[Dominic]

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As a bettor at no limit poker you have an obligation to protect your hand until it is clear your opponant understands the size of your wager. In the example given above if he actual bet is $144, but the opponant says "call" and puts out $44 it is clear he does not understand the amount of the bet. If the first player shows his hand at teh first mention of "call" he runs the risk of the player misunderstanding the amount of the bet. Also chips that are intentional hidden can be ruled to not be in play. There are people that beleive no chip larger than the min buy-in should be permitted on the table, but I believe that not allowing players to hide their chips is enough.

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Alas, the caller pushed no chips. Angle shooter said "all-in" and set out two nice, neat stacks. Other guy pondered just a moment and said "I call" and then both flipped over their cards to show 2-pair vs straight. Dealer spreads out the 8 chips and says "$143" and the caller says "WHAT??? No way, man" and spends eons arguing with the dealer who repeats "too bad, you said call--you should have asked if you weren't sure". Finally the poor victim asks for the floor. I was surprised the floor didn't ask more questions. Dealer explained what happened, but with no emphasis at all on the nearly invisible black chip neatly tucked away at the bottom of the blue stack (which may have something to do with the victim being a tourist and the angle shooter being a known-by-name-by-all-the-employees regular). But he did lay the chips out showing the stack of red and the stack of blue/black, and the victim did say the black was hidden at the bottom. Floor then instantly ruled "you said call, you owe him $143" and walked off.

The problem with "not allowing players to hide their chips" is there seems to rarely be a penalty for doing so. I see similar misunderstandings where the intent of the bettor isn't so obviously devious pretty regularly. I've never seen one where the victim didn't end up paying the full price. The only thing that made the last two incidents I've witnessed odd is that it was blatantly intentional.

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there is no victim here. The player who lost SHOULD'VE clarified how much he needed to call before doing anything.

What idiot doesn't make sure how much a bet is before calling? Whoever does do this, I gurantee, only does it once.