1) you know from villain's history that this was not a check; and that's all you needed to tell the floor man.

2) it's fine to buy him a drink after, but you should definitely be above the board about it and let him know it came from you (no alcohol at my room, but I buy the fish lunches or ice cream all the time).

3) why in the hell would you want table talk to stop? fun/talkative games tend to be the most profitable. You should not only allow the fish to talk, you should join in and try to keep fun conversation going around the table.

1) Most Floors don't 'move on' to the players explanations if the Dealer does so in a clear manner.
2) Not sure why you choose to 'create' details, although the urge to do so would certainly be there as you see your value possibly slipping away .. Also try:

A) "The Dealer did a good job." or "I agree with the Dealer."
B) "He does play with his chips a lot when action is on him."
C) "I always wait until he's completely done before I act behind him."

3) Tilting through game play .. fine.
4) Contributing to/accelerating the taking advantage of a player other than via speech-play .. not so fine.

Tough spot where remaining silent may give off your hand strength as well. Saving Grace? He was going to bet anyway .. and he probably was going to GII anyway even if he had put out the smaller bet 'correctly'. GL

Pretty much all of this.

From your OP:

And:


And then you clarified with this:

So which is it?

Two big issues here, and neither of them are with the OP.

1. The villain who makes a habit of doing an up-down motion with his hand when the action is on him should have learned the lesson much earlier in the session that when he does that it's going to be ruled as a check.

Dealer: Check
Villain: But I didn't check! I was only thinking!
Dealer: Next time try thinking without moving your hand up and down. That's a check.
Floor: What the dealer said.

2. The floor should never be depending on the opinion of a player who still has live cards in order to determine what happened during the hand so that he can make a ruling. If he can't get the dealer to reconstruct what happened and has to phone a friend, let him get the opinion of one of the other players at the table - not one of the 2 players who still have live cards in their hand.

This is Flooring 101 stuff here.

this is absurd
players who are chatting , texting, sleeping, listening to headphones should be listened to but players actively watching and involved aren't?

If I remember correctly he was describing an earlier issue when this (or just a) player was called for a string bet. He references it as part of Mr. AK's rant before he bets/calls here.

Probably a case where OP gives us too much background information and then it gets mixed within the posts. I think the point is that this was a 'problem' player throughout the session .. and that just contributed to the spot. GL

It is unethical to lie to the Floor about a pending decision. It is also basically cheating.

If you thought the Floor would give him a wide berth then there was absolutely no reason to lie. Especially because you knew from past experience as described in your post that his tapping the chip does not mean anything.

It is also unethical IMO to buy somebody a drink without them being aware that you are doing it. Again, totally unnecessary. The waitress was, in your words, already continuously refilling his drink.

You may have won more money because of your cheating but that does not excuse it. Had I been the Floor I would have ruled that V1 could bet only the stack that he had been moving forward. In fact I would have insisted that that would be the bet once the player claimed to have not checked.

Absolutely correct. Any player in the hand has clear biases.

Kinda thought that at first too but the middle quote is literally from his description of the hand/bet in question, as a comparison to earlier actions. Then as he seems to be losing his argument with everyone here he backtracks and calls it something else.

Of course not. But if a floor can't get the full spectrum of facts just from the dealer, it is very common to get opinions of other players at the table who are paying attention but not in the given hand. It often helps a floor get to a correct ruling without having to go to the cameras and delay the game.

1. Floors should put little weight in what the players say if their account is disputed. Eyewitnesses are always fallible, and poker players, wit htheir own agenda or biases, are worse. If the floor cannot get a conclusive description from the dealer, he should offer a warning to the player that any hand motion while facing action will be considered a check.
2. The point is this-if you involve people with a stake in the ruling, you are forcing them to disclose information. Don't do that.

I can't recall a time when a floor didn't ask the players involved what happened which is why I always give a neutral answer.

Question to OP:

If the hand situation were different, what would you have done if you wanted V1 to check it back to get to showdown because you had a made but non-nutted hand? Would you have backed up V2 and stated that V1 had definitely checked?

Congratulations everyone, we’ve peaked.

I would classify it as sociopathic.

C'mon, who among us haven't secretly plied a person with alcohol to impair their judgement so that we could take advantage of them? You say it like it is immoral or unethical.

Does college count when sorority girls are around? Asking for a friend.

i may have missed something but the one guy V2 was trying to have his bet a check so was taking a shot himself. as the guy was wanting to bet. and V2 was trying to not have to call. then since you had the nuts you did need to say something so the floor didnt shut off the bet. that is in your best interest.

you may have worded your response badly to the floor. but certainly should at least say the guy was just betting his hand.

Yeah, that was an overlooked part of this story. V2 clearly knew that V1 wasn't checking, but was trying to get a free look. This is an angle as well.

So, everyone in this hand was at least a little scummy.

OP did nothing wrong. In his own words, he told the floor, "I'm not sure ..."

Frankly, I would have done the same, and I suspect a lot of you would, too. And from the way the hand went down villain did not intend to check, not at all.

and actually the op didnt lie. the guy was just playing / shuffling his chips while thinking. just wasnt actually shuffling them together.
and its the floormans job to make the right decision based upon everyones biased assumptions. which most assumptions are.

but i frequently tell players that do similar things that if its your turn to act, and you are tapping in anyway someone might call it a check and you may lose or not lose the right to bet. and you can believe they will call it only when its to their advantage to do so. same as in this case with V2.

Hey so, from a literary standpoint I enjoyed your post OP. It held my attention. I usually hate walls like yours (and poker stories in general) but you know how to string a sentence together and properly set a scene, which puts you way as far as poker forum storytellers go.

I had to look up "FPS", and I still don't know what "DD on flush" means, so maybe a slight misread of your audience there.

Maybe a misread there as well.

Very good post, especially for such an early answer to the thread, and especially these two points.

OP- the floor does not have the ability to rewind live play to see what happened, and they depend on us sharing completely honest information. To me, selectively leaving info out is a lot different that a blatant lie.

Furthermore, you established that V1 has done this particular chip tap thing before and that it has caused confusion. So when the floor asked if it seemed like a visible check and you lie, you are literally cheating. Whether or not it is an objective question is irrelevant- you cheated.

This is worse than an angle shoot.

The story seems to have changed somewhat from the OP (as per post #29) so it's not completely clear to me exactly what motions villain was actually making. However, one thing is clear - villain absolutely intended to bet. Therefore OP did not lie about it seeming like a visible check as you say, and the rest of your narrative falls apart.

As for the OP, I completely agree that the floor asking for his interpretation is akin to asking, "How would you prefer this hand to play out, sir?", and he should have limited his input to the dealer or any non-involved party who was paying attention and can clearly relate the events. However, the dealer also has a responsibility to accurately portray the whole story to the floor, including appropriate context; to this point it seems likely that he didn't do so because he didn't want to answer the obvious follow-up question: "Why didn't you properly address the fake-checking issue with this player earlier after one of the first two instances?"

This is really a staff problem. Neither the dealer nor the floor come off as competent here and I think they have the lion's share of the blame.

I'm going to hold off judgment on OP's response to the floor until it's clarified exactly what villain was doing with his chips. Was he absent-mindedly tapping a chip on top of his stack, or was he shuffling his chips?

I would have said, "Sorry, I didn't see what he did," if you want to remain neutral. If you're not sure, or if you're biased (as you are here), then it's usually best to feign ignorance in these spots. I would much prefer this approach to what OP did, regardless of what he was doing with his chips.

Last and most importantly, the worst offense by far committed is buying alcohol on the sly for an inebriated person. If he gets in a wreck on the way home and kills someone, how well do you think you're going to sleep at night, OP? That is shameful behavior. I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you were just trying to smooth things over, but it comes across much more sinister than that.