All in or not

So I am at a 1-2 NL game and there is a hand with two players left.

The turn comes and the first player who has $200 makes it $50. The second player has about $90 and moves the whole stack past the line and quietly says call. The dealer says all in and the first player says call.

In the meantime the second guy tells the dealer he said call not all in so the dealer puts $40 back and deals the river. The first player still thinks the guy is all in and shows his cards. The second guy mucks and then the first guy see's that he still has some chips left and questions the dealer about the all in call and he says he would have made a bet on the river if he had known the guy was not all in.

Of course there begins a whole table full of arguments about should haves etc. etc.

The question is, should the dealer have given him his chips back or declared it to be an all in as the stack crossed the line.

I don't think this was an angle shoot as the second player did not seem to be very familiar with live poker and his demeanor was one of uncertainty throughout the game.

In my opinion this is another of many problems that can be avoided if the dealer would just do his job and take control of the table.

At the least he should have made sure player one knew that he has ruled that it was not an all in as he had stated so player one could have made his bet on the river.

 

The dealer is wrong. Once you push your chips past the line they are in play. Otherwise you are string betting which isn't allowed. If you let people put chips forward and take them back there is a chance of them trying to just get a reaction (as can be seen with first player flipping his cards) to see what the other guy has. Even if it wasn't him trying to.. the rules are the rules. Dealer should have told second place, sorry these are the rules, and the guy would then have learned his lesson. Dealer should not have given him back his chips and if I was player 1 I would have called over a floor manager.

 

I'm not a NL player but I agree about chips crossing the line. It's a string raise. The dealer was wrong.

One thing I'll say for the OP is I would not have turned over my cards until the other player did. You called his all in, even if he didn't mean it. So aggressor shows first. It's similar to protecting your cards with a card protector or keeping your hand on them to prevent the dealer from grabbing them. A good dealer should not muck your hand early but I'd rather make sure. I even hold onto my cards when I show.

 

This is actually not cut and dry from the information you gave. Lines are not always binding in card rooms it depends on the casino and the house rules.

Did the guy say call before he released his chips or after if it was before its only a call unless house rules state that any chips pushed beyond the betting line are binding. Timing of when he said call is a huge factor here if he pushed his stack forward and released the chips then stated call he is all in regardless as he had released his chips in the pot. From the information you gave it depends on many factors for instance at Mandalay Bay the betting line is binding at MGM it is not.

Players often will grab a stack of chips move them beyond the betting line and say call and drop the amount of the call or cut out the amount of the call from that stack while at some rooms the total stack pushed forward is not binding until it is released other rooms any forward motion would make it binding unless a verbal declaration was made first. So depending on many factors this could be a correct or incorrect ruling.

 

I agree with Equalizer.

And even if the line is binding in this poker room: If the player said "call" before his chips crossed the line it is a call no matter what. Verbal bets are binding in any card room I know, line or no line.

Also I find it hard to put too much blame on the dealer, when he returned the $40 to the player on the turn, it was pretty obvious what was happening, no need to explain this to each player individually imho...

 

I'd have to go with what The Equalizer and Canyonero have said: the rules aren't always the same at every casino and if the dealer pushes some of the guys chips back, if the player that exposed his hand was paying attention he would have seen that and could have stopped the action and asked the dealer for clarification of what was going on and why the player was getting chips back.


And a couple of other thoughts:

1) At most places, in cash games even if all players are all in and there are still cards to come you don't have to reveal your cards until showdown. People do it because its what they see on TV, which is generally tournament poker. But again, this can depend on the casino.

2) Because you are playing against other players and you don't know their motivations, skill levels or just how much of a ***** the other guy is, in poker you really need to be aware of whats going on.
In this case maybe the guy who called wasn't trying to angle shoot, but there are bad players and novice players that make mistakes, but also players that do things like that intentionally or do other little "tricks" and "moves" to abuse the rules of the game to get whatever advantage they can; so you really need to pay attention and know whats going on when its your turn to act.

 

I hate to beat the proverbial dead horse, but the answer has been given here: If he said "CALL", and then erroneously pushed out more than a call amount, the CALL stands.

On top of that, it was the first player's (the one who won the pot) fault for

a: not protecting his hand.
b: not verifying the call/shove
c: being in a rush to turn over his cards.

PROTECT YOUR HAND UNTIL ALL THE CHIPS ARE BROUGHT IN AND STAY IN!!!

You constantly hear about guys getting "angled" and cheated. The only way you get cheated is if you let somebody. You MUST protect your action at all times.*not to say that I always follow my own rules, we all make mistakes*

 

If the pushing of the chips is first and then says call then what is the ruling?

 

Again, too many variables. Is there a line? Does this room have a "forward motion" rule? If there is a line, the chips all go over the line in one motion, and then the player says "call", most rooms would consider the motion of the chips to be binding.

 

Regardless of the actual detail of the order of what happened, I find it odd the dealer just made a ruling and no one complained. The floor supervisor should be called, the dealer should explain the situation (and only the dealer), and the floor should make a ruling. In these confusing situations the dealer often does this to cover their a-- and I am surprised this didn't happen here.

 

It's the job of the dealer to clarify the action. Dealer declares it's an all-in, if it wasn't the player needs to speak up immediately or it's binding. In this case, player 1 acted on the information. Player 2 unfortunately wasn't clear here and should thus be forced into the all-in.

Dealer should not be allowed to change the action at this point and if player 2 wants to call the floor and get a ruling I think it should be his right, but it's not fair that player 2 only has to call while knowing player 1 has a hand that could call an all-in.

 

There is no doubt that the dealer should have clarified the action but that does not mean that the player should have to commit his chips if he made a verbal call declaration before committing the chips to the pot under the house rules. Dealers make mistakes all the time that does not mean due to a dealers mistake a player should be punished.

Now if the player under the house rules had committed the chips to the pot before the verbal call was made then the other player should not be punished because the dealer did not control the game properly and the chips should stay in the pot but based on the original post there is not enough information on either the house rules or the timing or the verbal call to make that decision which is why i said this could be a correct or incorrect ruling.

 

A lot of great points here and I will try to clarify a couple things.

Player two is sitting in seat 1, beside the dealer, and player one is sitting in seat 9 with a not so clear view of player two.

Player two pushed his stack over the line and the dealer said all-in. I am not sure when player two said call as all we could hear is the dealer saying all - in (I was in seat 8)

At that point player one said "call". The dealer did not return any chips at that point and just dealt the river and then started to cut player two's chips for what was assumed to get a count but from our vantage point it was hard to tell what was going on.

Player one then turned up his cards, as in his mind he was the caller of the all in and in turn would be the first to show. Player two mucked and it was then that seat 7 questioned why player two still had chips left as from our seats 8-10 we could not see them and then player one said he understood the player was all in.

I do not play here very often so I do not know the rules here as far as chips going over the line but I know one other dealer had asked a player to put his chips over the line when he had called a bet and they were sitting just behind the line.

As a side note they have a layout in front of the dealer that says "lucky lucky flop" and it has a spot for each seat that you can make a side wager as to what the flop cards add up to. I think it pays 1-1 if its 19, 2-1 if 20, 3-1 if 21 and then goes from there for straight, a flush etc. I have never seen this before but thought it was kinda cheesy and has no place at the table. No-one was playing this.

Not bad enough they take a 10% rake up to $5 and a dollar for the bad beat (which hit at the next table for a $39,000 pot) but also trying to get another buck from you with this carney game.

 

if the dealer turned a card while the chips were in they are committed once the player called after the dealer announced the other player was all in the first player should have made it known he verbally said call if the dealer did not give him the chips back prior to the next card being turned they are committed. This type of situation is why i will tell the dealer to pull bets in before they deal anymore cards. It is the correct procedure for the dealer to make the pot correct pull the bets in to the center then deal a card but many dealers dont always do it because they try to speed up the action to get more hands in which increases their tips and this kind of issue arises due dealers cutting corners.

 

If call was said before their push, then call it is. If they push past the line, then said call then verbal doesn't count- they have already shoved. The first player should have asked for a count, then the second player would either count or object, then things would have been straightened out.

To me personally, it is all moot. If they each didn't hesitate to drop $50 on the turn, they would have put them all in on the river.

 

That's a raise/all-in.

Verbal action always take precedence. In the absence of a verbal declaration, action is also binding...

With one caveat - without verbal action, a single chip of greater value than the standing bet is declared a 'call' if it is the player's smallest chip denomination.

Or, in English...

In a 1/2 game, if the pre-flop goes unraised and a player only has a stack of reds ($5 chips) and tosses one red chip without saying anything, it is taken as assumption that he is calling $2 and not raising to $5. If he wishes to raise to $5, he must verbally say so.

 

It doesn't matter whether he said call...

He shoved his chips, the dealer said all-in, the player who shoved did not correct that...
Then dealer dealt out the rest of the cards.
This player was all in & the caller should have been paid as such. Caller definitely should have called the floor supervisor over (thought he shouldn't have had to...)--it's always on the tape if there is question.
Additionally, poker etiquette says that the caller of a bet has the right to wait for the initial better to show their cards first --the "I paid to see them" theory.

Heck, I've seen a dealer at Harrah's in Vegas give a gal her cards back from the muck when all she needed to do was check...she ended up winning the hand. Luckily it was a tournament & an innocuous hand or someone probably would have spoken up...

 

It's not just etiquette. It's the rules.

Otherwise the two players can sit there and argue while staring at each other until the sun explodes.

You are the last one called --- after the river betting the action is to you. You have 30-60 seconds to either reveal your hand to claim the pot, or muck (fold).

It continues in this fashion clockwise - best hand shown wins, or if every mucks to the last player.

 

It depends.

If he crossed the line and lifted his hand from his chips AND THEN said "call," it's an all-in bet. If he still had his hand on his chips and said "call," then it is just a call. There's a difference there.

The dealer should have corrected the action immediately, regardless, and the floor should have been called for a ruling.

Players are responsible for knowing the rules. When you lose a pot because you didn't know the rules, those are the rules that you never forget.

 

If the player said call and the dealer said all in, there's a problem right there before anything else happens. That should have been clarified right then before anything else. I'm not sure how the original raiser lets the game proceed without getting that clarified.