Hi all,

Interesting situation from the Final Table in London. I'm rubbish at loading and editing videos. If someone can gif this up or chop it properly, that would be awesome! Please go to 3:50:15 and watch Karakousis five bet AQ into Ylitalo's KK.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMwWoIyOPik

I have spoken to a bunch of Tournament Directors and Floor people and it is running about 50/50 if this should be ruled as a string. I believe it is obvious the players "intent" is to raise 3 stacks, but his "actions" are to put in 2 stacks.

It is me commentating with Joe and James, so my opinion is easily heard on the video.

My question to players is how do you want this ruled? As players, do you want this to be a real raise or a string raise?

It is also true that his two stacks pushed into the middle are more than 50% so he would have been forced to min raise anyways, it would just have cost him 300K less in that instance. Ylitalo still shoves and he still folds.

Thoughts?

Cheers,

Neil
PokerStars Live Events Specialist

String raise. But still a raise since its over 50%. Bring out 100k chips earlier if they weren't in play at this point

Noticed when Karakousis commenced to move stacks forward and they started to wobble a little, one of the commentators said "You might wanna use two hands there pal...." and I was thinking the same thing.

I think it was his being lazy that caused the error and only 2 stacks that passed the line are valid.

I'd compare it to misjudging one's strength and accuracy when attempting to throw cards into the muck, and overshooting, and the cards fly across the room. The intent is clear but it is the player's responsibility to take adequate precautions.
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FYI.. There is a "Share" link just below the video frames which produces a link. It has an option to jump-forward the video to whatever time you like. For instance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMwWo....be&t=3h50m15s

I'm in favor of allowing the floor to use discretion. I would say intentions > semantics, the third stack was in the pot ~3 seconds after the first two, no way it's an angle. Let him raise.

Agree with this.

eek, this seems so close.

when he was separating the stacks he was putting them pretty far in front of his cards, right near the line. so if he separated 3 stacks first and then as he started pushing he lost the one, then i'd say def raise.

since he just started pushing at stacks and it wasn't clear i would say this was def a string.


overall, i agree with what kingdan said though, using some amount of discretion is ok. in this case, it was pretty clear he was trying to raise. in general i don't like trying to guess player intentions when dealing with rulings...but this case was pretty clear cut that he was trying to raise and just doing a sloppy job of it.

oh and the way that floor was described the situation i would have ruled it a raise too, it sounded like what happens when you push a 20 stack from the bottom and 1 or 2 chips fall off the top because you pushed it too fast. i've seen people do that numerous times, and it should be ruled a full 20 stack in every situation

I'm looking at this from a player's point of view since that's all i can do.

He was trying to appear cool and failed. No verbal declaration or shift in posture for fear of betraying his insecurity.
I guess i kinda put a read on him, and I'd say he wasn't happy about pushing those chips in. He wasn't 100% intending to do it and that affects my judgement.

If I were him I'd want the ruling to be 2 stacks. As an opponent, it would be 3 stacks.
In the spirit of truth and justice, my vote is changed to... abstain.

I also agree that when the intent is blatantly clear, discretion should be used, and not let a technicality drastically change something.

agree w dan.

also since the betting line isnt in use, if he stopped pushing the stacks at 3:50:22 (right when he loses one and all the stacks are in a line behind the betting line and in front of the rest of his stack) and just took his hands away would that be a raise to 1.5m? if so def shouldnt be a string bet since the part where he then pushes them further forward in 2 motions is really just him moving his bet further in to help the dealer.

This is a real close spot forsure, but I agree it should be a raise. Forward motion+ obvious intentions

Don't think it's that close, and should be ruled a raise 100% of the time.

Agree with this. In this scenario, being at the table and seeing it helps out more then talking about the conversation of string/no string.

It was so fast afterwards and his head was down the whole time. No way it was to get an angle on it.

Clearly a string raise for me.
I do not agree with Dan.
His intention in the beginning looks like he is willing to bet 3 stacks.
When he loses one stack (and that one stack stays next to the his whole stack) while he is pushing he doesn't directly correct the error and keeps pushing the chips. Then he goes back to his stack to bet the 3rd stack.

Actually he does get a lot of time to read other people because you have to count the time between he starts to pushing the 3 stacks forward en the time he puts in his last stack and that time is more then 5 seconds.

If you rule this as a call it will be very hard to draw a line in the future to at which point you can do this to have it rules as a raise.

Luca (the floor) does explain the rule quite well to Chris (the anouncer) and like the way Luca explained it he would have rules this as a call I think when he would have seen this.

Regards,
Kenny

from what i've gathered, i'm pretty sure it can never be a call. Its a raise either way.

It's either a min-raise (two stacks is more than 1.5 bet) or a larger raise with all three stacks.

But if the choice were one of call or raise, I think it would invite more skepticism and a raise might not be allowed. But since it was only a matter of the size of his raise, allowing the 3rd stack is less of a problem.

but you listened to the conversation and if it was about call or raise, i gladly stand corrected.

Yes, sorry small mistake for me, where I said call it should be min-raise

enough for it to be a raise IMO

I also think its impossible for a tournament director to be unbiased in these situations. I can't possibly imagine someone like that angle-shooter guy who won an EPT getting fair treatment in situations like this and then to a lesser extent I think people like Chino will get ruled against too much and people like Negreanu will get too much preferential treatment.

I think the goal of the rules should be to have as little as possible left up to subjective judgments