poker question for those in the know.

hi i was watching a local hold em game recently,4 players left blinds were 600/1200 player under the gun tried to raise 1k but when corrected(correctly to say it should be 1200)min bet he changed his bet and went all in to which the next player to act(the dealer and chip leader took exception)and said cant change your bet and threw his cards face up showing(a-9) 2 players left to act(the blinds)were both holding(a-rags),the dealer causing a mini riot as he wanted hand re-dealt anyway the blinds folded(obviously imo) the raiser won the pot but im not sure what the ruling is for changing a bet in that way.if anyone understands this post could you please enlighten me to what course of action should have been taken,we're all amateurs so no on professes to know every ruling.....cheers guys

I think that he would have been limited to a 1200 bet but some places would have made the verbal 'Raise' binding and have made the player put in 2400. As for the exposed cards this does vary by room. Most would have acted just as this dealer did, A9 hand would still be live. But if he actually threw his cards into the muck face up I think that either of the 2 players could have raised and taken the pot.

lol...my ruling would be that:

1) UTG "should" have been forced to have raised just a 1.2k... or 2400 total
2) once that was not done, UTG+1 should have been ruled to have "mucked face up", leaving UTG, SB & BB
3) SB folds/mucks, leaving BB & UTG
4) BB folds/mucks leaving...
UTG as the winner!

but.... it all depends on the "guy in charge".... at our local pub, we play twice a week "free entry" hold'em for cash and gift cards... the guy running it makes the decisions to the "best of his ability"... not always the correct one, but he tries.. and what ever he says then.... is how it is!.... and if someone doesn't like the ruling, I often tell the gripe-er that I'll give em a refund of their buyin into this free tourney out of my own pocket.....

If in a casino and he said "raise" but put out less chips than a call, the dealer would tell him he had to at least min-raise ...2400 chips. If he said nothing it would be a call. If he flipped his cards out of turn with other people waiting to act. I believe that would be the decision of the tourney director, In your case whoever is in charge of the tourney. Either the cards flipped out of turn would be considered dead and mucked or the whole hand would be a do-over ....not sure.

If a player flips their own cards up, but not muck, aren't they considered live? The only difference being everyone can now see their hole cards? If the dealer flips the cards I could see a re-deal.

I don't recall the exact situation, but in one of the WSOP shows player A thought player B had called and they flipped their cards up thinking it was showdown. When the player B told player A he had not called yet, player A was advised to leave his cards face up until the player B made the call... which player B folded seeing the winning hand.

I'll see if I can find it on youtube or something.

If the UTG never stated the words raise, im 90% sure his action is classed as a flat call of the bb

This would be correct, although the rules can vary depending on the poker room. If you put out $1000 with a BB of $1200 and say nothing and THEN try to say "oh I meant to raise" and put out another $1400 that would be a string raise which isn't allowed anywhere. Some rooms (most rooms), verbal statements are binding, so if you say raise, you must raise.

If you simply put chips out in the middle and say nothing, it depends on how much you put out. If you put out less than a call would be, dealer will correct you to put the correct amount (1200 in this case) out and all you can do is call. You can't change your mind and raise.

If you put out more than a call but less than a correct raise it depends on the amount you put out. One somewhat common example is when you don't have the correct chip combinations to make the exact call/raise (maybe you only had $500 chips and no $100 chips and you wanted to just call the $1200, so you put $1500 out) then it would be considered a call as well. Most places use a half-bet rule so say in the above example you put out $2000 instead with no verbal statement, it would be considered a raise (aka you raised $800 which is more than half, or $600, of the $1200 raise amount). You would be corrected by the dealer to put out the correct amount in this case as well.

Disclaimer: These rules can vary depending on the room though.