Was playing at the Vic in London this weekend, it was the Unibet open festival and I was involved in one hand that the ruling seemed weird and another that I heard about that seemed equally weird. I'd be interested to hear any comments.
The first hand I wasn't involved in but I was chatting to a guy at a cash table and he told me this one. It was a side event and the action was on the flop and the two people in the pot knew each other and started talk Dutch to each other. Now, personally I'd expect them to be told only English during a hand and no more. The dealer told them only English and very quickly, before the floor could be called, dealt the turn and river and split the pot!!!
The next hand I was involved in. It was the second hand of the tournament, 10K chips, blinds 25/50. I raise UTG to 150, 2 callers and the small blind puts in (in one motion, so not a string raise) a 5K chip and 2 x 100 chips and the dealer says "raise to one thousand two hundred", so I quickly put a 1K chip in and at this point the raiser clarifies it was 5200. The floor was called and ruled that the bet was what the dealer had verbalised, not the amount the player put in. I really would have expected it to have gone the other way round!! I know the 5200 bet looks crazy but it is what he put in the pot. As an aside, everyone calls, flop comes down something like 742 rainbow, small blind goes all in, I fold and the other 2 players call. Small blind had aces, caller one had pocket 8's and second caller had pocket 4's for a flopped set that held.
I have no idea what is going on in the first hand. Maybe they have a house rule about english only or something.
In the second, it's a very unusual ruling. Typically the 5200 bet would stand. The ruling would be whether you were committed to calling the full 5200 when you started putting chips in. There are reasons to hold you to a call (the undercall rules, and the rule that you are responsible for knowing the size of the bet regardless), and reasons to let you reconsider (gross misunderstanding, rule 1). Note that gross misunderstanding doesn't exist in the TDA ruleset, but who knows what rules this room is using for your tourny.
In the first hand, with respect to English only, this seems pretty routine for a first offense about English only. It is unclear why the dealer split the pot though...did they have the same hand, or is this what the controversy is?
On the second hand, that ruling seems totally wrong. The bet of 5200 should absolutely stand. If no one else had acted yet after the raiser clarifies, I think you should be allowed to take back the partial call and fold if you want, based on a reasonable gross misunderstanding of the bet.
In the first it sort of sounds like the dealer is voiding the hand and calling a do-over. Not something a dealer should ever do on his own and not something a floor is normally going to suggest as a ruling. I'd expect nothing more than a warning. Maybe if they announce "english only" when starting the tournament they'd give them a minor penalty like missing a couple hands. Both voiding the hand and splitting the pot is bizarre.
Chopping the pot and voiding the hand are not the same thing. In the latter case everyone gets their money back and you redeal the hand (button doesn't move) - you only do this in very very rare cases, like discovering a fouled deck (not missing cards) during the play of the hand.
In the former, well, who knows really, because there is no generally used rule that calls for running out the board unless all but one remaining player are all in, and no rule for chopping a pot unless both players actually played the same hand after the board ran out.
As mentioned above, maybe there is a local rule that says that violators of english only are only allowed to check or call from that point on in the hand, which, if both remaining players were guilty of it, would mean just dealing out the rest of the board. But it wouldn't explain any automatic split of the pot.
Hand 1 - this is very bizzare and as a player I would never had allowed it.
However there may have been missing info from storyteller here...gotta be careful of stories told about funky tourney rulings...they about as accurate as most bad beat stories
Hand 2 - and we are 100% positive the player didnt announce 1200? If so then bad ruling as far as bet size. Did floor say why this was ruling?
I wouldn't put much merit in hand 1 since it was just hearsay.
As for the hand you were involved in, it seems like a bad ruling. 5200 bet should stand and the only question is whether you are allowed to take back the extra 1050 you put in and reassess, forfeit the 1050 and call the remaining amount, or be forced to call the full amount. I would go option 2. The 1200 you have put in stays, and you can call the extra 4k if you so choose. Even though the dealer announced the wrong number, it's a player's responsibility to follow the action at the table.
In the first hand, with respect to English only, this seems pretty routine for a first offense about English only. It is unclear why the dealer split the pot though...did they have the same hand, or is this what the controversy is?
On the second hand, that ruling seems totally wrong. The bet of 5200 should absolutely stand. If no one else had acted yet after the raiser clarifies, I think you should be allowed to take back the partial call and fold if you want, based on a reasonable gross misunderstanding of the bet.
The second hand is utterly ridiculous. It allows the dealer to collude with a player at will.
It has to be a 5,200 bet. That was the bet. And the raiser clarified as soon as he could. Certainly before significant action occurred (only one caller).
Because the Dealer caused the trouble by mis-stating the bet size I would allow the player who put in the "call" to take back his bet and reassess with all options available. Best interest of the game ruling.
