Team Angle Shooting at WPT Niagra

[Cornell Fiji]

This hand took place at the World Poker Tour in Fallsview last week. This is a little bit of a rant and I don't know what I am accomplishing by posting this; if you don't want to read a rant stop reading here.

It was the end of day 1 and I had 65,000 chips and am 1st in chips at my table. The blinds were 300/600 with a 50 chip ante. I had recently been moved to my table.

I open for 1,800 with A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] in MP2 and the cut off throws in a 5k chip raise. The CO has his arms covering his chip stack and it appears that he has made an all in raise. The action folds back to me and I try to calculate if I have the pot odds to call his all in bet. Trying to get a read on him I say something along the lines of "I might have to make a really loose call here because you are all in... I have a real junk hand but I might be pot committed to a call... I think I might have to call..." At which time I see that he has about 40k behind and I turbomuck my hand.

The dealer pushes the pot to the CO and this is when the fun began. The ten seat pipes up and says "He said "call" he owes 5k more." and the dealer (who is clearly a new dealer and is a passive asian guy) looks to me wanting me to throw in 5k more.

I immediately call the floor over. The ten seat is the first person to speek up and says "he said call and then threw his cards in, he owes 5k more" and I defend myself saying that I had only said "I think that I might have to make a loose call, and in no way does that constitute a call"

The floor leans over to the dealer to ask if I had said "call" and the dealer indicates that I had. [censored].

At this point I start vehimantly arguing my case. I say that I had only said "I think I might have to make a loose call, I only said this because I thought that the raiser was all in and when I saw he had more chips I quickly threw my hand away... 'I think I might have to call' certaintly does not constitute a call"

4 more floormen arrive on the scene.

I continue to argue my case and I see that the one seat has tourettes or a nerve disorder of some sort and is nodding as I am talking. (The one seat played a lot like a 2p2er and if you are reading this I had a good time playing with you) I know that he is not agreeing with me but I decide that I need all of the help that I can get here and I tell the floor "look, the one seat agrees that I did not call, everyone knew that I did not call, lets shuffle up and deal the next hand"

The ten seat says "he said I call, he never said I think I might have to call"

Eventually the floormen confer and decide that I do not owe the chips.

At this time, since I have won my argument, I go off on the cut off. I tell him exactly what I think of him "you are a bad person and a dirty player, you are a worthless human being to try to steal chips like this and you have no honor etc."

The floors tell me to let it go and I do not want to risk time in the penalty box so I stop arguing.

Later, the ten seat stood up and I tell him very politely (not sarcastic I was polite as possible) that I would kindly appreciate him to not say anything when he was not involved in a hand and I thought he was way out of place in helping this guy shoot an angle on me.

Two hands later the ten seat erupts on me and start yelling at me that he was not out of place and that he was just trying to help a friend when I had said call. Another shouting match ensues and the floors return to our table.

At the end of the night the one seat calls me over and tells me that he had been at that table all day and was pretty sure that the ten seat, the cut off, and another player had been playing as a team: raising people off of pots, checking down big hands etc. and had been acting shady all night.

At least I got to keep my 5k in chips... there was certaintly a time that if I did not argue my case that the money was going into the pot.