Charity, Empathy or Bad Ethics

I played in the UK FT Poker Millions qualifier last night (top 27 all qualify) I was in 9th long stacked at 88k, blinds are 4k ante around 300, the field is down to 31, the player to my left is short stacked at 9k, he's been fighting hard but had some bad beats, I'm sat on the button and get dealt AA, the table folds to me and I raise to 8k, our friend sat on SB goes all in, BB folds.

Whether it was empathy with fellow table players, the fact I have been sat in his chair many times or that I admired the way he'd fought the last few hands and had such bad breaks I'm not sure but I could not bring myself to hit the call button, the clock ticked down and I auto fold.

2 hands later the bubble bursts, tourney over, qualified.

Afterwards I couldn't help think that my act of possible "charity" may have denied another player a qualification spot and in doing what I did I broke some unwritten ethical code somewhere. Sure our friend could have hit a set, 2 pair, straight or flush if I'd called, but my actions weren't out of "chip preservation", they weren't even poker based, I did what I did because I took pity on another player in a situation that would not effect the outcome for me.

Was what I did morally wrong? Your take on my actions and have you ever been in a similar situation?

I think it was just a charitable act on your part... I've been in both positions in the past... even in a position where I tried giving charity and it ended up needing it (arrogance on my part I suppose).
I mainly have this problem when I chat with players though and the moment there's a player on the table I get along with I have trouble sticking to my game and playing properly.
In the end that's poker... just like the short stack will get bullied on a small S&G table near the end... in this case you thwarted natural selection :P
but I don't think there's any reason you shouldn't feel good about it.
Its not your responsibility to ensure other players win or not... someone has to lose...

Ive done something similar to that before and i dont think anything was wrong with it. If you admired him and think he deserves it, just so long as your not in league and notify him it was intentional nor to anyone else on the table.

I was a recipient of one such kindness.

It was a player dealing tournament and this was at a time when i looked at my cards before everyone got dealt in (i was new didnt realise that was bad) and i was so short stacked that i was pretty much all in by my next blind.

Well the last card dealt flipped over and had to be re dealt, me showing my high pocket pair laughed at lucks jab at me and i showed everyone what i would of had.

Everyone pittied me and folded INCLUDING one man who folded turning aces.

I was touched to say the least.

Softplaying a person for reasons such as charity, pity, friendship, admiration, etc. is wrong according to the ethics of poker. Once you've entered the hand, and the short stack shoves for an amount that represents virtually no additional risk to call, folding is a clear softplay, and thus unethical. You are clearly denying the other players who are in jeopardy a high probability of qualifying when it costs you basically nothing to give them that opportunity.

Please, ethics in a poker game? What you did was kind to that player, who cares if you knocked someone else out. We're all gamblers here. Play your hand how you choose and feel no need to worry about how your play hurt someone else.

Um, yes softplay is against a written rule not some unwritten ethical code. Since you had the ticket wrapped up I could understand folding aces if it could jeopardize your chances, but not when shortstack only has 1/10 your chips.

Posting this on a big forum isnt smart since FT rep could see this since u blatently admit u broke the FT rules.
That said folding there is fine in satalite when your guranteed a spot by folding but folding because u feel sorry for villain, that should never enter your mind.

^^ This. Nice gesture. Bad play.

I wonder how you will feel if said recipient of your kindness knocks you out of the main event?

The OP is like Cpl. Upham in "Saving Private Ryan"! Way to have pity on the German soldier and save him so he can kill your buddy later!!! Upham was a cake eating bastard!!

There's always short stackers that are short due to bad beats. And I guarantee you there was a middle stack or a short stacker one of the other tables that didn't qualify because you did what you did!! Soft Play, who soft plays? and why? This just goes to show what taking dodge ball out of schools and giving kids ribbons for participating instead of wining does. It takes all competition out of things.

You were ok with stealing his blind? But, when he shoves all in, your not ok? Tom Hanks says there's no crying in baseball, well, there's no soft play in poker, period!!

Frankly, I consider soft playing cause you "like" someone to be an insult. So bad play & no credit given for "nice" gesture. Having said that, you are under no obligation to participate in a hand if, in your judgement, you are positioned to qualify without playing anymore.

Greatest response ever! lmfao

Softplay

I think what you did was very admirable and I can respect that .... I might have done the same thing myself especially since like you said he seem to have had alot of bad luck on his side and yet he kept fighting hard to wanna see someone like that lose especially so close to the money

hmmmmm, my question to you would be What were your intentions when you raised with AA? Were you raising to give away your chips or did you only get the idea to help a friend when you were re-raised? Yes they are your chips to use as you see fit, however soft play is not cool.

simply put its cheating....and i wouldnt write about it cause someone might see it and complain and get u dq'ed

The chances of a FT rep coming on here, reading this thread and dq'ing you are slim to none. You obviously are torn about your decision and wanted some guidance/opinions. You should feel comfortable doing that here.

I soft played my cousin at a live charity event. I could have taken her out but folded the best hand to her. I talked her into playing the event, her confidence was low so I wanted to help. It worked, she's now totally and completely addicted and rarely misses a live tourney in her area. She studies books now and other sources and makes a great effort to improve her game. I like to think she did that because I pushed her to play then soft played her at the table.

Later in the same tourney I had my AA cracked by 2nd chip lead (I was chip lead) by his KK. It's poker, it happens. A few hands later I did a big raise utg with QQ, she reraised me ai pf from her bb. I was shocked she did this and when she hit her A on her A6su hand I became resentful. I thought she made a stupid play and maybe in the back on my mind I expected her to stay clear of me. I'm not sure. What I am sure of is she does not let me forget how she "outplayed" me in that tourney last year. Whenever she talks about it I get resentful.

The truth is - it's all my fault. End of story. Maybe if I had taken her out like I ought to have done then maybe she would have learned humility and tried harder to learn from her mistakes. Instead, she's cocky as hell and honestly believes that risking most of her stack on A6 was the right move. I should have played my "A" game regardless of who I was in competition with.

Last year after this I called my own mothers all in at a cash table at the casino and busted her off. She's still mad at me about that. I warn everyone now that I bring my best game to the table and I expect them to do the same. There's no such thing as friends at the poker table.

We all go through rough periods, take bad beats, etc; Maybe this guy was meant to win a ticket and you were reason. Maybe he has a sick kid at home that needs expensive medical treatments he couldn't have otherwise afforded but you made it possible by soft playing so he wins a ticket, wins a substantial amount of money in the tourney and his kid lives.

Maybe the guy was meant to lose the tourney. You made it possible for him to get a ticket. He wins a substantial amount of money in the tourney, knocks you out in the bubble in the process, let's the money go to his head, becomes a gambling addict, loses his house, job, etc; and now his kid has to live in the streets with him and gets kidnapped, raped and tortured.

Sick I know. The point is we don't know what will happen but I believe if it was meant to be it would have happened without your pity.

From FT's Site Rules:

"6. Soft playing or chip dumping is not allowed. Any unethical play may result in the suspension or termination of the offender's account."

However, I agree with Storm . . . the chances of them coming on here to wag their fingers is slim to none. Everyone freaking out at you needs to take a chill pill. Furthermore, since you let the clock run, it's terribly hard to prove it--it could easily be written off as an unfortunate timing out. Heck, if you got away with it and didn't get hurt from it as a result, good for you. I wish someone was looking out for me whenever I take some bad beat hits.

To put more "flesh on the bones", my action (or lack of it) wasn't in anyway premeditated, I froze and cannot understand why, I have tried to reconcile with myself why I sat like a dummy staring at the screen rather than doing what I KNOW I should have done, my initial posting being my first attempt to rationalise the incident. I started the hand as normal, raising with the AA, when the call came I went brain dead.

Afterwards the consequences of the incident became apparent, yes it was a condescending insult to the "villain", yes it was unfair on a player who may have been eliminated as a result, yes it was bad play on part, yes I should be taken to a place of execution and hung by my pocket rockets until dead – I posted about it here because I am aware of all this and felt the need to "confess", that here maybe I could get some sort of insight from your responses into why I did it, together with some moral support and also the justified castigation, because frankly I'm still baffled by my thought processes throughout the entire incident.

If I had kept quiet, it would have been between me and my conscience, by posting I may at least prevent somebody else from making a similar mistake.

The "villain" won't get the chance to do a Cpl Upham because I never play the event I qualified for, I cash the FTP's instead.

With regards to FT & my risking suspension, I am fully prepared to take whatever punishment is due and as it is blatantly apparent I have breached an FT rule (something in my ignorance I wasn't aware of at the time) I have decided to email FT with a copy of my hand history for the game.

What, wow, don't do that!!! The most sever punishment is account banned and funds seized. If you haven't moved on from this and are offering up the HH to FTP without them requesting it, you probably shouldn't be playing poker.

None of the serious poker players understand what you did, nor do most of them really care. But, when you post something like you did in the OP you are going to get blasted. You made a mistake, you learned from it now move on. That's what learning poker is all about!!! Don't make this a bigger issue than it needs to be!!!

Poker isn't professional golf. You're under no obligation to talk to FT about anything you did.

As for the soft playing, the only time I'd do it is if I knew the player in question and KNEW he was worse than me. Sure, he might get lucky in the next tournament and beat me but I'd rather have a quantity I knew than one I didn't.

Kinda like last night's Nascar race. Kyle Busch had no friends sp nobody got out of his way to let him pick up a place or two. Brian Vickers had friends who raced him but then let him go. The chasers would much rather have Vickers in the chase than Kyle Busch.

Seriously, I read your post and stupidity should be the real answer.

I cannot even write up a serious reply to this especially when you said you would email FT ur HH, lollerskates.


Just wow.

Nothing wrong with using your time wisely, or scaredely (?), as u say u froze.... and 2 hands later you were safe and ITM... so the issue really was (even subconsciously) 'do I want to take ANY chance so close to ITM??' Sure you had him covered easily... what if u doubled him up? And u got KK next hand and chipped down some more?
The charity thing is a red herring, may have mixed its way into what was a good move as it turns out.
I still remember the one time I softplayed a MTT to let this person I had been chatting with stay in... he was super short stacked... he came back and busted me out , so I won't be doing that again!

I can't find a video of it but, there was a episode of clubwpt where they have 6 players play for $5000, anyway at one point of playing if I remember right the one guy raised with AK suited got a few folds comes to his brother/cousin which ever and they raise allin with like 10's and when it came around to the AK guy it was a very small amount to call and not much of his chips he folds. So then the crew in the truck recording it notified the TD and he warned them if they did that again they would incure a penalty. They deemed it colussion between the 2.

If anyone can find the video and post it you'll see what I'm talking about.

This is what i would have done.. i guess im not 'mean' enough for poker.

But why did you send the HH'S!!! you learned from your 'mistake', you didnt have to do that!

I actually saw that episode.

It's not chip dumping, but a bad play IMO. If there was someone else in the hand with you that could go over the top and you fold you're just protecting your stack. But with just you two in the pot and you had him well covered and crushed, plus all the ante money out there, I would have snap called.

^^^THis is a pretty good point. Don't beat yourself up over this.

Turning in your HH = bad idea. You posted here because it was bothering you and you wanted some opinions on it. You got them. You should feel comfortable posting ethical dilemas here on CC, know some will be harsher than others, but most will give you honest opinions and that is what you were looking for.

Don't think i have ever been in this situation. The fact that it was a top 27 qualify tourney makes it somewhat understandable. Could not ever imagine doing that when its an regular mtt. In your particular situation you raised to 8k when he had 9k my play wouldn't allow me to fold when doing this. Wrong or right i can't say. Maybe some day i will be in the situation and show charity though a doubt it.

What made you think you had to do that? I hope nobody on here made you think it was really so serious that you should turn yourself in . . . plenty of people have done it and will continue to do it. In fact, every U.S. citizen playing real money poker on oversea sites and not claiming their winnings is doing something against the law's rules, haha. Are we going to turn ourselves in? Hell no.

I had accidentally had two FT accounts. That's their first freaking rule on the page, haha. They found out and told me, they closed my second account and transferred the balance on that account back to my old account and reopened my old account for me. No problem, no hard feelings. FT is not looking for a way to kick people off of their site and take their money . . . they don't want that--they want you playing there.

Please tell me you didn't do that.

Although, I'm curious as to what they would say . . . whoever reads that email will be thoroughly confused, haha.

I've been thinking about this and have to admit I did something similar in a sng a couple years ago. I was at a final table of a 45 person sng, 3 of us left. One guy kept talking smack throughout the entire sng and was being a real jerk to everyone. I chose to not reply as many others were doing so all along.

The jerk was in 2nd, I took a bad beat by him and dropped down to being blinded out in my next sb. The next hand the jerk folds, chip leader had a pleasant attitude so I pushed ai on my bb with 42 os instead of waiting to see if my sb would hold better cards because I decided I would rather have my few chips left go to the player with a pleasant attitude rather than the jerk. It's possible I could've donked out and then later lost to the jerk but with such crappy cards I knew the chip leader in the sb, who had only called and not raised, would be ahead.

I haven't done anything like that since but it's hard to criticize when I did do something that would be considered unethical.

Was not unethical, they r your chips, you can risk them however u like. Did u come back and bust them both?

BTW Great White North is up here, not down there, lol, and the white stuff is comin!!

LOL, thanks Makwa! No, I lost the hand but was okay with it. It was either go all in that hand or the next, wanted the good player to have them.

Yes you are right, Canada is above me, I am in Northern Michigan, and yes the white stuff is coming. I can tell you are from an area that gets a lot of snow like me, it is considered a bad omen and a cuss word to say the "S" word during this time of year! LOL!