Playing 1/2 - everyone is a regular. Host in involved in the hand in question leaving me to make a ruling.

Host is in the small blind, the other player is the button. Button player has ear buds in and has occasional trouble hearing verbal action. Both players have $500+ stacks.

Button raises to $12 preflop, SB calls, all others fold.

SB bets $40 verbally on the flop and pushes out a stack of 3 $5 chips with a single $25 on the bottom. Button sees the stack as a twenty dollar bet (4 x $5 chips) and calls. Button is advised that the bet is $40 where upon button announces raise.

The rule at the game is that a player is not obligated to honor a call if there is a gross misunderstanding about the bet size. This situation would qualify as a gross misunderstanding.

We all agree that that the button has the option of folding or calling $40 but we never considered the question of raising after making an insufficient call.

So - do we allow button to retract his call and raise or not?

DrStrange

I allow him to dunk his earbuds in a glass of beer, and then he can call or fold.

His 2nd option would be to listen to his music at his own house -- no need to come over to mine if he doesn't enjoy the company. In which case, the fastest way out the door would be if he folded, so I'd recommend that. Since he was dealt cards, I suppose we have to let him call and finish the hand.

If he wants to raise, he should pay attention.

also, ask the host to keep all larger chips on top, please.

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edit: damnit, I don't think I can justify preventing a raise. it was a misunderstanding of the bet, so we let him reconsider, period. In some other situation I'll wish the precedent handn't been made simply to punish Mr. Cone-of-Silence ("I thought you were all in" "sorry, you only said call, so you can't raise now").

But seriously, this headphone schtick is interfering with our poker game, knock it off.

its a misunderstanding, but not a gross misunderstanding. He can complete his call, or muck his hand leaving 20 in the middle.




agreed

IMO, the bet was clear. He said $40 and put out $40 (weird parallelism). The button cannot raise after saying, "call." His music. His fault. His problem.

Is this music, or is this a hearing aid? Makes a little difference as to how I treat him generally.

For OP, he call fold to $40 or call- no raising.

Did the button say call or did he simply put out $20 to call?

He has to call the $40 and can not raise. He should also be informed that the musics gotta go to prevent future mixups.


I don t like giving any player a chance to change a call into a raise because of the angle possiblites. All you would ahvew to do ius pretend you didn 't understand the bet, call with a lesser amount and watch the other players reaction














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As Precept2 said, this is not a gross misunderstanding. Why do you think it is?

The bet amount was announced and bet. If your rule allows for people to change their action because he did not hear the bet (his fault) AND not see the bet (again, his fault for not confirming), it is too tilted toward Mr. Ommm-buds-man.

this happend to me a few nights ago too.
if he said check, check it is.
he was surely bluffing with the raise anyway.

I cut players a lot of slack (sometimes too much), but the bet was verbalized as $40 and $40 in chips were pushed. There's no gross misunderstanding here, so button can call or fold.

Maybe in the future, he'll get a little bud-wiser.

well, without gross misunderstanding, his verbal call is binding, imo. And I have no real problem if you rule that way.

The way I treat things, any misunderstanding in no-limit is gross. Your standards may differ, but the rule is a binary grossmisunderstanding=reconsider, otherwise action stands.

I don't agree with people saying he can fold but can't raise. Much as we all want to punish the guy for not tuning into the game, the rule is "player can reconsider", not "player can consider folding instead." I think my example above shows why you might want it to be this way: player A bets, player B, believing it was an all-in announces a call, but then is told A only bet a portion of his stack. B should be allowed to raise.

also, can we get an amen that the small blind shouldn't be hiding the 25 at the bottom of his bet?


urgh.

Button thinks the bet is half what it actually was, mostly due to his own negligence. Being off a factor of 2x seems like a gross misunderstanding.

I think the rule about such misunderstandings is a 'no fault' rule. We don't try to assign blame - if for no other reason that it leads to murky situations that slow down the game.

I ended up ruling that the button could fold or call but not raise. I think there too many ways to shoot angles if raising were allowed in this type of circumstance. It seemed to me that this was a form of string betting.

I agree that there are times that button would be harmed by this ruling just as there are times the original bettor would be harmed by allowing the 'call' to become a raise. In the end, it is button's job to protect his options by paying attention. If button fails in this regard, he deserves to suffer the disadvanage rathen than benefit from it.

DrStrange

Agreed. If they are music ear buds, his options are fold or call. If they are hearing aids of some kind, I feel all actions are still available to him.

Think of it this way. If it was a gross misunderstanding, player can reconsider all his action. If it wasn't, he must complete his call. Technically, no one can FORCE him to put chips in the middle. So if he refuses, he can throw his hand away.

If headphones said call I'd either allow him to call or take his bet back and say fold. By allowing him to reconsider his action I'm not voiding his current action and now he gets a do over with all options. I'm giving him the option to take back his call, only. Because he apparently misunderstood the amount to call I will allow him the option of folding. No cost.

While the phrase might be "reconsider his action" (I actually think it says "ruled non-binding") it doesn't define what options he has available. It also states that this is to "protect the caller" which seems to me to give more evidence that it is to allow the caller to undo his call, and change it to a fold.

If he just pushed his bet of $20 out then it looks like we have a potential string bet as I am no longer sure what he intended or understood. I'm most likely not going to allow a raise here either but it's going to be very situationally dependent.

So by your definition, if the bet is 10 and I think it's 9, that's a gross misunderstanding too. I don't agree; I think the word gross is there for a reason. Yes, it makes the rule somewhat subjective, but so many of these odd situations are.

I think it's a judgment call, and in this case the misunderstanding was small and largely due to BudMan's decision not to pay full attention, so I think call or fold is fair enough. Some games wouldn't even give him this choice; he would simply be bound to the call.

Amen.

SB did clearly say "40" according to the OP, so it's unlikely that it was an angle, but having the big chip on top may have prevented this from happening in the first place.

now don't be twisting my words all around and taking them literally like I meant what I said or something.


tbh, a factor of 2 is pretty borderline, except that a $20 bet into a $26 pot is a lot more intuitive than a $40 bet. I don't mind if that's how you handle it, I just have a more liberal reading of "gross" than you do. No, 9:10 wouldn't qualify.



I was almost ready to start agreeing with the call-or-fold mentality, but now I'm thinking that overbet tells musicfan something quite different from a 3/4-pot bet. Particularly with some real history on villain, raising might actually be a MUCH better play than calling or folding. The larger raise also sets up a different stack-to-pot situation for the turn and river, which impacts the decision. All-in-all, if I'm the guy who missed the $25 chip in there (and I'm not headphone-impaired), I'm going to be pretty unhappy if the raise option is taken from me. How loudly did the raiser say "$40"?

Again, I have NO problem telling the guy he said call, he's calling at least $20, and if he doesn't like it he can bloody well join the party. But if you allow him to reconsider (eg, he's hard-of-hearing and the hearing aid didn't pick up the verbal bet), it should be with the full menu of options.

Based on OP's wording, there is no gross misunderstanding. but... OP, it's your call.

Of coors, five minutes after reading it, I amstel laughing at your pun.

Sorry, my bad.

I'm assuming that the bet was loud enough for the entire table to hear. That makes BudMan's misunderstanding of the action largely his own fault, so I don't feel sorry for him not being able to make the strategically optimal play here.

It's very subjective, I admit. If I thought the bettor was angling (e.g. saying "40" softly and placing the big chip on the bottom because he knew BudMan would probably misunderstand), then I would account for that in my decision, and I'd be more inclined to make all options open to him. I'd do the same if BudMan was hard of hearing and missed the verbalization for that reason.

Based on what I know from OP, my opinion is that BudMan is obligated to call, and I am extending him the courtesy of allowing a fold since there was a non-gross misunderstanding of the action.

I hop this doesn't continue; these bad puns are killian me.

Posts like these could earn you both infractions.

To clarify -

The verbal bet was loud enough to be heard anywhere in the room. There is no TV, band, radio etc. playing in the background. We are in a private room so there is no noise from other customers.

The $40 bet is not carefully stacked to make the larger chip hard to see, though large value chip is the bottom chip. I can see the denominations from the other end of the table. However, it would be possible to take a quick glance and get the wrong impression of the bet.

Bud-man is not red/green color blind. (Though several of the other players are color blind which often causes some confusion.)

Bud-man is plugged into MP3 device, he is not hard of hearing.

Neither player has a history of angling.

Every player at the table would agree that a $20 vs $40 difference constitutes a 'gross misunderstanding'. Where we might differ is how to handle the situtation.

I appreciate all the discussion -=- DrStrange

so the room has no music and is sealed off, yet he has ear-buds in? That is so retared. (No I don't play live a lot)

Everything but this argues for making his verbal statement binding.

by RRoP, if it is a gross misunderstanding he can reconsider his action, which means all options are open. IMO, anyway -- house rules always trump.

But a lot of people in this thread, myself included, will say that any misunderstanding is his own doing if the 25 wasn't hidden OR a clear verbal bet was made, so he's not entitled to any benefit. In that case, his $20 call is binding, and he has to complete to $40 if he wants to continue in the hand.