Apologize if this is the wrong place for this question....

In the Mid-States Poker Tour event this past weekend ($1100, million dollar guarantee event in Battle Creek, MI), at the final table a player is all-in preflop and two players call. Neither of the callers managed to make a legit hand, yet one player bets into a dry side pot. Turns out he has nothing and actually bet out the winning hand, allowing the all-in player to win the pot and stay alive in the tournament. (Player A all-in pre, player B bets the turn, player C folds to the bet, player B bet with no pair, player C would have won the pot if not folded out on the turn to player B's bet, player A wins the pot)

If this happens when you're at the table, do you say anything to the guy who bet out the best hand? Or do you just shake your head about this player's lack of understanding of tournament strategy and move on to the next hand? Obviously it's his right to bet any time he wants, but there's some basic poker etiquette involved here as well, right?

Maybe I think I have a better chance at the pot only facing the all-in player.

Unless the guy has the absolute not low on the river, there's absolutely no way you can even assess that he has no understanding of tournament strategy.

Player A might have shoved 33 pre, player B has 54 on the turn of KQJ7 and player C has 87. If the hand is checked down to showdown, B is drawing dead against C with one card to come. If B gets C to fold, he has 6 outs to win the full pot.

Betting into the dry side pot might be a bad play. But it's certainly not a breach of etiquette and complaining about it would be pretty ridiculous.

You're upset because he hurt YOUR equity, not because he made a bad play. Unless an actual rule is broken, you have no right to insist another player look out for your interests. Poker is a selfish game and he felt betting was the right thing to do for his own stack. Maybe it was a bad play but I'm sure there were many, many bad plays at that table.

Yeah it's not even clear from the OP that Player B misunderstands tournament strategy. If the question is whether unwritten etiquette should trump one's idea of correct strategy in this spot, then no, each player should be free to do what he believes is in his best interest.

Are you saying that there should be an unspoken agreement between the big stacks to check it down if the short stack is all in against both of them? Wouldn't such an agreement be akin to collusion?

There are plenty of good reasons to bet out in spots like this despite the dry side pot, for instance to eliminate an opponent to play the hand heads up, or to create a sidepot when you think you might have an advantage, or even to keep the short stack in when his presence is making others play nitty and creating opportunities for you to steal blinds and pots.

Like many poker moves, it's annoying when it happens to you. But it is a play that you should have in your toolkit.

Without knowing hands and chip stacks it's impossible to even think about reaching the same conclusion you did.

A tacit agreement to check it down is a form of collusion.

You could be Player A one day in this situation.

Yeah I heard that back in the day, some people considered a check-raise to be a breach of etiquette, they were wrong too.

Do not attribute to malice that which can be explained by ignorance or something.

Also, beside that, there are a handful of legitimate (although maybe unknowingly -EV) reasons for a player to bluff that empty side pot. I'm not saying they're right, but maybe they are the big stack and they want the pay jump bubble to continue with a bunch of tight players at the table so they want to keep the micro stack in for a bit longer. Maybe they want that equity as stated above with increasing even just a small chance they win the hand against the all-in player.

The only argument I can see you having against this situation is if the player bet out the winning hand to keep his all-in friend in the tournament for friendship/money reasons, but even then, he's risking his own equity in the tournament to do it. This would be a valid complaint against collusion if you could somehow prove it. But this isn't really an etiquette thing. There are no rules against breach of etiquette unless you consider the possible aftermath of violence or something weird like that happening later as payback from the offended.


Most likely, they're just bad and didn't think it through. Everyone here always assumes that everyone at the table knows what they're doing. Even in those big tournaments, half the field is effectively just pushing buttons.

This is effectively what happened but I get what everyone is saying and obviously didn’t give much information about chip stacks and position. At the time, Player B was relatively short in chips but was the big blind and the all-in player didn’t even have a full raise in front of him when he shoved so the small and big blind both called. The big blind (player B) has a lot to gain by player A being knocked out as the pay jump was significant.

I get the collusion standpoint, but you see this all the time at final tables of tournaments. When a guy is all-in, players don’t bet with complete air. Why would you want to bet someone out of the hand at that point that has a chance to knock someone out (effectively bumping up your pay day)? By betting with air, player B gave player A life in the tournament. Not a ton of life, but more chips than he would have had if player B doesn’t bet out player C.

I guess I was more curious about some basic strategy of trying to have other short stacks knocked out so you can move up the payouts without risking your chips. Not necessarily collusion, but why bet someone out of the hand that could effectively improve your pay day?

What does that have to do with etiquette though?

Obviously in many tournaments there’s an implicit collusion in these spots because everyone knows their equity increases if short stack gets knocked out. There’s nothing really wrong with that implicit collusion as everyone’s rationally acting in their own best interest. However, you can’t get mad because someone either didn’t know to or for some reason thought it was in his best interest not to implicitly collude.

Madlex pretty much covered it ... MSPT is the equivalent to A baseball (AA at best) so there's a pretty good chance that a few Players will not have experienced a FT with so much on the line, much less experienced a FT in a tournament of over 60 Players (not almost 1600).

I was in the room (and watching stream on phone) and must have been in involved with a cash hand and missed this one go down so I'm not sure who the Players were. I do know that there were at least 2 'luck box' Players at this FT since their 'rail' was also at my cash table.

I've seen a few plays like this where a Player assumes they need to get the 3rd Player out of the hand to increase their chances at the pot. That Player may also be thinking that they don't want the 3rd Player gaining any more chips even if it means missing out on an elimination.

But I've also seen big stacks make trivial folds to shorties with the idea that it would be better to keep the shorty alive and thus be able to continue to apply pressure on the medium stacks rather than give everyone a pay jump.

No matter the case, this is not something for table discussion. Obviously a few quizzical looks at the 'offending' Player after the hand may be enough to send a message. I don't even think it's appropriate to approach the Player on break and ask him 'WFT were you thinking?' either while the table is still going .. GL

That’s another important factor. If you are in a spot where pay jumps present ‘life changing money’ which might be as little as $10-20k for some people because BRM isn’t a requirement to play poker tournaments, the tournament is basically in non-stop bubble play once you reach the final table.

Tripling up a guy to 5BB might mean you have another 10 hands to shove over open raises from 20BB guys who have to fold everything but KK+ because they need that next pay jump to mitigate years of draining their kids college fund to go to the casino.

Hope the guy who would of got knocked out won the tournament.

Then you could tell the guy who bet you out,
"That's why we should of checked it down.".

Consider this another vote for, "I'm gonna do what i think is best for ME, and if you don't see how increasing my chances of winning this pot helps me, at almost no risk (I'm confident I'm not getting called; and tripling the other guy from 1 crumb to 3 crumbs doesn't pose much a threat down the road), I'm not going to educate you."

My favorite is when this happens early in the tournament, and everyone is offended. Sorry guys, but maxing my chances of winning this huge pot sounded like a better deal than locking up 1,527th place.

1,527th place? I've been questioned more than a few times for betting this spot in a cash game. So you gotta factor comedy value in your decision.

depending on chip stacks and payouts a big stack can even be incentivized to keep shorties in

2nd paragraph is gold and made me laugh.

So, unspoken collusion in these situations is stnadard and pervasive. My question is that if OP, or anyone, states, after the hand, that the raiser played that wrong and you should check it dwon to knock out the short stack, why wouldn't the floor treat this as an attempt at explicit collusion and penalize him?

The only time this would be a problem would be if the bettor was knowingly acting against his own interests to improve the short-stack's EV. That would be collusion and wouldn't just be bad etiquette, but cheating.

Playing badly is not bad etiquette. I guess if he did it just to screw you then it is. I'm not sure if that would merit a penalty, though.

They would have to be friends/better has financial interest in all in player winning for it to be an issue... there are times when it’s in the big stacks best interest to keep short stacks in the tournament so he can put icm pressure on medium stacks around bubble and final table pay jumps. More then likely the players just bad and not thinking very much which is common in poker.

Your philosophy that people should play THEIR hand the way YOU want them to so they don’t screw YOUR equity is the sense of entitlement that makes poker terrible.

Is it legal to bet with the sole intent of keeping in a short stack alive so you can beat up on the middling stacks?

Sure, why not?

You’re acting in your own best interest and not collaborating with anybody else to gain an unfair edge. You can punish someone for serving what they think is their best interest in a competitive game.