You've got to be careful what you say

This blog post was originally an overly long footnote in my post from a few minutes ago about "The Tournament Host." Upon re-reading, I think it deserves to be a separate entry. So first I'm going to repeat the paragraph to which it was appended (so the story may sound familiar, if you're reading things in chronological order of posting), then carry on with my related thoughts.


Also at today's tournament, in a hand I wasn't in, an early-position player raised. When the action got around to the guy on the button, he addressed the raiser and said, "I know you're raising with nothing. You have something like 8-2 of diamonds. I'm calling it right now." Then he threw his cards in the muck. It took me a couple of seconds to realize what had happened, but in retrospect what he apparently meant by "I'm calling it" was not that he was calling the raise, but that he was predicting what the raiser's cards were. But any competent dealer should have considered that a verbal, binding announcement of his action, and any floor person called to settle the inevitably resulting dispute should do the same. Again, their own rule #30 repeats the universal recognition that "[v]erbal declarations in turn are binding." Universal, that is, except in TH tournaments, I guess.

A very interesting incident along these lines happened at the final table of the World Poker Tour's "World Poker Open" at The Gold Strike Casino in Mississippi (season 5). Kido Pham, a well-known semi-professional tournament player, raised with K-7. An amateur, Gary Kainer, was short-stacked in one of the blinds, holding A-Q. He moved all-in, which constituted a big reraise.

Pham asked him, "Do you want me to call you?" He got no answer. Pham then told Kainer that he (Kainer) could decide--Pham would either call or fold, whichever Kainer wanted him to do. He said, "You call it--yes, no, whatever." This is an interesting ploy, one that I had never heard before. If Kainer took him up on the offer, it would make for an interesting question as to the rules, whether or not Pham's promise was binding. But it didn't come to that, because Kainer wisely just kept his mouth shut.

Finally, Pham apparently realized that he wasn't going to get any useful information from his opponent, and gave him a time limit for answering: "Three seconds. You call it." Still no response, so Pham counted down the time: "One. Two. Three. I call it." The dealer announced a call, and the announcer in the arena repeated that. But Pham quickly realized that he had been misunderstood; he didn't mean that he intended to call the bet, only that his offer to let Kainer make the decision for him was rescinded, and he (Pham) would make the decision for himself. Daniel Negreanu, also at the table, pointed out, "You said 'I call it.'"

The tournament director was called in to make a ruling, and he decided--correctly, in my view--that Pham's words "I call it" were binding, regardless of whether he intended something other than calling the bet. While they were awaiting the decision, commentator Mike Sexton observed, "Vince, he would have nobody to blame but himself if they make him put his money in and he loses this pot"--which is exactly what happened. After the ruling against him, Pham stated the obvious, that he never would have called with just a K-7. (Which raises the question of what he would have done if Kainer had taken him up on his offer and said, "OK, I want you to call.") That one little mistake may have cost Pham the tournament, and a few hundred thousand dollars in prize money.

A dealer friend once told me of an instance in which a player during a hand was telling the guy next to him a story about something that had happened long ago. The story included saying "All in," and this player said those words quite loudly (apparently recreating how it had happened). His opponent thought that the story-teller was declaring himself all-in, and immediately said "I call," and turned his hand up. The story-teller had had no intention of moving all in, but had just picked an unfortunate time to be saying those words loudly enough to be heard across the table. His words were ruled to be binding, even though he hadn't intended them that way.

It has to be so. Otherwise, you could have a scenario like this: Suppose I'm facing a large all-in raise from an opponent, and I've noticed previously that as soon as he gets called on his all-in bets, he instantly flips over his cards. (One should do this, of course, but not quite instantly. It's usually wise to take a few seconds to be absolutely sure that all the betting is over, that one's opponent really said he was calling, etc. I usually just wait for the dealer to instruct me to turn them over, because then any misunderstanding is the dealer's error, not mine.) I'm not sure what to do, so I say, "I'm going to call," kind of drawing out that last word, trying to induce my opponent to flip over his cards so I can see what I'm up against. Then, if I see that he has me in a bad spot, I complete the thought with, "...my mother on the phone at the next break." I then claim that my opponent jumped the gun, and I wasn't announcing my action.

Players have to be careful with the short list of words that sound like verbal declarations of action, particular when it's their turn.


Addendum, October 3, 2007:

By odd coincidence, I saw another example of this today while playing in the last-ever Hilton monthly freeroll tournament.

Before the flop, the player who was going to be second to act started to push his whole stack in when it wasn't yet his turn. He aborted the move before the chips crossed the betting line. (I don't know whether he was honestly mistaken or whether this was angle-shooting, but it doesn't matter for the point of this story.) The player under the gun noticed this, and asked him something like, "You're all in?" The dealer announced "All in." He heard clearly those last two words from this player, but not what went before it. The player protested that she wasn't moving all in.

The dealer called the floor person over and explained that the only thing he had heard clearly was "all in." The player confirmed that she had indeed uttered those words, but as part of a question to the other player. The floor person ruled that her words constituted a binding declaration of action. (Part of his reason was that one can't ask a player yet to act what he's going to do.) Presumably, if the dealer clearly heard the words "all in," other players might have heard them, too, and we can't have players trying to be weaselly by letting those words be heard, in order to see the reaction from other players, then retract them as having been accidental or misunderstood if it looks like somebody behind him--perhaps a player with pocket aces--welcomes that move. (I'm confident the player today was not trying to be tricky in such a manner. But the rule has to be enforced the same regardless of one's intentions, because intentions are impossible to know with certainty.)

Like the heading to this post says, you have to be careful what you say at the table, particularly when it's your turn to act.