+1

When someone declares a hand that beats you, simply say, "That's good," and wait for them to show.

This. Don't release your cards, but you don't have to play a game of being stone faced. i will usually just hold my cards in my hand in a way that shows I am ready to discard them and just wait (this is less ambiguous than it sounds, no one has ever confused my body language for stone faced inaction). On the rare occasion that they still don't show, I will say something like 'that hand is good, show me and you win', though this rarely is necesary.

It's an angle because it is ambiguous and could cause someone to muck a winning hand.

It's just like saying "two pair" when you have 32 on an ATT72 board is an angle.

That's the whole point of angleshooting. To do something technically defensible but which is designed to screw an opponent over.

Just say "I have a ten". Be HELPFUL at showdown. Don't be one of those people.

You don't have to do anything. You can be an angleshooter if you want to. Plenty of poker players are like that.

But if you want to be a nice, fair, reasonable person, either say nothing or declare your hand in a way that is designed to accurately portray it (not simply be "technically accurate" but ambiguous) so the other player will accurately show or muck.

So, if my combination of hole cards and board cards make a pair, and I declare i have a pair, you consider this angleshooting?

There are declarations that a purposefully ambiguous, and declarations that are acceptable but could be considered ambiguous. The former can be considered an angleshoot, the latter is ridiculous to consider an angle shoot.

Are you honestly telling me that if someone declares 'I have tens', it is not reasonable to interpret this as a pair of tens between the board and their hole cards, that anything less than a set (which is not the hand the declared) would be considered angle shooting?

If so, this is an odd definition of angle shooting.

Declaring two pair when you have two pair is also an angle now? Good lord.

This post makes it seem like you believe that any ambiguous statement at a poker table is an angleshot regardless of intent. Is that true?

JMO.... when I call (unless I have the nuts or 2nd nuts)... I wait for the other player to SHOW (not declare)..... I've long since learned to always hear, but never listen, to what poker players say at the table.......

If you don't think it's angleshooting, can you at least agree it's not helpful?

Declaring "two pair" with a pair on the board is no more helpful than declaring "one pair" on an unpaired board.

I used to think this, until I declared my pocket Kings, which made a set with the board, as "Kings". My opponent fastrolled his Ax hand, which made a pair of aces with the board, and got mad at me because I underdeclared my hand, which he thought was the equivalent of a slowroll.

It seems to me that about an equal number of people declare one way or another. Maybe an angle was attempted by this particular guy in the story, but the vast majority of people declaring their hands that way are not trying to angleshoot.

That doesn't mean it's not helpful. Each of those adds information.

Maybe a better example would be declaring "one pair" with a pair on the board. What is being argued is that is an angle unless you have more than the one pair on the board.

In texas holdem, the objective of the game is to make the best 5 card poker hand using any combination of your two hole cards and the 5 community cards.

If I hold 32 and the board is ATT72, I have two pair. Not one pair, two pair. So why would I say I have one pair, and let king high table what he thinks is the winning hand, only to slow roll him and turn over a two pair hand?

Saying I have two pair at showdown is not an angle.

Gotten over the hand as of now and seeing this definitely helped. Gotta love Phil Laak.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7iEUiMROts

It's an angle, and the two pair declaration is a classic angle.

I can agree that it is not the most definitive or unequivocal way of declaring that particular hand. That is a durn sight away from being an angle.

If a board is four flushed, and I have the 3 of that suit, is it an angle for me to declare a flush?

Please explain how this is an angle. It might help to clarify your definition of angle. You aren't misrepresenting your hand or create ambiguity regarding your action. You aren't inducing or coercing the opponent to muck. If he can beat two pair, then all he has to do is table his hand.

I have never understood the logic of how declaring, with a pair on the board, that you have two pair is an angle.

No and no.

Guy said he had king high. Other player mucks thinking he means king high flush.

Angle?

No. But I think "intent" is something that angleshooters use to weasel out of responsibility for things they deliberately do that they shouldn't.

In other words, I think that experienced players who make ambiguous declarations know what they are doing and are at least entertaining the possibility that they might cause a muck.

Rob, that's pretty ideosyncratic. When I declare pocket kings, I either say "pocket kings" or "kings full". But one guy once misinterpreting what you declared and SHOWING (not mucking) a hand is not at all the same as the sorts of shenanigans being discussed in this thread.

I'm sorry I'm like a broken record, but there really are only two types of poker players who say things at showdown. There are people who try to be helpful and people who don't.

The people who try to be helpful say "no flush, king high", or just show the hand, or even say "I got nothing" or "no pair".

If you want to hide behind excuses because you like saying misleading things at showdown, you certainly can. But when experienced players make ambiguous showdown declarations, I don't think too highly of them, because it does strike me that the only reason to really do it (other than an OCCASIONAL honest error) is to try to get people to muck a better hand.

If you don't want to be helpful to your opponent, just say nothing at all. If you want to say something, say something helpful. That really is the full scope of this issue.

I was on the next table over and have heard a few acounts of the hand. I had also been playing with villain on a different table before that table broke. I also won a pot against villain about 15 minutes before your hand where i called his $100 river bet with 98 on a 92323 board and he announced "nines" i waited for him to open, he had 96 and i won the pot with my kicker.

You made a big mistake by mucking your hand based on him saying "tens" the guy was clearly on drugs or something, he was shak8ng and twitching and getting angry at weird nonsense, and was bluffing wildly at almost every hand.

You may have been the victim of a poor ruling, but its likely your hand was further mucked than you have described. A hand thrown in the middle of the table face down is questionable to retrieve. And his description of his hand is accurate, he did have tens.

There are many inexperienced dealers and staff at our poker room, its unfortunately how it is. As you described the event i know some of the floormen wouldve given you the pot, but the situation you got yourself into is largely your own fault also.

Also, was the dealer at one point awarding you the pot before villain complained and called the floor? Thats what i thought i saw happen. I was in a big hand when this happened otherwise i wouldve definitely come over to see the commotion.

Also, who was dealing? Just a description will suffice, and i'll ask that dealer for their version of the story too.

They made a very strange ruling, but you also put them in a tough spot. There is a rule in our room that your hand can be ruled dead if you mis announce your hand for the purpose of angling but he didnt actually do that.

Villain had bluffed off all his chips within a couple of hands after you left (you racked up and left immediately as i recall)

Occasionally this is an angle.

Usually it's a player just announcing what he has.

When he gets lectured he doesn't understand how what he said could possibly be misunderstood.

You might be too delicate for live poker if you think those things are angles.

Also perhaps relevant. He tried to argue this hand was a chop, and i think he really thought it was, despite my explaining clearly how it wasnt. I wouldnt even trust some of the dealers here to recognize that this hand wasnt a chop. And yes, regs like me often do to some extent run the tables and help the inexperienced dealers. Its actually quite necessary with how terrible a few of them are. Last night in a PLO hand a dealer grabbed over 1k in black chips that belonged in the side pot and stuck it in the main pot. If it werent for regs watching his every move this wouldve been a disaster. Another dealer last night started pushing a stack over to another player without checking to see if the stack was covered. I stopped her and showed her how to count the stack to verify. She had no idea.

Most of the dealers become good, but most of them start out terrible for the first couple of weeks, and the turnover is high unfortunately. Be aware of this and watch your back. Nobody is being treated unfairly on purpose.

King high does not mean a king high flush. If your mucking your hand thinking he "must" have a king high flush because he said king high, it's on you. Not an angle.