Throwing chips unaware the pot had been raised

[D.C.]

Hello fellow TDs,

I have just purchased Thomas McGee's fantastic compilation (R.O.P.E.) and would like to congratulate him for this outstanding work for the community.

Of course I have seen some points where different TDs around the world would disagree and some tournaments follow slightly different procedures, but there's one with which I'd like to ask our members to share their points of view.

On the section "Betting and Raising", part #29, there's a section that reads:

If you are unaware that the pot has been raised, you may not withdraw that portion of chips that have been committed to the pot. You may reconsider your option to either call or fold.

This seems highly illogical to me considering the other rules that cover betting and acting in poker. I tend to find the fundamentals, reason and logic to every rule in poker, but this one seems very odd. It seems to protect the player that is not paying attention to the game and not understanding that its his responsibility to know where action is and what has happened to that moment in the hand.
My view of the situation is this (let's consider blinds are 500 - 1000 in all examples for clarification purposes):

1 - Whenever a player acts in turn that action is binding.

2 - Let's say player A is first to act and, in turn, acts by betting 6000 chips by putting six 1000 chips in the pot, but not saying anything. I believe everyone here will agree that action binds him to the 6000 bet.

3 - Now let's say player A has bet 2000 by silently putting two 1000 chips and then player B, also silently and in turn, puts six 1000 chips into the pot. That action clearly signifies a raise to 6000, right?

So the action of putting chips into the pot, in turn, is binding, unless the player has stated something different prior to releasing the chips.

Now to me, it seemed logical that, if player A raises to 10.000 and player B, listening to his loud music with powerful noise-reduction headphones, puts in 3.000 chips into the pot, clearly signifying an intention to raise. Player B has put in chips in the pot but those chips were not enough to constitute a raise (it's not at least 50% of the minimum amount required to raise the pot). Therefore, it seems natural to me that he would then be obligated to call the preceding bet. (Kind of the live version of the online misclick lol).

Now, I have seen both interpretations in use in various tournaments. I played a tournament at The Venetian Extravaganza series last year where this same situation arose and the floor obligated the player with a huge all-in call.

This last week at LAPT Brazil, the TD ruled the player could forfeit the chips he'd put in the pot and fold the hand.

I feel the later conduct is condescending with the inconsiderate and not focused player and goes against other precepts of poker rules. RROP has added this safeguard ins his compilation to exempt unaware players of an obligation.

Please share your thoughts in this matter.

Best Regards,
DC

[Stuart Murray]

I have to say I am fully with ROPE and WSOPE rules that make a player who has called not realizing the pot has been raised forfeit the chips and or fold or complete only.  The TDA rule I believe is scheduled for review as if playing by only TDA rules you may 'retract and re-consider' your actions, which IMO is nonsensical, in the same way as forcing a player who has made an action not realizing the action has changed to him to call the faced bet is.

I adopted the 'chips stay in and you can complete or fold' into our national rules which are TDA compatible, as I firmly believe it is the fairest and most robust method.  Players should pay attention for sure, but IMO they should not be penalized so much that they have to commit every chip they have, for example;

A player raises all-in for 21,500 pre-flop with blinds of 600/1200, an intervening player, not aware the pot has been raised and not paying attention throws in 1,200 to call the Forced Bet, before it is drawn to their attention a player has changed the action to 21,500 total, the player who called started the hand with 19,000 so would be all-in to call.  Leaving the 1,200 in and either letting him fold or call all-in is the fairest mode, as I don't believe forcing that player to place in his full stack is in the best interests of tournament poker, and letting him take the 1,200 back is pretty easy going.

No doubt this will be one of these topics that vary widely in discussion.  Thanks for sharing!

Regards
Stu

[WSOPMcGee]

Well put Stuart. Forcing players to call a significant amount of chips, up to all-in, when only intending to call the blind is certainly not in the best interest of the game. Sort of along the lines of my argument of forcing people to raise, and reopen the betting, when they clearly don't want to. But that's another argument

Hello fellow TDs,

I have just purchased Thomas McGee's fantastic compilation (R.O.P.E.) and would like to congratulate him for this outstanding work for the community.

First let me say thanks. Any and all feedback is appreciated.

D.C., I work at the Venetian during the DSE tournaments and there they have VERY STRICT policies, especially regarding chips and the betting line. I disagree with some of these policies, but their position is very clear and they explain these policies in depth at the beginning of every tournament. The rule to which you are referring to is this one:

The Betting Line: If you cross the betting line with chips in your hand you will be FORCED to make the minimum bet if there is no action to you or FORCED to make the minimum call if there is action to you.

In the case of the later, if a player goes all-in in front of you and you cross the betting line with chips in your hand, they will force you to call whatever the action is to you.

They are extremely strict there about this rule and some others.

In the RRoP, almost all rule definitions are for standard live action cardrooms. Some are included in tournament and some are not. In many cardrooms a player who calls in turn not knowing that the action has changed to them are allowed to retrieve their bet and fold. They do this to keep their customers happy. Making players call any bet when they don't realize what the action is, makes for very unhappy customers.

However, in tournament play this is not allowed and we require that any chips committed to the pot must remain as long as action took place in turn. This is the penalty for not paying attention. Meanwhile, if the action is out of turn, we let them retrieve their bet. Why? Not really sure, but they tell me it's because the action changed. Seems to me they should be faced with the same penalty as someone who does this in turn. Anyhow, the point is, making the amount of chips committed to the pot remain is supposed to be enough of a penalty to act as a deterrent and encourage players to follow the action without committing them to a significant bet, including all-in, and putting their tournament life on the line for a minor mistake.

[Nick C]

Sorry guys,
I've always been against a rule that forces a player to put chips into the pot when the bet to him was unclear or obviously misunderstood. If the action is corrected before another player reacts (substantial action), I think that player should be allowed to retract his bet. The intent of the player must always be taken into consideration. When it was clearly a misunderstanding, IMO a warning should be enough. There are examples from other rule books that cover this situation and I like the way it is worded. Example: Player A bets 300, Player B raises to 3000, and Player C says raise and tosses 600 into the pot. It is obvious that this is a gross misunderstanding and I don't think that Player C should be liable for even the 600. According to what you are saying, you might hold that player to the verbal raise and force them to put 6000 in the pot! I don't like it.

[WSOPMcGee]

Sorry guys,
I've always been against a rule that forces a player to put chips into the pot when the bet to him was unclear or obviously misunderstood. If the action is corrected before another player reacts (substantial action), I think that player should be allowed to retract his bet. The intent of the player must always be taken into consideration. When it was clearly a misunderstanding, IMO a warning should be enough. There are examples from other rule books that cover this situation and I like the way it is worded. Example: Player A bets 300, Player B raises to 3000, and Player C says raise and tosses 600 into the pot. It is obvious that this is a gross misunderstanding and I don't think that Player C should be liable for even the 600. According to what you are saying, you might hold that player to the verbal raise and force them to put 6000 in the pot! I don't like it.

I wouldn't make them put 6,000 in the pot, but I sure as heck would make them put in 5,700 

I get where you're coming from though. They let players in live games retract their bet all the time.

[Brian Vickers]

Sorry guys,
I've always been against a rule that forces a player to put chips into the pot when the bet to him was unclear or obviously misunderstood. If the action is corrected before another player reacts (substantial action), I think that player should be allowed to retract his bet. The intent of the player must always be taken into consideration. When it was clearly a misunderstanding, IMO a warning should be enough. There are examples from other rule books that cover this situation and I like the way it is worded. Example: Player A bets 300, Player B raises to 3000, and Player C says raise and tosses 600 into the pot. It is obvious that this is a gross misunderstanding and I don't think that Player C should be liable for even the 600. According to what you are saying, you might hold that player to the verbal raise and force them to put 6000 in the pot! I don't like it.

Nick, I have always felt this same way, as I am generally in line with RROP 99% of the time.  Have to weigh the probability that a new player who misunderstood the action will leave your poker room with a bad taste in his mouth if he had to give up chips when another player's action was not clear. 
An example of a time when I think this is the favorable ruling is this:  Often the player in 1 seat is not able to see the player in seat 10, or the chips that he bets because of his vantage point.  If the action goes call 100, call 100, call 100, then seat 10 raises to 1000, and the player in seat 1 puts out 100 before the dealer announced that seat 10 raised, then this isn't a player not paying attention, but is now going to have to waste 100 chips in order to fold.


Regardless of my own personal feelings on the matter, I recognize that there are clear advantages and disadvantages to both ways, and I am fine going with either one if it means we will have one uniform ruling.

[D.C.]

Regardless of my own personal feelings on the matter, I recognize that there are clear advantages and disadvantages to both ways, and I am fine going with either one if it means we will have one uniform ruling.

Exactly, Brian!

Now, just for information sake: you guys know wht is done in that situation at WSOP, WPT and EPT?

Player can (A) forfeit the hand and lose the chips put in the pot or (B) is obligated to call.

Thanks,
DC

[Brian Vickers]

Regardless of my own personal feelings on the matter, I recognize that there are clear advantages and disadvantages to both ways, and I am fine going with either one if it means we will have one uniform ruling.

Exactly, Brian!

Now, just for information sake: you guys know wht is done in that situation at WSOP, WPT and EPT?

Player can (A) forfeit the hand and lose the chips put in the pot or (B) is obligated to call.

Thanks,
DC

I'm sure this topic will be discussed at length at the upcoming summit.

[WSOPMcGee]

Now, just for information sake: you guys know wht is done in that situation at WSOP, WPT and EPT?

Player can (A) forfeit the hand and lose the chips put in the pot or (B) is obligated to call.

Thanks,
DC

In WSOP, WPT and EPT - In a raised pot a player who places chips into the pot in turn, unaware of the action, has two options: 1) complete the call, or 2) Forfeit the chips and fold their hand.

Those are the only options. They may not retrieve / withdraw their chips.

[D.C.]

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for the info. As I said above, I'm  fine with going either way, as long as a standard is set.

Personally, I dislike any situation that leaves a choice for the player that has done something wrong or not exactly right.

For example, some tournaments are very strict in the ruling of this extensively discussed situation:
Player A goes all in, is called by player B and player C is thinking. Dealer accidentally mucks player's A cards. Player A is eliminated because his allin bet was called and he has no cards.
He did not protect his hand and it his fault. I saw this happen at least 14 times during LAPT Brazil on February.

Now, in the situation that this topic refers to, we allow the player that wasn't paying attention some room to get out of the problem, somewhat easy, IMO.
That duality in treatment of a player's lack of attention and care for the action to him is what troubles me. Again, I have no problem ruling either way, as long as the rulings are coherent, which in this case I don't think they are that much sound.

In a personal note, I think this TDA summit should be a little more incisive in creating a more rigid standard for rulings. The TDA rules need to be expanded to incorporate other rules of poker.
Poker is in North American culture and it is reasonable that we expect those players (and all the other guys that have played for some time) how to behave at a poker table but we should understand and accept that internet and television have brought a huge growth to the poker player base. IMO, we need to create a standard for poker rules, seeking what was, what is and what should be for poker tournaments.
RRoP are a base for every discussion and the contribution of Bob Ciaffone to the community is immeasurable, however, I believe it is time TDA becomes the poker equivalent of FIA for racing sports, FIFA for football (soccer for the American folks  ) or FINA for swimming. IMO the goal is to have rules of poker applied the same way everywhere, and we can't have this without a denser more comprehensive document than the TDA rules we have today.

Well, this is just something to think about.

Sorry for the long post.
Best regards,
DC – Brazilian Series of Poker.

[Spence]

Personally, I dislike any situation that leaves a choice for the player that has done something wrong or not exactly right.

For example, some tournaments are very strict in the ruling of this extensively discussed situation:
Player A goes all in, is called by player B and player C is thinking. Dealer accidentally mucks player's A cards. Player A is eliminated because his allin bet was called and he has no cards.
He did not protect his hand and it his fault. I saw this happen at least 14 times during LAPT Brazil on February.

In this circumstance, we have a contingent.
>Player 1 Bets 1500
>Player 2 goes all-in for 5000
>Player 3 Fold
>Player 4 Fold
>Player 5 Fold
>Dealer accidently mucks Player 2's hand.
Player 1 never called the bet. We return the uncalled portion of the all-in bet to player 2 (3500) and send the pot to the last remaining live hand, Player 1
This would also apply (not necessarily under these circumstances) to a player who accidently mucks his hand thinking that there was no one left in the pot.

[Nick C]

D.C.
I couldn't agree with you more. Great post. I'd like to see the TDA expand their rules, just like you suggested. I think that is the only way that standardized rules for poker will ever be achieved.

Spence,
I agree, there is not much we can do for any player that fails to protect their own hand.