well, when i wrote it i had already believed those things (in a more nebulous way) for many years. when i decided to boil it down for the #2000 post i knew i was taking a flyer. in retrospect, i like it more now than i did then, its stood the test of time and the repeated tests of this community. that said, this thread is a constant update. i consider every post i make an addition to the OP.

you've done a great job responding to basically every inquiry that's popped up in here. another essay like the OP that has info you haven't been asked about would be great when you hit post 4k

read every post here, awesome thread limon.

"excellent"

Thank god they unbanned you so I can argue with this load of crap!

You very obviously have lots of other obligations at a poker table beyond playing when the action comes to you. You are not absolved of most of the obligations you have all of the time. You are obligated not to punch the guy next to you in the face. You are also obligated not to snatch chips out of his stack when he's not looking. This is a big one: you are obligated not to cheat. Marking cards is not ok. Collusion is not ok.

There are gray areas and there are some things that aren't even that gray that some people will tell you that you are obligated to do. The rational way to approach that is to argue that certain things (seeing your opponents hole cards and not saying anything is the example that keeps coming up ITT but there are lots of similar ones) are not cheating.

It's completely silly to say "your only responsibility at a poker table is play cards when the action comes to to you." It sounds nice enough and lots of people might be inclined to agree with it if they don't think too hard. Cheat those people out of their money (or punch them in the face) and I'm pretty sure it will turn out they think you have some responsibilities beyond acting when its your turn.

lol. thats a tall order. if i hadnt responded much fro 2 years it would be a cakewalk but, i think(?), most of it is already in here, but whooo knows? one of these:



and it might happen...orrrrr i might get banned again, we'll seeeeeeee.

im pretty sure we agree but i guess i wasnt clear. youre not obligated to do anything a dumb unobservant person cant do. being smart and observant doesnt pile any responsibility on your shoulders. you can play dumb anytime you want, its a reward for not being dumb.

this is where TRUE HONESTY comes in. everybody and i mean everybody goes by this rule regardless of what they say. if there is a massive douche at the table no one says shoot (<--see that mat and ryan im reformed) even mother teresa would keep her mouth shut after some dude who just threw cards in the dealers face misread his hand on the river.

I'm still not sure I agree but this is certainly a lot more reasonable than what I had thought you were saying.

I'm still really torn as to when, if ever, you should speak up (or are obligated not to) if there is something going on that gives you or another player an advantage outside of the "normal" play of the game.

To take an extreme example, its occurred to me more than once that if I really worked at it I could probably learn to shuffle-track and/or spot quite a few cards as they're being pitched when certain sloppy dealers are in the box. I would think someone who did this was cheating. I would feel similarly about discovering a consistent pattern of markings on all of the decks in a casino and not saying anything.

At the other end of the spectrum, if the guy on my left telegraphs his folds preflop, I never say anything (but if he's on my right and the guy on his right is taking advantage, I do). Somewhere in between there are situations I'm really unsure about.

I don't have a solution, but I'm not sure "youre not obligated to do anything a dumb unobservant person cant do," is the answer. You can't unsee the things you've seen that a dumb and unobservant person wouldn't have. In fact, you're often going out of your way to see them. I'm not sure it's right that that doesn't come with added responsibility.

make the case for HUDs that is compatible w/ this POV

In online poker HUDs are part of "normal" play. Also, the first half of the sentence you quote is saying that I'm not sure how such situations should work or where the lines are, so I'm not sure what POV you think I have...

Huds/dataming/purchasing HH's are not part of "normal play" for the recreational player, and even a small % of Midstakes still dont use them.

Personally I think it is fine to look at another players playing cards aslong as you warn them the first time you notice, after that they are fair game.

That's where your sentence should end imo

If you want to give one warning because it feels like the courteous thing to do, that's fine. Feeling like you have to give exactly one warning and then it's fair game is totally arbitrary.

Yup.

I've seen people at live tables with a pen and notebook writing down stuff they (supposedly) observe. Is this not part of normal play and should be outlawed?

Also I agree with ike in the last few posts like I've certainly taken advantage of people telegraphing folds (marginal hand in HJ both CO and button are about to fold pretty easy open now) but there's a line somewhere. If someone bets out of turn is it ok for me to take advantage of it by checking my entire range? Because I do that. If that's ok what about stuff like intentionally mixing a big chip in to deceive my opponent on the size of my bet? What if I notice the dealer takes less than he should from my stack after I call an all-in and lose? Is it scummy to not speak up there? I personally think the last two are scummy and cheating but I think they're pretty close and could see arguments for them being part of the game, especially since I've had people try to do both against me. What about muttering all-in under my breath so only my opponent can hear me and then denying I said it if he calls (I think that's super unethical)? What if I'm cutting out chips (I personally never cut out chips in front of the line but if I did) to bluff and he says call before I'm done so I make it way less than I was going to (I think that's a gray area but definitely somewhat scummy)?

The bottom line is there are a lot of gray areas and if you are going to say every scenario I mentioned in my post is fine to do then I'd say you're pretty unethical but you could easily argue all of them by saying you have no obligation other than playing your own cards and trying to make money.

well, I was surprised when you said you would say something about a guy to your right telegraphing his actions that the guy to his right could take advantage of. After about 100 hands at an online table surely there would be similar predictive actions being telegraphed by the HUD statistics, since you can't always know for sure what a guy's live tells are (even if fairly certain).

Read most of thread, but don't remember it being asked, do you ever play tournaments? And if so, which ones?

Worthiness. (Could be talking about beer or post...)

HUD = computer doing what you could observe yourself if you were 1-tabling. Nothing more nothing less. Seriously I guarantee you I have better reads live after 100 hands than I do online after 100 hands against someone using my HUD. It's not the same game and you need to quit treating it as the same game.

edit: limon said he played over a million hands on party. Bets as to whether he used a HUD?

i loathe to go down the extreme hypothetical trail as soon we will be arguing about alien invasions or the existence of god, BUT, in both examples not noticing isnt bad poker. plenty of great poker players wouldnt notice a weak shuffle or a marked deck. mucking a winner or preloading and other sloppy play is bad poker. i dont feel an obligation to protect bad/sloppy poker players but i will protect the integrity of the game. i guess maybe we invoke the golden rule? (i know its a moving target) i would expect someone to tell me if they noticed a marked deck, i wouldnt expect someone to tell me i was a sloppy poker player.

ya i used/tried every piece of software known to man. when in rome...

i think "to look" implies an effort to see the cards. i would never make an effort to see my opponents cards but i do closely observe all their actions, centered in my seat, and if they show me the cards whether intentional or not, its on them.

many of the things you mentioned arent just playing your hand in an accepted straight forward way. they are active efforts to shoot an angle. just sitting around noticing sloppy play can never be an angle.

if im counting out a bluff and my opponent yells call the last chip i put out will be the last he gets. again, hes sloppy, he pays. in essence he acted out of turn.

yes, but 2+2 members make a lot of assumptions about this being the norm. sure, it is here, but I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of the online player pool worldwide don't. I have several friends who play semi-seriously live and online and without exception anytime they watched me play they would ask me what the HUD was and when I explained it to them we had basically the same debate about whether or not it was cheating or an unfair advantage.

regardless of whether it's "the same game" or not, the convictions are very similar to what people have leveled at limon regarding his observational habits at the table. in fact, I'd bet that if you were to ask casino players whether they'd be more disturbed by someone HUDing them online vs some guy just watching what they do at the table they'd be more likely to say using the HUD is the closest to cheating. it's not a question of whether it's a perfect analogy of games being played, it's the fact that doing either will create a divide of opinion re: ethics.

You have the right to passively notice anything put before you.
You have the right to be passive about what you notice.

Villain bets $300 OTF, Hero 'verbally' says "five hundred" without saying the word raise (or just puts in $500 in the pot) as he knows it's short and will not stand but he wishes to slow his opponent down (get a free river card, steal the pot OTT, whatever.)

Ethical?