Well done. This is the perfect way to handle all of it. A table full of people like you would be a pleasant place indeed.

After his response, then you should have said "hey moron, no dirty stacks".

He was bad, I didn't want to piss him off and watch him leave. Later I stacked him when he overlimped KK and sprang into action once I turned my flush.

"First off, it seems to me that once the chips move over the line (in the air or not), the chips are part of the pot. At the very least, once releasing the chips, they should be in the pot."

While it sounds like a good rule in theory its been a cluster f*** at my local casino which implemented this rule. More angles are shot bcuz of it. Mostly what happens is people will try and call and their forced 2 raise (cut out $40 in chips over the line but they have $50 in chips in their hand). So they are forced to make a min raise and 90% of the time the org raiser 4bets the caller out of the pot.

You can only get angled if you fail to adapt.

How hard is it to verbalize "call" prior to doing anything else? Then it doesn't matter if you pick up your entire stack, it's still a call.

My sequence is: cut chips while thinking if I'm betting or raising, announce the action then the amount, then arrange chips as necessary while sliding them across the line. This would be legal in any casino and is hardly a brain strain to do.

I've never understood why so many people don't like to say a single word during the hand, it not only speeds up the action by ensuring that every player left in the hand knows what's going on, but it reduces errors by making your action binding before you start moving across the betting line.

I don't agree with angle shooting, of course, but this is one of those instances where you can reduce your chances of being angle shot by making a very minor adaptation to your game (verbalizing your action prior to moving any chips across the betting line).

First of all if the majority of players are doing something within the rules then I would suggest you accept that. Getting bent out of shape over something as trivial as betting styles will only hurt you and your game. You will be concentrating on the wrong thing. Just let them bet any way they want and wait for them to finish.

What you described, cutting out two stacks to bet and then pushing them in the pot one at a time is literally a string bet. In tournaments it has to be called because more than just you and your current opponent have an interest in the outcome. In a cash game I would never call it but i would point it out to you so you don't get caught doing it against somebody who would take advantage.

I think it is ridiculous that anybody would object to moving two stacks of chips forward "simultaneously" as a "string" bet. I have never had this called on me (though admittedly I mostly play NL in tournaments). There are many times when somebody pushes all of their chips over "the line" and because there are so many stacks they all go across at different times. I can't fathom how this is being called a string bet.
The bolded part is very hard to enforce. Imagine someone bringing a partial stack of chips out in their hand and dropping 4 of them and then putting the rest of the chips back on another partial stack. How many chips did they bring out in their hand? This type of conflict would be very hard to resolve quickly and would result in hard feelings either way. The current way of allowing players to drop chips is not really a problem if you wait for them to finish.

As to the second point, yes released chips should part of the bet. However, I don't try to force players to go against their intent - so I would never call them on this. I don't call string bets either (and what you describe is sort of a reverse string bet...)

I have seen a number of instances where the person verbalizing their action makes a mistake and is then held to their verbalization.

The worst was a guy who meant to say "I am going all-in so you will have to fold". Instead what came out of his mouth was "I am going to fold..." He had the stone cold nuts. All he had to do was push all of his chips in.

Also, there are other misunderstandings with verbalizations. A guy says "raise 1,000". The next guy says "call" and puts out 1,000 chips. The raiser then says "no I meant the bet plus 1,000". Is the other guy bound to his "call" ?

One time I put a stack of $90 together and verbalized $80 as I put my bet in. We didn't know what to do. Ultimately the bet was reduced to $80 (so I lost $10 when I won the hand). I had no complaint with the decision since it was my mistake...

FTR, I only verbalize if for some reason I can't quickly take an action with my hands (like if I am getting a drink from a waitress) or if I have not picked up enough chips to raise to where I want to but my hands have started to move forward. I find it reduces the chances for mis-communications. And it curbs my impulse to act too quickly - before my opponent has finished his action (my worst experience with this was a guy who built 2 stacks of about $140 total and went to move them forward. I said "call" before he had moved his chips past his cards. So he just said "check" and he folded to my bet. Now he may not have made the bet anyway and he may have folded to my bet anyway but I think my premature verbalization may have cost me some $).

Well, I've never experienced something like you're "I'm going to fold example", so I guess that would be a legitimate reason if you for some reason tend to trip over your words.

As for the other example "raise 1000" then there's a call (does it stand?) this depends a lot on the house rules, but the caller can always ask for clarification before deciding to call, and probably should if he's in any way unclear about the size of the raise. In my home room if you verbalized a call it would probably stand, but if you just put the chips out and the raise was ambiguous, you would be allowed to withdraw your partial call and reevaluate once you knew the full amount of the raise. But that differs by room - in some rooms putting out a partial call, you'd forfeit those chips even if you decided to fold once you knew the full amount of the raise.

I guess I just shake my head at how difficult some people make things for themselves by using a "sloppy" betting protocol (for lack of a better term). If you routinely do things like pick up an entire stack to drop two or three off the bottom, I really have no sympathy if you end up getting screwed over at a casino where the rules states that any chips that cross the line are part of the bet, or people who like to string bet and its allowed in one place but end up losing value or pricing in draws at a different casino.

I think it's up to individual players to protect their own betting and interest in individual hands, which is why I follow a similar pattern every time I bet/raise, and it's a pattern that won't get me in any trouble no matter where I play (unless I somehow trip over my words verbally).

In NL poker, I'm with pfap. The rules are much too strict, they ought to just allow people to keep going back until their hands come to rest.

Limit, of course, is fast paced-- sometimes too fast paced with impatient and angry players throwing their calls in before a player has finished betting. And in limit, while it isn't the biggest deal in the world, I do have a problem with one form of the routine OP complains about, and that is the players who think it is really cute and clever to pull out THE EXACT NUMBER OF CHIPS FOR A RAISE, move them across the line, and then drop enough to call pulling the rest back.

That sort of thing can induce action and confusion, it's neither funny or cute, and it can technically violate forward motion rules depending on how they are worded.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I was brought up on Fixed Limit, and I've seen a wide variety of methods and restrictions regarding its play. I'm not really sure what the "ideal" betting ruleset would be, or if it's even possible.

Something to consider, that might help you not feel as frustrated with that...

Someone going forward with chips he might use to raise is someone who is unsure of his action. He is not aiming for a target. Therefore, he is not in peak condition. If we insist he decides how he's going to bet before he puts out chips, then he might think better of calling with a bad hand and just fold entirely. Or he might have more time to consider the situation and take control of the hand. I'm happy to let him bet quickly and with as little thought as possible.

In the game of Go, it's wise to think about your move before picking up a stone. A stone in the hand wants to be played. With patience comes success.

I'm happy to let the players pick up the stones before deciding what to do with them. It means they won't play as well.

I was once playing NL (at Winstar in OK) and the table almost broke, but me and one other guy were left, and the dealer said he'd keep dealing if we wanted to keep playing, and we did. So now that I'm heads up with this guy, not too long into it I ask if he has any big denomination chips in his stack because I can't see what he's got. It is possible that I had been chatty prior to it getting heads up and was on his nerves or something, but as far as I know, this was the first time I had addressed him, and I did it just as politely and non-aggressively as could be, and his reaction was to sort of jump back from the table and pretty much shout, "do you want to search my underwear too?"

I never saw him drinking, but I think he must have been drunk. And for the bad beat story, I slowly chipped up for an hour or two, then got it all in with middle set versus his top set to lose it all. Ouch!

I agree that these guys are usually people you want at the table.

My problem is that it can induce action or confusion.

As a pure profit matter, for instance, i want heavily drunk people at my table too. But that doesn't mean that they don't mess up the betting in various ways.

Heh. Well, in that case, I'd just ask the dealer to make sure action doesn't skip him. As a dealer, I do what I can to halt action behind this kind of player before it even happens. Fool me once, shame on you... after that I'm protecting the game.