Angleshooting attempt?
Posted by midori
Posted by
midori
posted in
Gen. Poker
Angleshooting attempt?
Hi guys,
Below is what I have witnessed about a year ago in a live MTT, but somehow it's still floating on my mind, mostly because I saw something similar happening very recently. So I thought I'd ask for your opinions here.
Without further ado, here's what happened:
Two guys were in hand (this was a HU tourney), SB limps and BB checks back. Blinds are 200/400. BB led out on flop and turn, which SB smooth called. Now the pot is about 8k on the river, and BB says "five" as he throws in a 5k orange chip, and SB snap calls, also throwing in a 5k orange chip.
BB was probably bluffing, as he mucks his hand and says "nice hand." SB shrugs and doesn't show his hand, waiting for the dealer to rake the chips and hand them to him. BB didn't say anything either.
Now all of a sudden, the dealer says "hold on" and calls the floor. Her argument was that BB said "five" instead of "five thousand" when he threw in a 5k orange chip, hence it should stand as a "five hundred (500)" instead of 5k betting, and since SB didn't say anything when throwing in chips, it should stand as calling a 500 bet.
SB is going on tilt for a number of reasons. First off, he thinks it was very obvious that BB was intending to bet 5k into a ~8k pot, since betting 500 into a ~8k pot wouldn't make much sense there. Second, when SB called the river bet BB didn't say anything and was ready to surrender the pot, and the dealer (from his POV) intervened unnecessarily, thereby giving unfair advantage to BB.
Alright, so my questions are:
- What should be the floor's (final) decision?
- Did the dealer really give BB an unfair advantage, or was she just doing her job/duty by being vigilant?
- Does the BB's "intention" matter? Like, we all know that betting 5k into 8k seems way more reasonable than betting 500 into it, but how can we "prove" it?
- If the floor decides that the bet was 500 instead of 5k, does that still hold even if BB says "I meant to bet 5k, so just give him 5k not 500?"
And final question:
- In the end the floor declared that the bet was 500 and 4500 should be given back to both SB and BB. BB still admits that he intended to bet 5k, but it doesn't seem like he wants to pay 4500 back to SB. From this, can we say BB is angle shooting? Is his behaviour morally/ethically douchey?
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You cant angle shoot without intent. Its not possible, without intent its just ignorance of the rules that ends up working in your favor. So here It's only angle shooting if the BB had been the one to pull the whole "I said five, I meant 500!" after the SB called and he lost, unless he knew for sure the dealer was going to do what she did and only after SB called, instead of her just announcing "the bet is five hundred" after he threw his chip out, which really doesnt seem likely. (or if the BB and the dealer are working together, but then its just blatant cheating not angle shooting).
BB also technically cant just give him 4500 even if he wanted to because you cant just give someone tourney chips, so its not like he could do the honorable thing even if he wanted to. So imo we cant really say anything definitive about BBs behavior.
As for the ruling, I dont play enough live to know. To me it seems like the bet was obviously meant to be $5k but I dunno what the rules are in terms of how they handle verbal bets in the context of what "five" means. The dealer clearly screwed up tho if the rule is that it technically is $500 when you say "five" because she should have made it clear to the SB that "the bet is five hundred".
I basically agree with you that one cannot angleshoot without intent. However, the thing is, in this case it's hard to tell if BB had intended that or not.
On one hand, BB admitted to the floor and the dealer that he meant to bet 5k, but if he did that only because he felt he was already "safe", knowing that the floor decision would be in his favour and final, then one can argue that BB was "implicitly" angle shooting, by not telling about his intention of betting 5k to the dealer right away when she was calling the floor.
On the other hand, we can forget about BB's intention, and question if the dealer's intervention was necessary and/or justifiable. BB clarified that he meant to bet 5k, but only after the floor was called, so dealer couldn't have known about BB's intention (500 vs 5k). However, to me it seemed a bit ridiculous that the dealer is digging it up when neither player said anything about the outcome of the hand.
I think an experienced dealer should be able to settle this problem right away, simply by asking the BB "is that 500?" or something, but she probably wasn't a seasoned dealer.
BB told floor he bet 5K and the floor still made this ruling?
the best thing to do in this spot is just win the MTT and not tip that dealer/floor
Well, to be fair BB didn't say anything until the floor came, but he told the floor that he meant to bet 5k instead of 500, to which floor said his intention is the moot point.
Meh ... where´s the problem? In my eyes, everybody did the right thing. SB made a "mistake", BB didn´t complain about the mistake (when in doubt he had to clearly ask if SB was announcing a 500 or a 5k bet) and the dealer made his job. SB then finally even admitted that he wanted to bet 5k (and it´s almost ridiculous imho to suspect SB of having expected exactly that outcome to feel safe and pull off such a theater, unless he colluded with the dealer, which obviously won´t happen for 10bb ...) and the floorman had to make a decision.
Obviously, the dealer might have been a bit overzealous, but in doubt I like those dealers more than the ones that don´t care at all what happens at their tables.
And believe me I witnessed way worse things in live games, I remember when I once lost 2.5k in a 2/4-game when a guy announced an all-in for almost 10 times the pot when like $300 (!!) were in the pot - and after watching my flabbergasted face loudly complained to the dealer that he had no chance to see my entire stack and that he wouldn´t at all have bet that amount, he just meant to make a roughly potsized bet. Bad thing was that I had a boat - and got greedy ... only to pay off his quads. Obviously he was 100% sure of my stack but he played his role so great that I payed him off. Afterwards - sitting on almost 12 stacks, he took a break to inform half of the casino what a genius he was to trap me that way. Moral of that story? At the end it was my fault, I just could´ve folded. Everybody is responsible for his own actions and decisions. :)
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