It's not easy to see things from the floor's point of view. They are only human. They run around solving problems all day long. Feet get tired. Mental fatigue..
Sometimes a situation has many elements that are fairly common.
I was simply suggesting reasons why this situation might be resolved with the standard procedures, and why there might be little sympathy for the Asian guy.. (If i correctly recall the content of the post(s) you are quoting from)

FWIW I don't think ruling against a player for 17x pot for an obvious joke is ever appropriate, no matter how many times he's done this, except if you really think he's angling. Progressive discipline -- warning, 10 min time out, 24 hr time out, bar -- is appropriate, not redistributing pots.

However, a repeat performance of this particular offense would be so stupid that it almost would have to be an angle shot the second time. I'm thinking more of repeatedly exposing cards out of turn, etc.

now why did you have to do that? I enjoy debate and would be happy to hash this out with you, but you make it impossible.. Do people do this deliberately so there can be no intelligent response?
Is it 99% attack, camouflaged by 1% thoughtful content ?

Worst. Ruling. Ever.

Fun games with joking, drinking, and looser gambling are what everyone should be trying to encourage. The Asian guy obviously was not shooting an angle or doing anything other than making a joke based on a misunderstanding of a rule that is different from casino to casino. As someone stated well before this post, his first act was to muck his hand (fold)...this was clearly his intent and it corresponded with his action. He then said, jokingly, all in. Everyone understood this. Only when some asswipe decided to take a shot at screwing 42 over, did the issue arise. Rulings of this sort are bad policy, bad for poker, and just plain ugly. Really sad.

It's plausible that a hand with marginal showdown value would snap-fold to the declaration without realizing he'd mucked. Joviality is good, but it's a stupid joke, best addressed with a friendly warning.

Oof. A lot of serious posts since I last checked in; I should have just read the funnies over my Corn Flakes this morning.

Joe - I apologize for switching into attack mode yesterday. When I choose to participate in a thread it's usually because I feel very passionately about the subject and this one is no exception. But I let myself tilt a bit, and I have a responsibility—especially in a thread I started—to maintain a constructive and respectful tone to the discussion.

Despite grenzen's assertion, it wasn't your opposing viewpoint I reacted to; it was your methods of communicating it and your unwillingness to acknowledge rational counter-viewpoints. You used inaccuracies and straw man arguments that frustrated me and the other posters who were trying to advance the debate. I wasn't the only one who got tilted, and frequently when one poster tilts that many people it's because they're trolling the thread. It wasn't unreasonable for us to assume you were doing the same.

The rules do define the playing field, but they shouldn't be allowed to be used as weapons. They exist to create an environment consistent with the spirit of the game where players can compete on a level battleground. And when the rules fail to do that, they should be adjusted or overruled to accommodate the situation; otherwise it creates an unnavigable maze of obstacles that allows seasoned players to take advantage of less-experienced players. That's why so many posters have referenced Rule #1: A floorman or tournament director's judgment supersedes the rulebook.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but if you're going to ignore thoughtful and relevant posts for personal reasons, then perhaps you shouldn't participate in the debate.

I love you.

Actually I think the best thing for a respectable player with J9 to do here is to turn his own hand face up and take no further action. Let them call the clock. If they kill the hand, don't relinquish the cards.

If someone later shows AJ, fine, move on. If it instead folds to the last player who calls with a pair of kings, then at least we've put that player in a position to either give us the $300 pot or run off with it in public view.

Obviously if we just fold and later say we had J9, no one's going to believe us or give us anything back.

Thanks Lee, I just hope people don't stop playing 2-4 OOP like the "Asian Guy," now that would be really bad for the game.

How nice would it have been if there was one spade on the flop and it went runner runner spade for a 4 2 flush. The guy would have to ****ing kill himself after that one LOL. Oh how i wish.

I think there are numerous rules that not only "exist to create an environment consistent with the spirit of the game", but are also commonly used as either defensive or offensive weapons. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.
For instance, calling the clock. Objecting to an accidental string bet. Insisting a player commit a full raise when it is appropriate. Insisting a player expose the highest value chips in his stack.

The list might be very lengthy.. depending on how broadly "weapon" is defined. The advantages of knowing and using the rules against other players could result in anything from saving me chips, to getting excellent reads on opponents. One might even win a pot or two that would otherwise be lost.

... and no need to apologize for getting a little hot during a debate.. But I would recommend people avoid it as strong emotions tend to cloud the mind.

lol, chill man, that part of my post was half-joke. please respond to the other part of that post. i'm curious whether you just think guys making mistakes should incur overwrought punishment, or if you seek out such situations to exploit?

End of thread. We have a winner.....

Perhaps it's option 3... He's a masochist seeking out overwrought punishment.

You pose a purely hypothetical situation (since J-9 did not call the floor), and my answer can only be hypothetical, since I wasn't there.

No, I would not press the issue of the verbal all-in. Call me a nit or whatever, but I have no desire to shove my whole stack in here with the 2nd nuts with two players yet to act. It's just not worth the risk.

The 4-2 guy did kill my action in a hand I most likely would have won. Now, by being forced to fold, I've lost that $300 pot. Had action progressed normally, maybe I could have induced a bluff or got raised and reraised against a worse hand with reasonable bet sizing, and perhaps won an additional $500.. or more.

Denying me that pot and further opportunity would probably tick me off a little. He has messed up my play.. and maybe worse.. Maybe I've misread someone, or have a brain fart, call, and lose my stack. I'm not exactly in a good spot. So, while I certainly have no reason to sympathize with 4-2 guy's predicament, I won't force him all-in either.

In any case, as J-9, I can find no practical reason to force him to move all in. (players further down the line surely might, especially the last to act).
--------
I can only guess those would be my feelings in the J-9 position. My answer cannot be taken as anything more than hypothetical speculation. I don't see how it is relevant to the discussion, but since you asked politely, I am happy to oblige.

If I were sitting in the game, I would've said I heard the guy say "fold" before turning it over, and asked other players at the table if they heard the same thing (hoping someone with sanity validates with me).

Since some experts might still be following the thread, I'm slightly curious how any of them might feel about the other players agreeing to let the 4-2 person slide.. Or, how to properly go about it within the rules. Cash game OK? Tournament.. definitely collusion and not OK?

in a cash game, it doesn't* impact the equity of any players who are not involved in a hand. thus, if everyone in the hand can agree (obviously without bullying, etc) on an exception to normal rules, that seems reasonable to me.

in a tournament, the results of a hand affect the equity of other players, and rules changed shouldn't be allowed without the agreement of everyone (chops are an obvious way that this happens routinely)


*I accept that there are some trivial theoretical impacts, but they can normally be disregarded

A lot of wisdom in this post.

Very well said. The biggest scumbag was player 4 - according to the OP, she was the first one and the loudest voice arguing that the "all in" should stand. Clear angle shot, as it had been checked down four ways to the river, it was reasonable to assume that the other two active players wouldn't have a hand strong enough to risk $5K and she could just pick up the pot as long as her high card beat the board.

I thought J9 should have argued that the Asian player folded so he could act on his hand legitimately, but if he was overruled and the all-in stood, I like your solution of calling (to prevent player 4 from stealing it) and giving back most of the money, keeping a few hundred to make up for lost value on the river. I think the Asian guy probably would have been OK with that - I would if I were in his position. Even though a warning probably would have been fair punishment, losing $500 instead of $5K would have sent a message not to joke around the way he did without necessarily driving him from the casino.

Setting aside the ethical debate over the ruling, which is obviously settled at this point... seriously??? As player 2 you should definitely be calling with worse than J9 here (again, setting aside the ethical issues).

Are you aware what you're risking and what the reward is? What do you think players 3 and/or 4 will overcall with? How often do you think they have those hands, based on previous action?

Just curious... assuming the Asian guy refuses to pay the all-in and walks as some ITT have suggested, are there any actual legal ramifications if he went this route? Surely the Rio bans him (guessing permanently), but any chance he'd actually get arrested or anything along those lines?

These are the type of stories that scare people away from playing poker... Definitely Not in the best interest of the game, in my opinion, and has to be one of the worst rulings I've seen.

For those who think intent has nothing to do with the situation:
As far as the hand being ruled live goes:
Management May rule an exposed hand which has been mucked live if it is clearly retrievable AND doing so is in the best interest of the game.

The player tossed his hand face up in the direction of the muck (mucked his hand) and then completed another action (announcing all in), which was clearly interpreted as a jest by the next player to act since he grabbed chips to take a stab at the pot rather than 'snap calling' the all in.

Never mind his initial action was to muck (if the hand was ruled live he should not have been allowed to bet and should only be allowed to call subsequent bets in turn) and his secondary action was then ruled binding, the intent was clearly, demonstrated by the next player to act getting ready to bet rather than calling, to muck and get a laugh.

What if [blah] or [other blah] had happened doesn't really matter, because what happened is what the ruling should be based on and in this situation ruling the hand live does not seem in any way, to me, to be in the best interest of the game.

Correct Ruling the dealer is not there to judge whether you are joking or not! Had he just thrown his cards in the muck face up without saying "all in" then maybe. But since he said All in his cards are live.

Or let's not. Conclusions from a flawed precondition are false/irrelevant anyway, so why bother ?

Actually they are there to make that type of determination:

RROP - House Policies, Decision Making

8.) The same action may have a different meaning, depending on who does it, so the possible intent of an offender will be taken into consideration. Some factors here are the person's amount of poker experience and past record.