Passive Angleshoot?

[Lottery Larry]

A "legal" amount? I've played in private tourneys where a $100 bet could get raised to $101 and reopen the betting.

You should be THRILLED to be in a game where you can have the betting reopened by some fool who doesn't know how to raise properly (unless, of course, they DO know how- you've marked your shark to avoid).

Oh, also:
"and I want to vomit because I know my hand is almost certainly not good now, but I have to call"

Almost certainly not good does NOT equal a less than 9:1 chance you are beaten, IMO. Therefore, you do not HAVE to call if your read is correct.
If you do call, either you hate money or your read was [censored]. Either one can be fixed.

[Lottery Larry]

"The only thing you did wrong was to allow the game to go on with improper raising"

[censored]. It's not HIS game to control- what's this "allow the game to go on" garbage?

[Lottery Larry]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
what do you THINK you did wrong?

[/ QUOTE ]

My main concern was wondering if I should have spoke up about allowing the illegal raise since 1) it had previously been allowed in our game 2) the new player (the enforcer) did not know this 3) disallowing the raise benefitted me.

Instead, I kept quiet and let my opponent make the decision. I hope that I did not do anything wrong, but I am not sure, which is why I asked here.

-Andrew

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, okay. I saw your other reply about the outside intimidation factor as well.

The enforcer, whom I assume wasn't a regular based on "new player," should have been told that he doesn't make the home game rules either. If they want to change a rule, people can request a change and make suggestions. "illegal" doesn't usually apply in the bizzaro world of home game rules.

Nope, you did nothing wrong. In fact, to bring up making a rule change in the middle of a hand, ESPECIALLY when it affects your play in the hand, is bad form.

You did just fine. And don't let yourself be intimidated- they're just poker players, the same as you (well, hopefully you're better than they are :P )

[EasilyFound]

[ QUOTE ]
This is what I would have done:

Called the 20. When the other player bitched I would have said this:

"Yes, I know it's not a legal raise. But we've let the rule go by in the past and I didn't want to be a nit about enforcing it. It's a friendly game, so lets finish the hand out, and discuss how we want to treat raises in the future afterwards."

[/ QUOTE ]

This is spot on.

You have to remember this: People who have been playing poker for more than ten years, before the current poker craze, don't play by casino rules. They violate the rule about the minimum amount to raise. They don't know a string raise from a string bean. They act out of turn all the time. They are allowed to go shy if they run out of chips during a hand. If the dealer mistakenly misses one person while dealing, the dealer will just deal two down cards to the missed player instead of declaring a misdeal and starting all over again. People from this poker generation, which includes me, have grown up playing this way, and they don't care about those rules.

Only when I started to play hold'em w/in the last three years or so, and began playing with younger people, those who weren't even born when I started playing poker, did I learn what a string bet was, that I had to announce "raise" or else putting in a single big chip would not be considered a raise, that a misdeal had to be declared if one single card was dealt out of order, etc... People from my general just say that this is a home game, after all, and casino rules are for casino play.

So I totally understand the feeling that you would be called a "nit" if you tried to enforce casino rules at a game where people don't follow them, and could care less what "the rule" is. And when you are playing with such players, I think it is correct to play by their rules. I can understand, though, how the current generation of poker players can't understand that thinking. But I think that the best approach is to explain what the correct rule is, why it is important, and ask that it be followed in the future. If strict adherence to the rule is important, and people don't want to follow the correct rule, then don't play in that game.