Whether he saw it or not is irrelevant to this particular line ..... seeing the card doesn't change anything about whether this is an angle or not.

My point was its not like the third player chimed in to announce the straight (which would be very out line).

it matters because you have to ask yourself what are the reasons that there is a rule against showing your hand to other players during live action. One of them is collusion. what says that the player not in the hand knew that the active player was going to bluff and it was his role to corroborate the bluff. My point is, verbal deception is within the rules, adding another player to that deception may or may not be, but is definitely a penalty. if not worse straight up cheating.

It changes whether he broke the rules or not (from possibly to didn't).

Yes. But the violation of that rule (and its a very minor violation --- almost universally ignored) is irrelevant to the OP complaint. the purpose of that rule is not keep OP from being fooled.

I'm so confused by the new player's actions. No one is all in, the other two active hands fold, no one calls for his hand to be tabled, and he still shows the bottom pair. He's just announcing to the game that he is an angle shooter? He sounds like either a huge scumbag or a complete dolt, possibly both.

He's trying to get action next time he does that!

the new player is all in. He sees the OP counting out chips for what must be a call. The new player knows he will lose if the OP calls so he tries a HAIL MARY. He pretends he didn t know anyone else was left and indicates he hand was stronger then what it was in an attempt to get the OP to fold.

It worked. He didn t break any rules but his actions may be questionable in some circles

Thanks, but I got all of that already . I just didn't understand why the villain showed the angle. When OP folds there are no other live hands, so unless instructed by the table to show, (because he had already shown it to someone) he had no reason to show his cards. The point of the angle is supposed to be to get the chips, not show everyone that you're doing it. Hence my above post that he is an above average ***hole or a complete moron.

l would say either to tilt you or to setup you up to a later hand. Next time he may try something similar but this time he has the hand.

He's a moron to show in my own opinion. I would of mucked the hand myself

Actually, that's exactly why this is an angleshot, imo.

Villain has to suspect that he'll be required to show the cards, after the hand, for showing it to the folded player.

Villain uses that knowledge as part of his bluff, knowing that it looks much stronger when he uses the 'illegal' action of showing his cards to another player.

Thus, taking advantage of the rules to mislead the player, rather than just his mouth.

Or... maybe that's not what angle-shoot means... though it seems to fit somewhat into this definition:

After reading and digesting the excellent discussion in this thread, I think psandman is convincing me. I like and often use this:

Since Villain's behavior doesn't really fit this definition, I'm starting to lean toward not an angle-shoot.

I still think showing his hand to the other player is a violation of TDA rules, albeit a relatively minor one. And I still strongly dislike Villain's behavior, because this is exactly the kind of borderline behavior that pisses off home game players and drives them to quit.

Between this situation and the two shorted pots, Villain has made it clear that he does not fit into my desired home game environment, and he won't be coming back to my game.

I doubt he considered SOSA here. But I think you're right that he showed the other player to strengthen the bluff. Then when it worked, he showed the bluff to twist the knife and tilt OP.

I don'tt see any ambiguity at all.

Oh, so you're limiting angle-shoot to "disguising actual action", then.

Narrower definition... but I think I like it.

I'll have to think about this one, some more.

Well its not the language I would use. One could intentionally take advantage of an ambiguity that one did not actual cause .... I suppose the word disguise could take this into account but its not as clear.

I always struggle with an opinion on these types of situations.

On one hand, it's clever poker... but with my hosting hat on, I can see it killing the atmosphere, long-term.