Just by seeing how or even if he turns his hand over can give info that helps him size his raise. Even assuming he did not see AA he might notice the hand was turned over with confidence.

And if he is trying to look week using an action word to do so should bind him to it. Holding second nuts he isn't rewinding the hand and just mumbling past action.

I might give him the option to treats this as premature river. He can call or we shuffle the Q back and redeal the river and start that betting round all over. You wanna bet he opts to let Q stay and just call?

I don't think you need help in sizing the raise if there's only one legal size anyway. (OP stated that UTG bet half his stack)

If I was UTG I would either not play in that room again or start tipping the floor better.

If this is an angle, it is a lot of squeeze for very little, if any, juice. He is holding the second nuts, you are saying he is trying to induce the other player to show his cards and reveal his strength, so that he can size his bet appropriately. However, after the player shows their cards and then the mumbler raises, he is less likely to call.

As far as the action words being binding, this is by no means universal or strictly enforced. People use action words all the time when facing action, and it is rarely held as binding. I bet if I count, I would find more than ten instances in a single session of someone saying 'call', 'raise', or 'fold' when facing action and not being bound to that act.

While your suggestion of treating the Q as a premature river smacks of Solomon's wisdom, I can't see a way to justify that type of ruling under any poker rule.

Rule 1

And saying call in a sentence or talking about calling your spouse is diff than call with a significant pause then call again. Regardless of what follows you will be held to a call more often than not

Btw weak kitn to floor for putting dealer in a no win situation. If he really needed open unbiased input, call brush or on break to cover table and talk with dealer in private. Or at least whisper to from the dealer. The way done always upsets at least one player and sounds like half the table this time. Doing that to a dealer is wrong.

The call stands. Altho mid 20s white guy in hoodie auto-flipping his hand over was idiotic and potentially self sabotaging.

Smells a little fishy to me. MP , dealer, floor "relationships" maybe? UTG very unpopular? Or just dumbasses? I do believe this would be ruled a call in most situations under fair conditions most of the time. But it is live poker and the rules are what the room says they are.

It's highly unlikely in my eyes that personal relationships had an impact on the hand. UTG plays there all the time and is a respected friendly reg. Not the GTO Strat talking DB that my description might have implied haha.

Maybe the floor thought it was easier to screw UTG over since he's a nice guy?

Obv. nobody here knows why the floor ruled the way he did. It's just very hard to come up with any reasonable explanation for the ruling. Even if he determines that MPs action didn't constitute a call, at the very least he has to call it "ambiguous" and hold MP to passive action. Allowing a player to raise after his ambiguous action made another player table his hand is just crazy. Hard to believe a floor is that incompetent.

OK, Cool. You are there, I was not. Just sounds a bit odd.

Actually there is a very reasonable eplanation and it is along the lines of what I suggested earlier (OP left an important piece out of the original story and only incluuded it when he told the ruling.)

That piece was that the dealer felt the words that the player was saying were recounting the action and not actually said in a way that indicated action.

remember we are told that the way it was said was different from the way the player previously would announce his action. And now we are being told that at least one person at the table felt it was obvious that the player hadn't actually announced action (in fact this is also indicated by the fact on the first statement by the player the dealer didn't announce a call and look to the bettor to show his cards).

As I have said before and in other threads context matters. It seems here that the dealer felt this statement was obviously the recounting of the action and not action on its own and that was conveyed to the floor and that is the basis of the ruling.

Even if you think its wrong that is a reasonable explanation for a ruling.

(and in retrospect knowing the cards the player held its obviously not an angle shot, it was just some hollywooding and the player was in fact recounting the action so the dealer's interpretation at the time certainly must have had some basis .... and he was present at the table while we (with the exception of OP) were not)