and he said, "We had this same thing happen last week. We have to give everyone their chips back." I didn't dispute this since I know he tries to be equitable, but I was upset. (I went out about a hour or so later, after the bubble and in the points, and he said, "I'm really glad to see you made the points. I felt bad making that call." No problem.) But I suppose I could have been even worse off than that and he could have declared my hand mucked.

I read an column in Card Player a couple months ago that suggested disputes should be resolved fairly according to the intent of the hand, not necessarily to the intent of the law (or rule). What do you think?