1/2 NL. Hero opens UTG to $15 w/ JJ and gets 3 callers. Table full of bad players. Foriegn guy (lets call him Mo) who does not understand poker too well is one of the callers.

Flop comes J67r. Hero bets $25 to keep in everybody. Two callers including Mo. Mo, then turns over his KK like the hand is already over. He's done this about 3 times already. He's not angling he just doesn't have a clue. He's shown up in giant pots with AA/KK before where he bets out $2 into a $300 pot type things but will call large amounts.

Once Mo shows his cards, the other player in the hand just mucks (before the turn comes out) and says she had a K and she saw another K in another hand. She's drunk/medicated/crazy so I can't take that at face value.

Mo finally realizes hand is still going on and turns his KK back over. Turn is a blank, I shove for like 3x pot and tell him I am being very nice I have him beat just fold. He nodded and folded.

I feel like his actions and the actions of the crazy lady cost me money but I would feel a little scummy to take more money from him at that point.

No reason not to play the hand the way you would have without him tabling his cards. Bet turn, shove river.

After the hand you can call for the floor and tell him what the lady did. If you really want to also complain about the guy, you can do that too.

Your actions cost you money, not his and probably not hers.

So you got a guy to lay down the best hand with your table talk.

If the crazy lady was to believed, Mo was drawing dead. If crazy lady is crazy, he's drawing to at most 2 outs on the river.

he had a set , he had JJ and flop came J 6 7

how do you figure that Mo had the best hand here?


as played I think it was nice of you to tell him to get out of the hand , I would of asked for the other lady to stfu

You can't stop beginners from doing stuff like Mo did. You can't get folks like the lady to keep quiet. This is typical low stakes live poker at a casino. You did nothing wrong according to your OP. Personally I would have likely just taken Mos money before he gives it all to somebody else at your table. Which it sounds like he would have soon.

LOL and given away that you can beat KK UI.

Think about what you'd do if you had QQ. Do that.

Did you show your JJs?

Agree with this. I don't understand going easy are people in situations like this. I'm not going to do this guy a favor when I never did anything to cause the situation.

In poker there are bad beats and it happens to everyone. When you have KKs someone may flop out flop you like how the hero did to Mo.

Since there is variance in poker and lose big pots with better hands preflop, to not maximize on suckouts is bad because that means you allow bad beats to happen to you but not let bad beats happen to opponents. You may encounter moments like this many times playing against amateurs and you can't afford being nice to every amateur.

I lost my fair money in the beginning so I think taking his money will be a good lesson to him. I don't think anybody would've said anything because we're all sitting at the table to take money.

I'm playing the way I would play without an exposed card, or commentary about what outs may be live.

You don't always know 100% what are the intentions of the other players. Mo may simply have shown to try to take a pot and not give you a chance to catch up or beat him. No reason to show mercy.

To be more profitable, means making the most money on the pots you are going to win, like flopping a set against a high overpair. Eventually, you are going to be on the overpair end, and need to lose less than you win here, if you are going to be profitable.

Bet turn bet river easy money.

You feel the crazy lady cost you money, but don't feel that this cost you money ?

Shouldn't the dealer be saying something to the lady without another player having to speak up? That's pretty egregious.

Sure, but the bell's already been rung....

Do you just let this slide or does this warrant a "Dealer, could you please explain the rules of multiway action to seat X?" after the hand is over?

Mostly this.

I would play the turn by making a normal size bet just in case Mo is terrible enough to call down now he's shown me his hand and I am still betting. Then I bet the river. I'm not going to tell him I've got him beat, I mean it should be obvious that I have but he's the one turning his cards over for no reason, so that's on him.

Crazy lady's actions I just ignore, yeah it's annoying but then when you have people revealing their cards for no good reason you are going to get some stuff like this happening. Mo is the problem here but it sounds like he's the kind of problem you want at the table.

Interesting spot for sure ... and as is the case in most of these 'moral' spots .. to each his/her own.

Would you have felt any different if it had been a reg and you thought you could 'bluff' him into more chips?

Did you feel guilty when the other players at the table went right after those chips that could've been yours?

Were you worried about how the others at the table would feel about you if you were to take advantage of the situation? Perhaps putting a target on your back?

There is no correct answer and you should feel no different if you are in the majority or minority of the opinions. You should do what you think you can live with going forward, taking into consideration any personal or 'room' viewpoints that you feel are important.

1) I don't think that there was a 'lesson' to be learned if he had already done this more than once before.

2) I'm sure the other players felt good about what you did ... right up to and including when those chips were available in the next hand.

"There are no friends at the poker table." I struggle with this sometimes and readily admit that I've soft played players that made a mistake or were on their 4th BI. The one thing I've learned is that generally 'the favor' is not returned and any praises from the other players are very short lived. Even knowing that I still can't keep that emotion out of the game all the time ... but I do sleep just fine on those nights. GL

If I had caused the problem I would be inclined to do what you did.

But because the other player turned over his cards prematurely I would proceed to play it as I would have had I not seen his cards.

Edit: in the event that I was going to bet for value but now see that I am behind I would not bet. That is the price that people have to pay for making a mistake. If the mistake is a result of being drunk or not knowing how to play, I might bring it to the attention of the Floor depending on the stakes of the game or how egregious the behavior is.(I have done this).

About ten years ago i was playing in 20/40 LHE in Aruba and there was a woman in the game who repeatedly turned over her cards prematurely on the river. Nobody bet the river when she did this. Except for me. She shot me a dirty glance and I didn't care. I was pretty sure it was an angle and not accidental.

Thanks for the replies. Here is what I was thinking. I felt like if I bet 1/2 pot, 1/2 pot no matter what the runout minus a K, I would be really taking advantage where if I had not seen his cards a river 9 or 5 or even flush runout may have caused me to play differently instead of optimally.

Looking back I may have been to easy and should have played my hand as if I didn't see but at the time since he clearly was not angling it just didn't feel right.

The karma certainly didn't help as Saturday night lost the second biggest 1/2 pot ($1900) I've ever been involved in as a 94% fav when the money went in on the turn w/ KT on a 89J - Q followed by a K losing to AT.

At end of the day, if you don't feel good about taking his money, don't. You're not obliged to be a ruthless dead-eyed EV machine. I mean, I would take his money, but everyone has to decide for themselves where their line is in poker.

I think the unintentional soft play is the bigger concern of this whole post. Whether it's poker regs, husband and wife team or clueless players, soft play feels dirty. Like you said, each player needs to decide for themselves. For me, I'm playing the best I can to win money. I've made a ton of really crappy plays when I first started, I see it as part of my education.