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POKER TOURNAMENT RULES QUESTIONS & DISCUSSIONS => Poker TDA Rules & Procedures Questions, General => Topic started by: C3Events on February 21, 2010, 04:09:35 AM

Title: A new one for me!
Post by: C3Events on February 21, 2010, 04:09:35 AM
In my last charity tournament, I was faces with two tough calls, wouldn't mind hearing opinions.

For about 10 minutes into play after a break, a player sat down at the wrong chip stack and was playing and winning. The rightful player showed up the that seat card, and I was called over for a ruling. The player had added 4,000 chips to the stack, and the table had 7 players plus him. (I knew the exact chip count as the rightful player had it written on his receipt)

The player that sat in the wrong seat had paid some blinds in his rightful stack. There was no way for me to discern which players were beat out of what amount from the wrong player.

What do you do? How do you rule?

Also, 40 minutes later I was called over for this one:
Player in seat one says" I don't think I could call that bet" the player who bet then proceeds to muck his cards assuming the player folded. The player then says, I didn't say I was folding, and realized that when that player mucked he could claim the pot. How do you rule?


Thanks,
Dan
Title: Re: A new one for me!
Post by: Stuart Murray on February 21, 2010, 06:17:17 AM
Dan,

Couple of good situations.  In the first situation I would move the amount he had won minus blinds to his real stack.  As we have good information of what he had it's not a problem in this case, If there was uncertainty of how much I would try to recreate the original stack and give more to the absent players stack, but we don't need to do this.

"I don't think I can call" man - looks like an angle shot to me, but then we have to adapt to these kind of players nowadays.  By the book he has done nothing wrong except in the Spirit of the Game so he gets the pot and I would warn/penalize him for his unethical conduct.

Regards
Stuart
Title: Re: A new one for me!
Post by: pbrannon on February 22, 2010, 12:50:54 PM
"I don't think I can call" man - looks like an angle shot to me

I do agree that this COULD be an angle shoot, but not always. There are some players in my game that may say "I don't think I can call"; meaning that they don't think they can JUST call, and they are either going to fold or raise. But I also think people do need to be careful about what they say.

We had a situation where Player A says "All In", then Player B says "Okay....."; but before he could finish the sentence Player A flipped up his cards. What Player B was doing was talking to himself saying "Okay....so your all in." He wasn't saying okay he was calling all in. I did warn him to be careful of how he phrased things, but also warned Player A to wait for the dealer to confirm the calling of the all in.
Title: Re: A new one for me!
Post by: Georg on February 23, 2010, 09:48:17 PM
Second one is easier, so it comes first:
He did not make his intention clear, it was just table talk. Clearly a mistake by the other player. Always wait for the dealer, if he gives you the pot, you give him the cards. Very easy  ;D

The first one is hard in my opinion.
I think my favorite solution would be to disqualify the player in the wrong seat, remove his stack, remove the chips won with the wrong stack, and return the original stack to player who arrived later. This way I can accomplish two things. First the player who did not do anything wrong has no advantage or disadvantage from this situation. Second, the player who made a mistake is not allowed to profit from it or get away with it. It might have been a mistake, but what if he did it on purpose? This ruling is applicable for both situations in my opinion.
I can not see why I should let him have the chips, which he won in the wrong seat? What if he had lost all the chips? Do we let him go back to his rightful stack and continue play?

Georg

Title: Re: A new one for me!
Post by: Stuart Murray on February 24, 2010, 10:25:40 AM
Here's something to get you thinking of similar situations:

http://www.thehendonmob.com/tournament_director3/missing_chip_stack

I can remember a similar scenario in poker player magazine that Matt replies to with his ruling and it was a player sitting down in the wrong seat after the break and playing someone elses chips and his solution was something along what I said in the earlier thread.  If I can find it I will post it up.

Regards
Stuart
Title: Re: A new one for me!
Post by: manpokerclub on March 07, 2010, 09:28:56 AM
Just my two cents about the "I don't think I can call that bet"

In our league we have run into situations with the all in calls and supposed no calls because of verbage.

Every time we play, we warn players before we even deal the first about their use of words such as the I'm all in" and the response being Okay or All in (and not saying another word). These players are fishing and waiting for the action player to make a mistake so they can say "oh no I didn't mean that" and try to take down the pot.

So what we have adapted is for the players under the gun, if they are thinking out loud (which is ok) to pose everything in question form or and do not finish your thoughts with a holdem action phrase. In the case of I don't think I can call that bet he had better add something to that statement such as "because if I do"... and so on.

In this case in our league, I would be called over and the first thing I would ask is "was it in question form? No, okay then did the player add anything to the statement? No, well then the player who made the bet wins. No questions, nothing, thats the end of it and since we started doing this, we have lost 4 or 5 players because they were always fishing and try to get the players bringing the action to make a mistake to pull down the pot.

L. Gruppo

Man Poker Club

http://www.manpokerclub.com
Title: Re: A new one for me!
Post by: Nick C on March 10, 2010, 06:04:09 AM
The first one is too tough for me without a little more information.

The unclear bet that induced a player to fold, is a little easier to call. If a good dealer is in the box, they would protect the cards from hitting the muck until the bet or action was clarified. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of every player to protect their own hand but sometimes a little help from a good dealer can add to the integrity of the game.
Unfortunately, because of the bad reputation of a few, the intentions of the player must always be considered.
Nick C
Title: Re: A new one for me!
Post by: madkiwi9 on March 10, 2010, 09:02:01 AM
The first one - sitting in the wrong seat, more information is required - the torny level, high stakes v pub game, was there a difference in stack sizes. 2 options, either disqualify or move him back to his original seat and his original stack! However i really don't know what i would do until i was confronted with the situation?!

The second one is easy as both a player/dealer is to clarify - so is that a fold?
Title: Re: A new one for me!
Post by: CarlFeathers on March 10, 2010, 03:53:31 PM
Wow in the same night...

Wrong seat call... Hard to determine if on purpose (better player building up friends stack) or accident. Since you knew the exact stack size I would have done this. Since the player who sat in wrong seat would not have had those hands remove the chips over the known stack size and the missed blinds and make that player move back to his seat. This would not reward the absent player and prevent any cheating.

Where I direct there are a lot of older players and some sit at wrong table all the time. Over time me and my dealers know who they are and make sure they sit in the right seat.

On the "Okay"- In my opinion this is the hardest call here. I do not see an issue with a player saying "Okay" to himself, The miss step is the All in player here. They did not wait for the dealer. "Okay" is not "Call". I would let the "Okay" player use the information of the other players hand to call or fold. The reason for this is the all in player exposed his hand premature. Now if the "okay player was making a motion with either his cards or chips like he was calling, than Yes it is a call as a player can not entice action from another by making false moves.  This is when you hope your dealer was paying attention.
Title: Re: A new one for me!
Post by: Nick C on March 14, 2010, 03:09:41 PM
The more I think this one over, I have to agree with..... georg....I see no other action but to return all chips to the rightful owners (as difficult as that may be). I can't imagine being a player that extended my break an extra ten minutes, only to return to my seat and find that I lost a few thousand dollars while I was gone! Wow, lets make sure that this never happens again, okay?
Nick C
Title: Re: A new one for me!
Post by: C3Events on March 17, 2010, 06:43:32 PM
Well,

It's been a long time since I posted, and I thank all for taking the time to answer the questions.
I did in fact return all the chips equally to the other players in the hand, blinded out that other stack and put the rightful player to his stack in it's original form minus blinds.

For the angle shooter, I did not award the pot, even though it seems clear that you all believe he should have been awarded the pot and warned. Thank you, I know this for next time.

Dan
Title: Re: A new one for me!
Post by: GreggPath on June 20, 2016, 06:14:08 PM
I know this topic is long-dead, but I recently came across a similar situation, but with an important difference: 6 hands went by and it was impossible to recreate the action to bring the absent player's stack back to where it should be. (Not sure if this was the case in the original post, but in my case it was after a break with a new dealer... and the absent player was late coming back from break). I could, however, easily recreate the offender's chip stack in his correct seat. He had just lost a set of blinds.

What do you do when you can't recreate the wronged-player's stack?