For those of you willing to give Player C relief, I pose the following question:
What do you say to Player B if you're called over to the table after Player C says, "Call", but before Player B announce his raise.
Player B is going to ask you, "What are my options ? Is his call binding ?"
- "If you min raise, his call will stand"
- "If you go all in, I'm going to give him relief, but make him call a min raise."
What if I raise $100 ?
I wouldn't offer Player B any information on how I'm going to rule. He needs to first complete his bet. Then, I would make my ruling. If Player C wasn't angling, I would most likely hold him to calling a min-raise with the option of forfeiting that and folding should the raise be larger.
Thanks to Bill and Den for discussing this aspect of the topic....
As there is no formal rule on this subject, what you say to B's question is at TDs discretion. Personally, as a player I feel I have a right to know how my action will affect C's options. Also, in the case of OOT action I do know (per the rules) how my bet amount will affect the OOT player. Why should I know the effects of my action in OOT but not here? That said, some of the most respected TDs in the game argued at the Summit (as Bill does here) that the TD should advise B to complete his betting action before the TD makes a ruling on C's obligation.
This exchange is just one aspect of how complicated this issue can be, and why no agreement was reached at the 2015 Summit. Let's say you don't tell B what the options are, B makes his raise of a "reasonable" amount (let's say 3-5x the opener, use 4x in this example), and you then tell C he can just put in a min raise (2x the opener) and fold OR he can call the 4x raise. It's as though C is being "rewarded" with a range of options that he wouldn't have if he hadn't acted before the bet amount was clear. And B goes ballistic saying "this guy said call, I made a reasonable raise and now he can weasel out of it". With the min-raise or fold option we set up a situation where a player can snap-declare call, then contemplate whether he calls or puts in a token amount, depending on the precise raise.
The only way to avoid this is to hold C to calling whatever B raises. Several problems here too: A) the raiser has a "fish on the hook", and can make a much larger raise than he might normally do because he has a known (possibly reluctant) caller. The fish on the hook problem is one reason that an OOT player is released if action changes > at several Summits now the attendees have voted that limiting an OOT player gives the skipped player too much control; the skipped player already knows what the OOT player wants to do, and he can lock him in by not changing the action. Giving further control such as limiting the OOT player to his declared action if action changes has been deemed giving the skipped player too much control. It's even more extreme if you force C to call anything B raises in this example. But is there an option other than swinging the pendulum in the other direction and giving C an attractive range of choices he hardly deserves?
Interesting that when the question was put to players in the 2015 Summit Players Survey, over half the players responded that C should be held to calling anything... however there's a thread on 2+2 if I can find it (perhaps someone else can link to it), where exactly that happened: B went all-in and C was forced to call. A fair number of the respondents on that thread felt it was a very unethical move on B's part to "take advantage" of C.