Maybe he's saying most floormen are incompetent and therefore it is right for them to make wrong rulings. That's my best guess.

Obviously I would mean that my opponent wins HOWEVER that is irrelevant. Saying 'take it down' or saying 'you win' does not constitute a fold nor do you want to walk down the path of allowing ambiguously worded statements to mean that you have folded.

"Take it down" when facing a bet is not ambiguous.

It's ambiguous in that it is not the phrase "fold".

Now we get to "I get to define a term any way I want"

That is not what ambiguous means.

If it is ambiguous, what other meaning could 'take it down' have?

My daughter constantly asks me to "take it down" and we are never playing poker. I am a loud man who is constantly talking.

She also makes a hand motion where she squeezes her fingers together. And she makes a "zzzzip" kind of sound.

Having said that, its not ambiguous in this context. Unless the villain was Malouff (the guy in the WSOP Main event this year who thinks he is a "boss" when he wins with 9 high) and he was talking endlessly about coconuts...

Anyway, seriously you did the right thing in a home game. Let it go.

In a casino, if I were a Floor, I would rule that you had folded. And you would be warned.

If I was a Floor for a place with house rules that only "fold" means fold I would give you two options:
1) you get to fold
2) you get to continue in the hand but you never get to play in my room again.

Your choice.

I bet she has used the word "fold" as well when not playing poker.

"Take it down" is American slang for : The prize is yours. You won it fair and square. I don't contest it. There is NO other reasonable meaning. You don't HAVE to say "Fold" to fold a hand. You only have to indicate clearly that you fold the hand. This case is a clear verbal indication of an intended fold.

If it's a home game, with no rule book to refer to, make a decision first about whether you're the biggest guy in the room, and next as to whether you ever want to play there again.

If it's a casino, I can imagine some floorman out there is willing to rule the hand live for reasons known only to himself, but I expect that the majority of the time they'll call it a fold.

The phrase is not ambiguous given context. Every English speaking poker player knows what is means. That we can have some meta-linguistic discussion about how all words are ambiguous and only certain ones appear in the rule book does not make all language suddenly worthless. It's a nice philosophy debate to have about the limitations of language, but we all know that language serves its purpose quite well in practice.

In some defence of OP, in the student games I used to run we'd get a lot of players that were very new to the game, and it wasn't uncommon to get one who'd seen poker in a TV show or something and thought that these mind games were a part of the game. Often they'd be surprised to hear that etiquette was even a part of the perceived "no honour amongst thieves" world. Maybe OP's just new at the game and most people readily accept a polite explanation.

Obv it's meant to be a fold, but it's still not the word fold...what if OP called at the same time as saying take it down (say 2 sec delay and on the river) implying a bluff catcher.
Or a better example, as the showdown dance is a pet peeve, and a question for floors, would you rule that "you're good" at show down is a muck from the last aggressor? I've seen the last aggressor bet bottom pair as a bluff get called then meekly turn over the winner after telling the caller (and his A-high) that he was good.

This isn't showdown. And you're good is used differently

I think if the rule book tries to legislate for all possible language at the table we're gonna have a bad time. We don't need to throw out all language just because in some hypotheticals ambiguity could exist.

Like your example. When a player makes two contradictory actions simultaneously we have an issue of ambiguity, but that doesn't mean that the language in another context ceases to have meaning and clear intent.

If a player asks me how much is in my stack, and I reply "I'll check", that shouldn't become a binding action just because it used the word check either.

Context matters and it's still only the exceptions in which misunderstanding occurs.

I appreciate all the content posted by you guys. It seems nearly everyone agrees that it is a fold, and I thought so too myself at the time (combined with the fact that it's a juicy homegame, and villian 99.999999% had a gun on him) so I let it go.

I'm less interested in that you let it go than why you thought it might not be a fold.

Then you were shooting an angle?

it's only binding if you say it like Teddy.

Take EET dunh.

I mean both. Saying "Take it down" does show that the player expects to lose but it shouldn't obligate them to fold. Outside of the "Official Action Words" that psandman mentioned, I don't want players wondering if their table talk will force them to make an action that they don't want to make.

It's because it's not one of the "Official Action Words" that I wouldn't rule it as a fold.

So if a player announced "I am increasing the amount of the wager" you would rule he hasn't announced a raise?

Live poker simply isn't played this way.

Yes. Because upon saying it, he is no longer in contention for winning. Just as saying "I fold" shows that the player expects to lose.

Tapping out in MMA shows that the fighter expects to lose. Because that's how losses are determined.

1. You are getting confused with 'non-standard non-ambiguous' and 'non-standard ambiguous' statements. Phrases like "you king is good" or "I missed" are ambiguous statements that really do not mean anything. "Take it down" or "two rich for me" and phrases that can only mean one thing. Take It DOWN - the words are basically saying 'you can take the pot, and leave your cards face down because I am not going to contest' - these NSNA statements will be deemed binding more often than the NSA statements, and can be by most house rules.

2. Unless NS because of the room (or in this case the house), there is no rule that says binding actions are only from a list of OAW's, there is in fact a rule in some sets that says NS actions can be deemed binding.

A big thing I think most people (who are NOT in favor of a fold) are ignoring is that OP's words made the other guy show his cards. This makes the case for OP to have folded even stronger, because if OP was not folding, by rule, his hand can be KILLED because his false words made the other guy table.

Please tell me more about these "Official Action Words". Is there a list somewhere? Who's in charge of the list?

Agreed. If you have unambiguously stated your intent, and in doing so have elicited a reaction or a read, there is no way this shouldn't binding. If a player says 'I'm going to bump it up', reads his opponents reaction, and then throws out calling chips, I don't know of any floor or dealer that wouldn't hold him to a raise.