Saw a crazy angle in a home game last night.

There was a whale who had never been there before opening to $50 every hand, or shoving over limps/raises. If all of the money wasn't in pre flop, he'd just shove the flop every time. I had never quite seen a whale like this before.

Anyways, he was in for $1600 at this point (low for 2/5, but he was buying in for $200 at a time.) He had just won his first hand at tripled up, and was ~$600 effective. I guess he played this hand pre less crazy as a result.

Five limps to him, he just limps OTB. Flop six ways is 873ddd. It's x to him, he bets $30, home game owner x-r to $100, he immediately says "all in," and shoves his chips across his cards, and the home game owner immediately says "call." The whale pulls his chips back and says "nice try, I was just kidding," and laughs. The dealer obviously tells him he's all in, and he says "no I'm not, don't you realize I joke from time to time?" Then someone else jumps in, but the home game owner says to let him deal with it. He tells him that we're gambling with real money and that verbal is binding, and that he knows he's played poker for years and understands this. The whale says "look it up in the rule books, this is bullshit, I'm not all in." After going back and forth for a few minutes the whale says "I don't care what you do, but I'm not all in. Are you going to swing on me?" The home game owner says "we don't do violence in this household, but you do owe me the money. I'll cut you a deal though and make you only pay half of it." The whale declines, and they go back and forth for about five minutes, and the whale finally says "alright, if the money means that much to you, you can take half of my stack." It was wild.

Is villain Armenian Mike?



Generally in home games rules are loosely enforced, but stuff like that can never be ok.

Verbal declarations have to be binding, even the scummiest fish has to know this.

And anybody hosting, promoting, or enforcing a game has to go along with this.

I couldn't believe it happened, especially with the Armenian Mike thing. It was almost an identical incident, but this guy handled it even worse. I was thinking of calling it in to Hanson's show because he's doing a lot with angles and etiquette situations, but this already happened in the poker world.

Yeah, everyone was upset, including me. We all wanted him to give up his entire stack and get banned, but the homeowner said he didn't wanna make it a huge deal and didn't wanna ban someone like that.

Reminds me of this game with a movie producer. It was amazing because we played 1-2 with unlimited buyin and he'd just open to $50 pre when he felt like playing so if you just bought in deep and waited it'd usually work out.

One day I noticed he hadn't been around for a few days in a row which was very unlike him. I asked why and was told they caught him cheating. I was the one who argued to give him another chance and was really pissed that they wouldn't look the other way for the whale.

My response would have been, "I was just kidding about returning cash for your chips and allowing you to play any longer, too."

He's using his status of whale to get a discount. He'll start doing this more frequently if you let him.

It's a tricky spot for the guy running the game. On the one hand, the EV of keeping the whale happy is higher than the size of the bet if he becomes a regular player. On the other hand, how can you expect anyone else to play within the rules if you're seen clearly letting someone off the hook for a blatant angle.

The EV of keeping that guy is definitely higher than his stack, but the host still has to the enforce the rules to prevent the game from becoming a circus. If anything goes and bets aren't enforced, there would be no game as no one would play.

don’t play in home games ido

A friend of mine got cheated out of a ******* of money in a whale infested home game in Midland, TX recently. The stakes were similar to Sabr’s.

If I'm the host there I might pull him aside and cut a deal with him privately as a one-time courtesy. At the table his chips have to be shipped away to keep the game legit.

You play mainly private games right SABR? Must have seen some wild angles/general shenanigans in your time.

Only recently. I haven't seen anything too crazy. Most people are friendly and honest.

The main difference is how much degeneracy you see in private games compared to casino games. Players will lose, go on tilt, and re-buy over and over on credit, and play worse and worse. You see much bigger losses compared to casino games at the same blind level.

What a scumbag. I would've given him 2 choices, leave and never come back or pay the money.

100% this

What about fight you and win?

Depends how much basketball he's played.

3 hours a day from age 15-23 but it would’ve been 4 if the court had outdoor lights

In that case I guess I gotta let him keep the money.

you guys are funny

ido

Robert.

That often is what kills the game IME. The book gets too big and some of the losers can't (or wont) pay. I played some in a 25-50 game in DC before we moved out west. It got wilder and wilder, with huge straddles, blind raises, multiple flips and so forth, until at some point it went under due to a couple of whales defaulting on their debt. I was talking to a buddy not long before it folded and asked him how he was running. He said " well I have a big accounts receivable"

Correct answer.

Killed the best games I played in. Was sustainable as long as the whales lost big but when the biggest started playing Omaha. One host started chasing the whales in Omaha and shew...that didn't end well. I knew everything was a wrap when he couldn't pay me in full one night. I did get it later but always the sign a game is dying.