We were playing a game of holdem / omaha mixed in a pool hall, hence no floor decision etc. I was one party involved in this hand, and as such i will post the facts in an unbiast fashion. I have dealt poker myself, and i am 100% confident what the rule here is... yet i need to have people here post so that i can prove my point to the other player involved.



Flop comes out QQ3.
Player A checks.
Player B checks.
Player C bets ~ 14 big blinds.
Player A calls.
Player B raises to ~ 61 big blinds.
Player C folds.
Player A raises again to ~ 150 big blinds.
Player B tanks, and player A has hand protected, facing down at chips sort of.
Player B moves his entire stack (~ 360 big blinds behind with his ~ 61 big blinds already commited). into the centre of the table whilst looking at Player A. (the edge of the pot is roughly an inch away from player B's stack).
Player A announces call.
Player B says that he wasnt allin, was just testing the reaction of player A.
Arguement ensues.

was he allin or not?

the table has no line printed onto it.
the players hands were still on his stack, however it was multiple stacks and clearly not in an attempt to cut down some chips. (there were notes in play under the stacks, and maybe 3 full stacks of ~ 20 chips each).

Thoughts please.


in the spoiler im gonna tell you which player i was, but please post your opinion based on the information above, then read the spoiler after you have replied.

PLayer B was allin. End of story.

As described I would say the player is all in.

exactly what i thought, same as the 2 above posts. I tried to descirbe situation as best i could without being bias at all. his 2 main argument points were that his hands never let go, and that theres no line so it doesnt count as an allin. he didnt bring any other point up.

He managed to walk away with his stack because he was getting really aggressive and nobody at the game knew him at all really...

That's a raise, he's all in.

The usual line of thought here is based on intent. If movement was made that shows intent of making a bet then it is a bet. This is a general rule at every casino to keep people from trying to gain information by making a "fake out" bet just to see if he'll get called. Forward movement of chips toward the pot should always be considered a bet. As for not taking his hands off his chips, this isn't chess.

Sounds like this is a private game, prolly would make sure he wasn't invited back.

B is all-in. A should probably wait for B to finish his action.

Was player B named Doug Lee?

As seen several years ago at the WSOP, not every person is going to rule this a bet.

Protect your action and wait until the dealer indicates the action is on you. If you are unsure, ask the dealer, "Is the action on me?" and wait until they indicate that it is. In either case, wait 5 seconds after that, then make your call.

You now have a much stronger case.

Forward motion LDO. Obvious raise is obvious. The line is typically used as a courtesy line for the dealers. Forward motion trumps the line.

in the spoiler im gonna tell you which player i was, but please post your opinion based on the information above, then read the spoiler after you have replied.
[/QUOTE]

SHOCKING!!!

Thinking about the fact you posted, and reading the situation, it became very apparent which player you were.

For what it's worth, that boomerang play is BS too. He's all in. You can't move your chips right next to your opponents across the table while keeping your hands on it, betting line or not.

He is all in unless this is the WSOP. In which case he is allowed to pull back his chips. Are you Daniel Negraneu?

He is all in for all of the following reasons:

1) pushed his chips forward. With no line, id say clear forward motion is a raise. His hands have NOTHING to do with it. In fact, if there were a line, he could push his chips up to the line and not push them over, and LET GO, and it still wouldnt be a raise. This isnt chess.
2) This is a raise because of that rule where the floor ruling should be based on whatever is best for the game, and what is best for the game is to avoid angleshots like this. His move was scummy, and he should be punished for it not you.

Despite all of this, the best way of handling this situation is just to ask or wait. People try crazy stuff all the time in big pots. I dont look at them, or anything else until they are done. when I see them screwing around with their chips, I just leave it, wait for them or the dealer to TELL ME its my turn. You got angle shot. 9 times out of 10 you dont lose money here, but 1 time out of 10 you get a bad floor ruling, and you still gotta blame yourself for letting it happen.

He's all in, period the why has been well explained above.

Unfortunately it was not a regulated room. If I had anything to say about it, once he pulled his stack back and got aggressive, he would be out of the game.

Who wants to play with a DB like that?

In most places this would be an all in, but the question always is, what is the rule at your place? If there is no rule, than it's harder to insist on a particular ruling.

For a great example of forward motion not being ruled a call, there is this vid of Todd Brunson angleshooting Phil Laak. At the HSP game, this forward motion was ruled NOT a call.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxHKoKZmi9g

look around the 2:00 mark.

Player B was DEFINITELY all in and trying to angle shoot like a super douche bag. Since there's no line on the table, forward motion with chips is considered binding and considered a bet/call depending on the action that preceded it. Wow this is a pathetic attempt at an angle and player B should be kicked/beaten until he bleeds. (Also, all of his chips should have been shipped to player A).

As described of course this is an all-in, there's no room for argument otherwise.

I'm suspicious that this story isn't exactly right though, because I can't possibly see a floorman arguing that this isn't an all-in. Maybe OP stretched some part of the story a bit.

Really, reading the entire OP at least should be mandantory before posting to a thread. First sentence of the OP described where the game took place and why there was no floor to make a decision.

as dealer-guy posted above, theres no floor ot make a decision. The game is mainly amongst friends, but player B was pretty much unknown to us. a few people had seen him about before but thats it.

I have represented the situation as honestly and as clearly as i can, for part of the time he was arguing he was repeatedly saying "prove it to me that thats an allin". I dont know how he expects me to do that hwilst in the middle of a pool hall... but now i have this thread posted, if i ever see him again i can show this to him. I knew pretty much what all the replies would be saying... but i nee the replied to have been posted to be able to show him.

and yes, hes not allowed into our games again now.

It is allin. His forward motion, without verbally declaring any other action, constitutes his bet.

He is an angleshooting douchebag. If he tried this in most any casino, even some with strict betting lines, the chips would stay in the middle.

He's all in. You where cheated.

of course if the other player were here posting his unbiased account it would probably look something like this.

"I was considering my action and gathered all my chips together. I pushed my chips barely a centimeter away, but had not yet decided on any action. It would be clear to anybody that the chips were still in front of me and i had not yet acted."

And then everybody would post how that wasn't an all-in


You see you can tell us that this account is unbiased..... but that doesn't make it unbiased.

As you describe it the player was all-in. But that doesn't mean if we saw it happen we would have agreed with you.

Only in a bar/pool hall and at the WSOP ME could this possibly not be considered an all in.

As much as you wish this would be the case, it simply is not possible. If I was a wagering man I'd bet that if we asked player B to describe the facts we would find his "unbiased" version of the events would be different from yours.

The way to be unbiased is not to say "I was an involved party with a stake in the outcome, but I will ignore that and be unbiased". The fact that you were a party means you're biased, whatever you say. The only way to be unbiased is to be completely uninvolved and to have no reason to favour one side over the other. Since this isn't possible in your case, it simply isn't possible for you to present an unbiased viewpoint.

This really should be an all-in anywhere.
But I have actually played in a few games where the rule was that you had to release your chips before your bet was final (these were badly run private games many years ago).
I never liked that rule, and thankfully haven't seen it in a long time, although I still occasionally see players who think they have to let go of their chips before they've made a binding action. Perhaps you ran into one of these?
BTW, if you're "100% confident of what the rule here is..."; what do you think the rule is in the particular room you were in? (I assume that with no Betline, it's probably "significant motion" or "halfway to the pot").
Anyway, if you're going to play in games where there's no one to make a ruling, you do risk this sort of thing.