Verbal Betting

I understand that a verbal bet is binding rather than your physical action, but we had a player in a home game(tournament no-limit) make a verbal bet saying "six." He did not say a denomination. At the same time he throws in 3 chips equaling 2000. The blinds at the time were 200/400. There was an argument as to whether the bet should have been 600 or 6000. I can not find a rule for this anywhere. Anybody have any information? Thanks

You just apply common sense - if he says six and throws in six thousand in chips, then six thousand is the bet. Anyone trying to argue he should be made to bet six hundred is angle shooting IMO.

It is my understanding that according to roberts rules of poker for this senerio ie the amont placed into the pot, he may have meant a 6x raise.

FWIW, Robert's Rules makes no mention of what to do if there is any ambiguity in a verbal statement.

That being the case, we fall back on Rule #1:

1. Management reserves the right to make decisions in the spirit of fairness, even if a strict interpretation of the rules may indicate a different ruling.

In this case, there is no disagreement between the verbal and physical actions: the player said six, and put exactly six thousand in chips out. The only fair interpretation is to make the bet stand at six thousand IMO.

rr

He did not put 6000 in the pot he only put in 2000. This is why there was a disagreement. We ruled that it was a 600 bet because he threw in less than 1/2 of 6000.

I would of sided with the bettor if he was meaning 600 chips, because a 15x the big blind raise would seem kind of out of place there. As for as procedures go, my guess is that the dealer would recognized the mistake and ask the bettor to clarify his intentions before moving on to the next person. If this happened, there shouldnt of been an argument about it. heck if I know the proper rules of handling bet mistakes though...

What 3 chips did he throw to equal 2000? Seems odd since it would have to be 2 different denoms.

If this was preflop a raise to 600 wouldn't be legal since it would need to be to at least 800 for a min raise.

If this was postflop, I would have just let it be at 2K. A raise to 6 means nothing.

Sorry, I read it as three $2K chips for $6K total, which would at least have made sense (except the bit about having $2K chips in the first place).

That not being the case though, the whole situation is just stupid because the number of chips put in isn't even connected to the verbal bet.

If you don't have reason to think it's an angle shoot then in this case I'd be inclined to either do as WV says above (ignore the strict interpretation of the rule and make the bet 2000) or ask the player which six he meant (600 or 6000) and make that the bet.

If you do have reason to believe he's angle shooting, IDK but I probably hold him to 600 (assuming it's an opening bet postflop, as WV correctly notes that it'd be an invalid raise preflop - preflop I'd probably just rule it as a minraise).

I would think that "the most" they could hold the better to is 600.


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If it were a pre-flop raise I would hold him to 2k, but since this is obv a post-flop bet I would still hold him to 2k since he only said "6"

Only advice I can give is..... don't invite him to play next time.

Of course, since this is a home game we also have the issue of everyone pulling the sticks out of their butts, asking the player what in hell he meant to bet and then just letting whatever he says stand. This doesn't have to be Serious Business if you don't want it to be.

Learned the hard way, that if it aint verbalized and youre just calling and pick up the stack to drop off 600 chips, you are all in. This was a $35 buy in MTT and I was all in, luckily nobody wanted to risk it, (Which im glad of) maybe they thought I was F'Ning around but I didnt want to be all in

This was a post-flop bet and the bettor threw in 2-$500 chips and 1 $1000 chip. He stated after the fact that his intention was $6000 bet.

^^^
This,after the flop thats the side i would be on.But home game wtf ever.

I have been nailed by verbal betting once. I was drinking which i never do playing a game, but my verbal bet was binding. As it should be, because otherwise you are in a way cheating the game.

I agree. Hopefully you don't just have people wandering into you house when you have a poker game. So I assume he's at least a friend of a friend. Every game has an instance of bet confusion every now and again. Just chill out and ask. We ever have the player raise and the next player call the blind no realizing there is a raise. It should probably have to stay in the pot but we allow them to take their blind amount call back if they don't want to call the raise because we're not anal dbags and just want to get on the with game.

Well if I were going to rule I'd say it would have to be 6K then. His intention can't be 600 since he threw out 3 chips totaling 2K. I mean if he'd tossed two 500s or a single 1K chip I could see 600 being ruled but when he throws 2K in 3 using 3 chips it's clear 600 was not the intended bet amount.

So either you take his bet as 2K or you go with his announcement and make it 6K but 600 is clearly the most wrong ruling imo.

^ this. Sounds like he picked up a 1K chip instead of a 5K one or something, I'd be inclined to let 6K stand as the bet if that's what he says he intended.

Why don't you just ask him what he meant and let it be that.. then let him know he needs to be more clear the next time.

yeah that is tricky, if the player was trying to get info by saying one thing and betting another then obviously cheating

i mean if i had a big hand while this was going on ... i might be right on top of it going "what?" ... then if i re-raise he has an easy fold ... but in a home game you are going to give everyone the benefit of the doubt once or twice and then you just don't invite anymore