Weird Live Ethics Question
 

This came up a few months ago. 10-20 NL at Bellagio. I raise JQs in CO, tight asian guy who speaks no english (trust me, i'm not making this up) reraises (amounts don't matter). Flop comes down TTJ and it goes check/check. Turn 7 and he c/calls 300. River 2 and he c/calls 900. I flip my hand over and he disappointingly shows his hand to the guy sitting next to him and flings his cards into the muck.

The second he does this, the guy beside him, whom I've seen around the Bellagio from time to time and seems like some regular oldish Greek fish with slicked hair, practically jumps out of his chair. He starts shouting "why did you fold that?!? he had aces!" (which by the way made me feel a lot less proud of my thin value bet). So the guy keeps insisting that the asian guy must have misread the board and keeps asking him why he folded but the asian guy doesn't understand what's going on. for the next 10 minutes other guy won't stop talking about it.

So, here's the situation: I have no reason to doubt this other guy's story, I sincerely doubt they're in cahoots together. What should I do? Give him the pot? Give him half? Say screw it and give him nothing?

Re: Weird Live Ethics Question
 

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Say screw it and give him nothing

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Re: Weird Live Ethics Question
 

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Say screw it and give him nothing

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Re: Weird Live Ethics Question
 

Not sure why there would be any question here. Misreading the board/action is the same as any other mistake you can make while playing poker. Obviously I'd never give him anything back.

Re: Weird Live Ethics Question
 

Screw him, if he doesn't see it he doesn;t deserve it. People in vegas are not gonna give u money back in the same spot and actually are hoping u would make mistakes like that.

He mucked his hand therefore it dead and I'd say u made the sickest valuebet in history.

Re: Weird Live Ethics Question
 

don't give him anything, but the guy yelling about how he mucked the best hand is a giant tool and definitely shouldn't be saying anything.

Re: Weird Live Ethics Question
 

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Say screw it and give him nothing

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its part of live play.. i dont feel bad about these kind of things ever and thats not b/c im a heartless jerk, its the players responsibility and nobody else's to make sure his hand is good.

Re: Weird Live Ethics Question
 

Ok so to put a little twist on it. Say you are the person sitting next to the player about to muck AA there. He says something along the lines of 'I can't believe they didn't hold up again', shows you the AA and waits a second or two to actually muck his hand. You have the time to tell him his hand is good before he throws it away. Do you?

Re: Weird Live Ethics Question
 

I was in a similar situation in a live self-deal game at The Vic in London.

I was dealing, and the player in question was to my right, with his opponent to his right.

After his opponent showed he held his cards open while trying to read the board. In an effort to speed up the game I read the hands and he won the pot.

This created the argument that his hand was not in showdown because it wasn't flat on the table. I have since checked that this is correct according to there rules, so I shouldn't have said anything.

It also creates a nice clear cut answer to your situation, if the cards are face up on the table everyone (including in dealer-dealt games) has a duty to point out the best hand, if they haven't been released no-one is allowed to say anything.

This created a few other discussions about whether his hand, shown to a few people, might therefore be killed, or would it be forced to showdown on a show-one show all principle?

If the guy who said something caused the guy to succesfully show down his aces when he otherwise wouldn't have done, that is a bigger ethics violation, the first guy is also wrng to show anyone his hand before showing down or mucking, so you easily have the high ground here if you manage to take the pot.

Re: Weird Live Ethics Question
 

You know, honestly, while you might be ethically "correct" in keeping the pot b/c the other guy is not very bright and can't read his own [censored] hand, given that there's more to life than the thousand bucks you get out of this deal I'd probably just make the side deal with him and chop the pot and give him half. Can you justify yourself over and over in keeping the pot? - yeah, totally. Is is really worth the nagging doubt in your mind asking you whether the price of your integrity is worth exactly the size of that pot? - No, in your case it's not. [censored] it, give him half and move on, the amount of money involved is not anywhere near worth your peace of mind here.

Kirk