Quote:
Originally Posted by Cooozy
It's not a loophole. The rules clearly state that you cannot hide big chips, cannot go north. Stop making excuses that it's not cheating.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Why
If this were a criminal case, Torelli would be accused of fraud and deception, and would be convicted on the basis of the film evidence.
I just hope in your next live game someone does the Torelli magic trick against you, then we'd find out if you really believe this crap of yours that his smuggling a $5000 chip into a game, and lying and misleading the table about it is just an angle rather than blatant fraud.
In some instances there is a subtle difference between breaking the rules and cheating. Breaking the rules, which AT did, in most sports/games usually has a penalty associated with it, however in some instances the penalty is less than the potential gain or non existent.
When the penalty is not harsh enough or doesn't exist then a loophole exists that a player can take advantage of.
In football (soccer) which in many ways is administered in as amateurish a way as poker, an outfield player can deliberately hand ball the ball off the goal line in the last minute of a match with his team leading 1 - 0 giving himself a red card and the opponents a penalty which they have ~25% chance of missing. It is blindingly obvious that this is a loophole in the rules and that a goal should automatically be awarded, as in Rugby Union (a try), Rugby League and a few other sports.
AT took advantage of a loophole because the hiding of chips is not properly policed in a game, the dealer does do where possible, but as far as I am aware there is no penalty for hiding chips. If a player caught hiding chips in a cash game was fined 20% of their stack or 15 BBs or something like that then the loophole would be virtually closed. Similarly if it were possible to impose retrospective fines and or playing bans when the offense is later discovered it also closes the loophole.
The fact is that the floor does not go around looking at all stacks and fining players hiding chips, nor impose any sort of other penalties and as we saw in the video clip even when there is a suspicion that chips were being hidden the floor defaults to the old "it's a players responsibility to know their opponent's stack size" ruling.
So IMO AT did not cheat, he broke the rules, and because the rule in question is neither policed, enforced or penalised in an adequate way it is a loophole.
I am on the look out for anglers all the time when I play and aware that they can get away with angling without punishment for it because the enforcement of rules and the punishment for breaking them is so weak.
Last edited by SageDonkey; 07-17-2017 at 12:45 PM.