yeah, but even if they deal the empty spot in (which I've never seen, if somebody gets up, the seat is open so the dealer skips that spot), and then pull those cards into the muck, those cards may have been playable had a person been in that seat. had she played the cards, then they would have been swept into the muck in a different spot and the order of all the cards would have changed.

it's easy to say that if only I'd been at that table 10 minutes earlier because we're not talking a random number generator like online but think about it this way.

at the start of a new poker table, the dealer checks the deck and washes them, shuffles them and starts to deal. if player one mucks, his cards go into the muck. if player one doesn't muck but player two does, now player twos cards are in the muck instead. the order is affected. after the hand, the cards are gathered, shuffled, and cut but the order of all of that would have been different had player one mucked instead of player two.

I'm just saying that by her not being there, regardless of whether they dealt her in a hand or not, the order of everything was altered and had she been there the result would not have been the same.