[Greg (FossilMan)]

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RR seems to feel that the only reason players want to learn the rules is to shoot angles. Do you feel the same way?

Should players be kept ignorant, or should the poker community try to educate everybody?

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I spend a lot of time here and in person educating people, but I have never have someone in a casino ask for rules that wasn't up to no good. The two circumstances I have had someone come up and ask me for a set of rules was someone looking to shoot an angle or someone wanting to argue about a floor decision that someone made. Normally the second type is looking for a rule they know is in there so they can argue while ignoring the relevant rule (ie verbal action in turn is binding vs if a player has a gross misunderstanding of the action he faces he may retract his action if no harm is done).

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That's funny. I travel around to new rooms all the time, and as such I ask about their rules all the time. And never once in my life have I intentionally shot an angle. However, I am always trying to be aware of all the angles that might be shot, so as to defend myself. Haven't you ever been asked about the rules by somebody like me?

Also, I disagree with your position about verbal action not being binding when somebody is unaware of the true nature of the bet they are facing. I agree that if the player or dealer mis-states an amount, and the hero verbally says call or raise, but is then informed of the true (and much larger) amount, they should be given a chance to change their mind. But this rests upon the mistake made by the dealer or by the player who made that bet, not upon the self-caused ignorance of the hero. If, however, a player pushes out some chips, and the hero says call, and is then told it is 50,000, he shouldn't be allowed to take back his call because he thought it was a stack of five 1K chips, rather than a stack of five 10K chips. He never asked the dealer for an amount, and the bettor didn't mis-state the amount. The mistake is his own.

Similarly, if a player such as Bill announces raise and the Hero did not hear it, then unless the circumstances lead me to believe the mistake was totally innocent, and not caused or aided by lack of attentiveness on his part, I'm not going to try to make a ruling that preserves what the action would have been if he had been paying full attention. I believe he gets punished for his mistake, rather than making a ruling that saves him from his mistake, and thus even possibly punishes the other guy who did nothing wrong.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)