A very interesting ethics situation and a Bellagio Floor ruling

[RR]

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I have no idea if they still use the traditional rule there, but traditionally he can continue putting hcips in until his hands come to rest outside the bettting area.

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I have always thought of this rule as typifying the "old ways". Every house where i've played NL in the past 4 years or so has adopted the "one motion or verbal" rule where bets or raises must be done with one motion or the amount must be announced prior to the actor's hand coming off the chips in his initial motion.

I imagine the traditional rule worked because (at least in cash games) there were prolly like < 1000 people or so walkin' the planet who played NL more than 10 years ago.

I mean think about it. I announce "raise", I put out a stack. I then start twiddling my thumbs. After about 10 seconds the player to my left calls. I look over at him still twiddling my thumbs and say "sup bro, why are you actin' outta turn?"

I'm sure that back in the day everybody knew the rule and it wasn't an issue. But if you were to apply it to today's NL world I think you would get some great stories.

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Most places do the single motion these days. I think it is quite possible that this game was big enough to still be played the "old way." I was also looking at this following up post by the OP
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it's not a string raise unless his motion is stopped.

i.e., if he finishes cutting the chips then announces "two thousand", that's a string bet.

but as long as his hand is in motion cutting the chips and he's yet to make a verbal delcaration he can still verbally declare his bet.


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This sure sounded like they play this game by the traditional rules, but perhaps someone that plays in that game could chime in.

[mikech]

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it's not a string raise unless his motion is stopped.

i.e., if he finishes cutting the chips then announces "two thousand", that's a string bet.

but as long as his hand is in motion cutting the chips and he's yet to make a verbal delcaration he can still verbally declare his bet.

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This sure sounded like they play this game by the traditional rules, but perhaps someone that plays in that game could chime in.

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tx's followup post is correct. quite often a player will grab a stack of chips, start to cut them past the betting line, then realize that they didn't grab as many chips as they wanted to bet, and declare an amount before they finish cutting.

this practice has always been acceptable in this game as far as i've seen, but i've also never seen the declared amount to be more than a couple hundred dollars in addition to the original chips. i've certainly never seen someone start to cut a stack of 400 then announce 2k.

[soah]

That matches my experiences at the Bellagio as well.

[TxRedMan]

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So what we're saying here is that we're going to allow this angle

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Where is the angle?


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the angle would be if someone intends to bet $800 but only grabs $400 in chips, and as they are cutting, they realize they don't have enough, and announce verbally "800". it's maybe an angleshoot if the opponent doesn't let them get to the verbal declaration, by saying "call" pre-emptively.

i think you go by whatever is in the rulebook on this one. but of course casinos are such great places, there is no universal rulebook, just a sheet of poker room guidelines that half the floor probably hasn't read in years.

i don't mind allowing this "angle" because the bettor can prevent it by grabbing the correct amount of chips.

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you cant allow player 2 to influence player 1's bet by forcing player 1 to only bet what was in his hand. player 1 is allowed to verbally declare his bet in the same motion, thus if the floor rules that player 2 would only have to pay player 1 the $400 he had in his hand, then there's an angle that would be shot 1000x/day, announcing 'call' before a guy had made a verbal declaration and only has a certain amount of chips in his hand that now cant be declared to be a larger amount since his opponent has acted out of turn.


i suppose what i thought was interesting about this situation is that it both seemed to be by the book and extremely harsh. if nothing else though, if you're playing in big no limit games all the time like players 1 and 2, you should know this rule. player 1 knew it, player 2 didn't.


-Tex

[Stings]

After reading this thread i'm curious at hwhat the correct ruling on this situation that occured at my local indian casino (pechanga) a couple of weeks ago. its 5/10 uncap game and theres a raise pf by player A, and two callers. On the flop, its monotone spade board, B and C check, player A bets $250, B folds, C announces raise and grabs a handful of $10 chips (but not enough for a legal raise, like 35-40 chips). As he is cutting his chips, player A announces (I'm gonna call whatever you raise), which confuses player C and he has $300 out there, instead of $250.

Obviously Player C has to
1) raise
2) didnt have enough chips to do a legal raise, so he was either gonna
2a) place $250 out there and then pull back to grab more chips for his raise amount
2b) announce an amount while cutting his chips

so i have two questions

1) since player C announce raise and placed $300, is he only able to place the minimum raise?
2) is player A's required to call whateva C's raise is.

thanks.

[terp]

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sorry if this has been mentioned already, but how is Player 2 shooting an angle by saying call prematurely?

All that does is assure him that he will win the minimum when his opponent is bluffing. It also allows him to lose the maximum when he is behind. If it was an angle it surely wasn't one that gave him an edge.

I think the correct ruling should be that Player 1 has the option of either leaving the amount that was already cut out on the table or putting in the rest of the chips that were in his hand (so it sounds like he can either bet $250 or $400).

All in all, I think it's pretty stupid how NL players can mess around with the chips forever nad do all kinds of stuff to try and get "tells" from their opponents. It takes forever and is really irritating. When you bet you should just state the amount you are betting and then count out the chips.

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without getting into any NL theory here, i'll dispel your argument in this way: whether an action is suboptimal does not determine whether it is an angleshoot.

[PrimogenitoX]

What if they are both like 10k deep and the bettor said "Ten thousand"? And if he has to call the ten thousand, what if the player simply refuses to pay and leaves immediately?

[TxRedMan]

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What if they are both like 10k deep and the bettor said "Ten thousand"? And if he has to call the ten thousand, what if the player simply refuses to pay and leaves immediately?

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This same thing happened at the wynn, almost detail for detail, and instead of the player announcing "two thousand" he announced "eight thousand" and they made the other player pay the eight grand. I dont understand why anyone would ever call a bet before the other player was done betting. It just seems like total poker common sense that you set yourself up to get [censored] by calling out of turn.


Btw were you at Cesars last week?

[klezmaniac]

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However in NL, if Player A bets 10, and Player C acts out of turn and Bets 30, But Player B wants to make it 20 and does, technically Player C still has to make it 30.

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I was in a hand like this recently at the Showboat in AC. Preflop raiser bets 20, and I immediately say "Raise to 60," not realizing that the player in seat 10 has cards, and that the action is on him. Dealer tells me I'm acting out of turn; and player in seat 10 then raises to 40. Dealer tells me my action wasn't binding, and I can still raise, call, or fold; and I elect to call (and nobody complains). I assume, however, that had seat 10 checked, I would have been held to my 60 raise.

--klez

[bav]

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For all those that think the call is not binding - even for the $400 that was in his hand

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Who thinks that?

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Bav and I think RR agreed with it.

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No, not quite. I think the story is a bit fuzzy as to where the chips were as this happened, and that matters enormously. Also depends on the particulars of the room (like betting lines, betting walls, forward motion is binding, yaddayadda).

If the guy has a stack in hand and is cutting them out beside his cards and just thinking and stacking and restacking as people often do, there ain't no bet yet, and saying "call" out of turn at that juncture is meaningless. He is effectively calling 0.

If the guy has gone forward with the chips and is clearly in the process of betting but we're unsure of the amount, it's more entertaining. If the place has a virtual betting line wall (that is, a betting line that they claim acts is an invisible wall that runs up to the ceiling and any chips passing through that wall are committed), then the guy going forward with one full stack has already bet it and he's just stacking it in nice piles. And the guy saying "call" is at that point calling the bet that has already been made by plunging a handful of chips through that wall. That's fine (though I hate betting lines, it'd make this particular decision trivial).

But if this is a normal sorta poker room where you get to go forward with a fistful of chips and cut out in the betting area exactly what you want, and are not considered "done" until you pull your hand back... we're in mid-bet. Ick. The wager is underway but incomplete.

One ruling kinda falls out of the "out of turn action may be binding and will be binding if the action doesn't change" rule... At the point the guy said "call" the wager was $300 and may or may not have been complete. Fine... if the guy doing the betting had stopped, the out of turn action will be binding on the $300 now sitting on the felt. But if he wants to keep adding to the bet, the out of turn action ceases to be binding. I'd be ok with that. Not thrilled, but ok.

And if the guy doing the betting had just gone ahead and plopped down the rest of the $400 in his hand, I'd even be even tempered about the floor deciding it was clear all $400 was going to be wagered and the guy who said "call" musta known that. I won't throw a fit over the floor ruling the bet was clearly intended to be $400 and the guy doing the call is on the hook for $400. IF the guy doing the betting hadn't lost his mind...

The guy doing the betting suddenly blurting out $2000 would seem to make it clear that his bet was *NOT* complete in his own mind, and that our belief that he was intending to bet $400 was wrong. He was only in phase one of a multi-fisted, multi-stage wager that was going to involve counting out stack after stack on the felt (while somehow not being called for string betting). So we're back to no wager having been completed, and so the call ain't binding.