If you've played poker for any length
of time—well, no limit hold’em, anyway—you’ve no doubt heard a player say
something like, “I put you all-in,” or “I’m gonna put him all-in” (it’s usually
a “him” but it could be a “her”).
Usually it’s a heads up situation and
we all know what it means. It means the
player is saying he wants to bet enough so that the other player has to put all
his chips in play to call.
Except, there’s no such thing as
putting a player all-in. It’s not a
bet. No one can put you all in but
you. Another player cannot put you
all-in. All the other player can do is
bet so much that your two options are fold or put your entire stack in
play. And that’s what the player saying
this means.
The other problem with that statement
is that it sorta implies the player saying it actually can force a player to go
all-in. Of course, he cannot do
that. The player facing the action
always has the option of folding and thus not putting any more chips at
risk. Well, unless you’re playing in one
of those rough and tumble underground games where the guy saying “I put you
all-in” actually puts a gun to your head and says “You’re all in, Sonny.”
So we know what it really means, even
if, technically, it isn’t a real bet.
The dealer will usually say, “all-in” because that’s effectively what it
means. But I’ve also heard the dealer say,
“You can’t put him all-in. Are you
all-in?” That’s actually the right thing
for the dealer to do.
But what happens when a player says,
“I put him all-in” and it is not heads up? That’s what happened at a game I was in last
week in Vegas. I’m not real comfortable
with the way it turned out, actually. Let’s
hear what you think.
There were four people with hands seeing
the flop. A young, incredible talkative
player made a bet. I think his bet was the first one. He bet around $40-$50. That was probably a bit less than half his
stack. He didn’t have much more than
$100 after the preflop action. This guy
talked non-stop. He came to the table
talking about his bad tournament beat, and saw almost every flop. He’d bet almost every flop too. He talked about what he had, sort of,
sometimes lying (he once denied having a flush trying to get a call, and then,
when the guy folded, showed his flush).
he came close to breaking the rules for talking about the hand but never
quite did. I think he even showed a
bluff or two,
The next person to act was a very
quiet player. He had about $200-$300,
maybe a bit more. He had hardly said a
word all night. I couldn’t remember him playing
too many hands, either. He was as
nondescript as the first guy was attention-getting.
So, pretty much the first words I
heard him say for the two-plus hours we’d played together was just then, when
he said, “I’m gonna put him all-in.”
There was a big problem with this,
however. It was not a heads-up
situation. There were actually two
players with cards behind him, who had to act before it got back to the
chatterbox.
Now, what I think should have
happened, immediately after the guy said “I’m gonna put him all-in,” was the
dealer saying, “That’s not a bet, sir.
And there’s two other players with hands. What is your action?”
Actually, I’m not sure that the dealer is responsible for telling the player
there are players behind him, but the dealer definitely should have asked him
to clarify his action. The guy either
didn’t realize—or had forgotten—that there were other players with live
hands. I can certainly understand his
believing that the first guy didn’t have much of a hand.
The problem was, this particularly
dealer was new. Very new. I doubt she’s been dealing more than six
months, if that. And before she could say anything, before she could process
what the guy said and how to react to it, the next player with cards
mucked. He tossed his hand away as soon
as he heard “all-in.” In fact, it was so
fast, I assume he would have folded just in response to the first guy’s bet,
without the other guy acting. I don’t
recall that guy’s stack, but it doesn’t matter.
What does matter was the stack of the
last player with a hand. He had the other
two players covered. Easily. He had at
least twice as many chips as the guy who said, “I’m gonna put him all-in.”
Now, I have no idea how the dealer
interpreted the action thus far. She
still could have said to the guy that he hadn’t taken a legitimate action. The problem was the next guy mucked so fast
she moved on to the last player—the one with the biggest stack. I’m guessing she took his action as “all-in”
but she didn’t throw an “all-in” card in front of him (which, again, might be
due to her being new).
Here’s where it gets a little dicey. I
know this last player. Know him well. I
know him because he works in this very poker room as a floorman. When he isn’t flooring he’s playing poker in
the room he works. He plays a lot of
poker and he’s very good at it.
I guess he asked the dealer if the
player was all-in, and the dealer, though a bit confused, said he was. The off-duty floorman knew the player hadn’t
said he was all-in, even though he had used the words, “all-in.” At this point, the player who made the
incorrect declaration started to panic, and he immediately denied being
“all-in.” By now he had noticed the
stack of the off duty floorman’s stack, and clearly didn’t want to risk all
that money he’d been sitting behind for all those hours. He was only willing to risk however many
chips the chatterbox had because he thought the guy was full of it.
The player started arguing vehemently
that he wasn’t all-in….only that he wanted to put the first player all-in. “I’m
not all in, I just wanted to put him all-in.” Of course, that’s not possible
do, is it? The dealer apparently took
the position that he was all-in…period. I
suppose it’s possible that the dealer only heard him said “all-in” and not the
rest of it, but I really doubt that.
This player was sitting right next to the dealer.
I don’t believe the floorman ever
insisted that the other player was all-in….only that what he said, and what he
now wanted (to be all-in only against the first player) was not legal, or even
possible. It didn’t take long for the
floorman to ask the dealer to call the floor (it’s possible the dealer thought
of this first, not sure).
While waiting for the floor to come
by, more debate was taking place, with the player now at risk insisting that he
never intended to be all-in—not against the big stack.
It was actually the shift manager who
came by. When he heard the story, he
wasted no time in saying, “You’re all-in. Once you say all-in, you’re
all-in.” He even pushed the guy’s stacks
forward in front of him. By now, it was
pretty clear that the off duty floorman was going to call the all-in, and he
did, even as the guy kept protesting that he wasn’t all-in. I guess it was the shift manager who told him
that he has to be careful what he says, and once he says “all-in”, that’s
it. He’s all-in.
I don’t really remember the hand
much. I’m not sure the poor guy even
showed his hand after he saw the off duty floorman’s cards. The floorman won the main pot and the side
pot (yeah, chatterbox called, but he didn’t show his hand either). The guy who had just lost $250+ got up, totally
dejected, still complaining to the shift manager that what happened to him
wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair, he said,
and it wasn’t right. Someone—the dealer,
the shift manager, another player…not sure…said, “Well, it’s a lesson learned.”
I’m guessing that guy never plays
poker in casino poker room ever again.
I want to make one thing clear at this
point. In my opinion, the decision of
the shift manager was not affected in any way, shape or form by the fact that
his ruling benefited his colleague, a fellow employee in the room. I don’t think that for a minute. If anything, I think he would have bent over
backwards to rule in favor of the player he didn’t know. Of course, I have no proof of that; it’s just
my gut feeling.
But that said, the fact that it did
benefit an employee really helped leave a bad taste in my mouth, more than it
otherwise would have, I think.
I’m pretty sure the guy who got burned
was fairly new to the game. So I can understand him not realizing that you
can’t “Put him all-in.” Hell, I’ve seen
experienced players try to do that.
But to be fair to the shift manager—it
is every player’s responsibility to be aware of the action and there’s no
excuse for him not knowing that there were two other players in the hand. Surely he was experienced enough to realize that
you can’t put another player all-in if there are players behind you with more
chips than the guy you want to put all-in.
So he cannot be considered blameless here at all. And it’s also true, if you say “all-in”—even
as a joke—you are always at risk of being held to it.
Still, you could look at it this way.
He never acted on his hand. What he said
cannot be done, it’s not an action. As I
said, the dealer should have immediately told him that what he said was not a
valid action and asked him for a valid action.
He might as well have said, “I’m taking Miami and the points next
week.” It isn’t a valid poker action.
Or….he could have said, “I bet 100
Simoleons.” It’s meaningless, since
there are no Simoleons at the table. Bad
analogy? Maybe, since if he said “I
bet…” he’s obligated to put something (real) into the pot.
How about this:. If a card comes out of the deck “boxed” it is
considered nothing….it doesn’t exist (a boxed card is one that comes out face
up instead of face down). It is not used at all, it might as well be piece of
note paper. I’m thinking his saying “I
put him all-in” is like a boxed card coming out—it’s meaningless.
His verbal action was also
“nothing.” He didn’t say he was
all-in. He said he was putting another
player all-in—not a valid action. I’ll
say it again, you can’t put another player all-in. A player can only put himself all-in. He should have been told immediately to do
something he could do. Like call, or
fold, or raise (and then figure out how much to raise so he could force the guy
to be all-in if he wanted to call).
But the dealer was inexperienced and
didn’t do that. And as a result, this
guy, who may have been having a really good time up to that point, ended up
bitter, upset, and burned for a few hundred bucks. It’s a shame.
All this said, I don’t really know
what the right solution is….at least not once the shift manager came by to make
a ruling. At that point, it was a little
late to say, “OK, the action is on you, you can’t put a player all-in, what do
you want to do?”
What do you folks think? What should have happened here? Was the decision right? Or was there another way?
