Last to act on the river.

You have the best hand.

You have to raise, don't you, otherwise it would be softplaying, ie cheating?

I remember seeing players in the World Series punished for not raising in this situation, am I right to think this considered cheating or do you have the option to just check/call?

Why would you not raise if you have the best hand....

inb4 lock.

People were being penalized if they had the stone nuts on the river and checked in position. This was to avoid collusion.

Otherwise, what's there to punish? That's the only objective way you can 100% know you have the best hand.

You ask a silly question then don't even correctly phrase your example. The rule in the WSOP is that you MUST RAISE the NUTS on the river LAST TO ACT. One of the most recent WSOP ME winners called w/ nut flush on the river last to act and was penalized for it.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. By 'best hand' I meant the best hand possible, ie the nuts.

So the situation I witnessed was two players on the river, A, 8, 5, 9, J on the table. The first player bets and the player who is last to act just calls with Q, 10, the nuts. There were no possible flushes out there.

I can understand why at the bubble say, if you are a huge stack, there might be some tactical reason to keep a very short stack at the table for a while to allow you to accumulate chips from the medium stacks for longer, but even then, I'd have thought not raising the nuts would still be considered softplaying. Certainly at an early stage of the tournament, which is where the hand I described above took place, there can be no tactical reason for such a play (other than guaranteeing to see your opponent's hand) but I still thought this was cheating not to raise/bet.

It was certainly punished through a sit out penalty/chip penalty a few years ago in the World Series when I was watching.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/32...ers-questions/

What did the site say when you reported it?

Out of interest, would a penalty be given if a player didn't have the absolute nuts given the board, but did given the situation - for instance in cases of an exposed card which was required for the immortal nuts?

I'm trying to find out from someone on here if it is indeed cheating so I know whether to report it or not.

Anyone?

It is definitely softplaying. Depending on the tourney / stage it may or may not have been intentional though.

If you are concerned about it, report it.

Just report it, it's not necessarily cheating (intent is required and people do make mistakes) but sites are used to dealing with many false complaints. Better to over-report than under-report. If you ever have any suspicion, just email support. That's what you pay rake for.

I've never really understood the point to this rule tbh.

Yes I understand that the reason is to avoid collusion/soft-playing but it takes away a few things from a player as well. If I have the nuts on the river why is it wrong for me to forgo some possible extra chips for the gain of just calling behind and getting to see villains hand.

If someone takes a really weird line and I want to see what sort of hand they will take it with for future reference against them then why should I be forced to raise and likely have them fold and miss out on the opportunity to gain some insight into them (talking online here obvs where their showdown hand will be in my hh). Is the risk of collusion/soft-play really worth more in the long-run to players than being able to gain knowledge?

An online player in that spot can easily say he misread his hand and didn't realise it was the nuts. Misreading csn be for ant number of reasons - was multitabling, didn't have 4 color deck on and thought there was a flush.

Or maybe he just misclicked

Or even better he could say he had a read that the other guy had the same hand so he didn't want to pay more rake if a cash game -in the WSOP or a tourney It's different Ldo

Yeah, and it's not really a rule in online that I know about...am guessing people could complain to the site to have you investigated though.

I think it's more important in live to be able to do it at times but with the fact that people now would rather just muck their hand at showdown if they are called (and that is a rule that needs to be enforced, if i call I want to see their hand) it becomes harder to say that you just called for information.

In a tournament yes, I would accuse someone of softplaying. Anyone who busts has their equity redistributed towards the remaining players, so by keeping him in the game you are costing me money. In a cash game it's irrelevant.

Even though some people may think "he wasnt calling anyway", the point is that .01% of the time someone does call with jack high on a AAAKK river is enough justification to bet the nuts. It doesnt really matter if you want to see his hand for information, because you probably have all the information anyway. Either he was bluffing and had nothing, or he had some weak hand that he thought was good up until a point. With a little deduction it's not hard to put the avg player on a weak pair or pure air, and just move on to the next hand. Making him turn over his 67o or 22 doesnt really tell you anything you dont already know.