I remember reading this the other day on the hendon mob website. There is a feqature called you are the td and they ask some of the leading TD's to give their judgements on situations. Here the situation and the resulting replies from the TD's:
Situation: On the bubble in a big NLH competition Player A makes a big raise under the gun. The button moves all in announcing, ‘I’ve got aces, you had better pass if you want to make the money punk!’ You are called to the table, how do you rule?
Liam Flood:
It’s up to the other guy to call or pass. The fella who is announcing his aces might not be telling the truth; in fact I’m 99% certain he’s not telling in the truth!
Melanie Lofthouse:
You tell the player B that next hand he is sinbinned for 15mins. Player A has decision to make. If player A calls and player B has aces then I would give the pot to player A because you are not allowed to tell people what hand you have. TDA rules state that you are not allowed to mention your exact hand whilst the hand is in play. Just because he might like the guy and not want him to go out, doesn’t mean to say that he can tell him he has aces so he can fold. Not on.
Marty Wilson:
Is he bluffing or telling the truth? It’s only table talk and table talk’s encouraged. If he’s re-raised you’re taking the chance he’s got the aces anyway or it could be a poker move. I give player B the option of calling it.
Please tell me that these are made up responses concocted by the author of the article, just like a TV Director does when directing a "Reality Show".
When did we start awarding pots to Player B, who called Player A, on the basis that Player A declared his hand and it happened to be the truth!?!? What??
When did table talk become encouraged? I mean, I'm all for talking at the table. Who wants to play at a morgue. But to me there's a bit of a difference between stating "I've got Aces, Kings, Queens .....etc etc" and stating "I've got a good hand" or "I've got the best hand" or "I got you beat". That's JMO.
The Mob Verdict:
We are presuming that the situation is heads up. You have to ask yourself why the TD has been called to the table. Is there any issue of collusion? If collusion is not as issue then we don’t really see a problem and we put it down as table talk.
This is a major difference between U.S. and European Rules. In the U.S. at many major events, it does not matter if they are heads up. An attempt to disclose your hand and influence the action is punishable by penalty no matter when it happens and is strongly discouraged. Dealing with lots of players from around the world at the WSOP, many players believe it is ok to disclose your hand and/or show your hole cards with action pending
IF they are heads up with another player. In the U.S., this is only true in cash games. The reason is this: 1) In Cash Games, the only money/chips affected in the pot is only that of the players involved in the hand. 2) In Tournament, the money/chips affected in the pot is that of all the tournament participants.
We don’t buy into the ‘you can only lie’ rule – this is nonsense. The whole point of making statements is to deceive. It is over literal to be concerned whether they have named their hand correctly because whether they have named their hand correctly or not the intention is to deceive. The only thing that you really can’t say at the table is the F-bomb and that rule is nonsense as well.
First off, there is no 'you can only lie' rule. This is not a rule. The rule is you can not disclose the content of your hand. Stating that you have a
specific hand ie, specific cards or hand ranking, is improper etiquette in tournament play.
We definitely don't want poker to become the NFL (No Fun League). However, players are expected to protect each others actions and interests at the poker table, along with the staff.