live players, am I in the wrong?

Matt Vaughan

Matt Vaughan

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So Grossberger not saying anything would be better than Grossberger saying he maybe has two pair beat? I'm not buying it - the actual information given to the villain is the same, namely: Grossberger's hand may or may not be better than two pair.

Also fwiw, if you had bolded a different part of that quote, it changes the whole way you could read it: "players are responsible for holding onto their cards until the winner is declared." Additionally, you'd have to argue pretty hard to any floor person that I personally know to say that "Maybe I have two pair beat" would be equated with deliberately miscalling a hand.

How can you "call a hand" at all without actually claiming to have something in particular? Again, I really don't buy it.
 
OzExorcist

OzExorcist

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Absolutely Grossberger saying nothing would be better (from an ethical standpoint) than saying he maybe has two pair beat. Of course, if Grossberger says nothing then villain doesn't muck, and that's the problem, isn't it...

You're absolutely right, the rule says that villain should have held onto his hand until the pot was awarded. Like I said, it was impossibly stupid of him to muck and this is a problem largely of his own making. But what we're talking about is whether or not Grossberger was angle shooting here and IMO he clearly was.

There's no ifs, maybes or buts about it: one pair never beats two pair. If Grossberger has top pair, then it's 100% a lie for him to say that he "might" be able to beat two pair because he can never beat two pair.
 
Matt Vaughan

Matt Vaughan

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I understand your statements but disagree, and I'm pretty sure you understand my statements, and disagree, so I'm thinking this is an "agree to disagree" situation.

But even if Grossberger is lying by continuing the ambiguity of his hand, villain has no new info. So the fact that he mucks after getting no more info means villain is either lying in a much more outright way (stating a non-truth as truth instead of implying an ongoing ambiguity when hero knows there is none)..... OR he is so impossibly stupid that he thinks hero saying "maybe I can beat two pair" means that two pair is no good. In which case I hardly find the "fault" in the whole situation to be with hero.

Let's say I'm in a pot, HU, and last to act. First, I decide that I am not going to raise if villain bets, but rather, I will fold. Then, villain says, "I'm going to bet here - are you going to raise?" I then - knowing full well that I am not going to raise if I face a bet - say, "I might raise if you bet..." Villain then open-folds (gives up ANY chance of winning the pot, based on my non-binding statement). Is that an angle-shoot on my part?

(I understand there is a difference here in that verbal bets are usually binding, but ignoring that for a moment, this is how I view what happened above.) I know you may view these as different since there is still pending action in my example, but imo when cards aren't face up, the hand's not over. I have a feeling you're going to point me to a rule that states I'm wrong, but oh well. :)
 
OzExorcist

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Nope :) The situation you've just described is completely different for two reasons. One is that it's happening before showdown, and the other is that your statement is actually ambiguous. You're talking about something that hasn't happened yet. You might raise, you might call, you might fold. You intend to fold if he bets, but it's possible you could change your mind too*. Nobody's talking about the strength of their hand. It's all legit IMO, no different to making a bluff with your chips.

Grossberger's situation is different because it's at showdown, where you're absolutely not allowed to misrepresent the strength of your hand (per the rules cited above), and the statement he made is very different in nature.

On the face of it yes, saying "maybe I can beat two pair" sounds pretty ambiguous and non-committal. It might even be that it wasn't said with the intent to make the other player muck a better hand.

But the hand has gone to showdown, the time for ambiguity and bluffing is past. And if you think about it for a second, saying "maybe I can beat two pair" is actually a very specific representation of the strength of his hand. Anything one pair or lower definitely can't beat two pair. Anything three of a kind or higher definitely can beat two pair**. So the only time it's accurate to say that he could "maybe" beat two pair is if he had two pair as well.

Effectively, Grossberger has stated that he has two pair, and the only question was whose pairs were highest. He's told us he only had top pair, ergo he misrepresented his hand at showdown. And it was only this muck rule that allowed him to get away with it. If he had've had to show his cards after villain mucked, and villain maintained that he did have two pair, then I believe every effort would (and should) have been made to retrieve villain's hand from the muck.

* for the sake of the argument, let's assume the dealer didn't hold the other player to his verbal declaration that he was going to bet

** I'd be inclined to give a little more leeway if he said 'maybe' and he could beat two pair, because at least then based on the verbal statements there's no question that he's trying to get the other player to fold a better hand
 
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99% sure villain had nothing and was trying to get bluff catchers to muck. I probably play it exactly the same as grossberger, even down to the maybe, the villain is never folding 2 pair here.

Sent from my LG-D802 using Tapatalk
 
OzExorcist

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...but villain was under the impression that people had to show their cards to claim any part of the pot, so with the information we have it makes no sense for him to be lying. If he had to show his cards, he'd be found out immediately.

IMO villain having bottom two pair makes the most sense here (insofar as any of this makes sense). Any other two pair beats it, and if he reads Grossberger's "maybe I can beat two pair" the same way I outlined above then what he hears is that he's beat.

Even if villain was lying about having two pair though, it doesn't change the fact that Grossberger clearly misrepresented his own hand. Two wrongs don't make an angle shoot right.

And I'll make the point again: if it were a sensible card room that had the "you must show your cards to claim any part of the pot" rule, none of this would ever have happened.
 
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...but villain was under the impression that people had to show their cards to claim any part of the pot, so with the information we have it makes no sense for him to be lying. If he had to show his cards, he'd be found out immediately.

IMO villain having bottom two pair makes the most sense here (insofar as any of this makes sense). Any other two pair beats it, and if he reads Grossberger's "maybe I can beat two pair" the same way I outlined above then what he hears is that he's beat.

Even if villain was lying about having two pair though, it doesn't change the fact that Grossberger clearly misrepresented his own hand. Two wrongs don't make an angle shoot right.

And I'll make the point again: if it were a sensible card room that had the "you must show your cards to claim any part of the pot" rule, none of this would ever have happened.


Which is exactly why he mucked . . . you don't 2x pot it with a value hand expecting to get bluffcatchers calling you and then muck your hand because your opponent says he might have you beaten. Villain just wanted to get free info without giving any. If he thought a hand was going to be shown in order to win the pot then he indeed was angle-shooting as he gets to see our hand 100% of the time and the portion of the time in which we are beat he gets his cards retrieved from the muck and wins. By abusing that rule he gets to see our hand strength all the time and we only ever see his when he allows us to, namely every time we are beat.

Grossberger wasn't intentionally angling or he never would have posted the scenario here, even if he was angling it - it is only as bad as his opponent who we know for sure is angling.
 
Matt Vaughan

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Well, as I said, agree to disagree. I think this is partly a spot open to interpretation, as well as some rules that are themselves open to interpretation (particularly in what constitutes "calling your hand").

Thanks for the lively discussion, OzExorcist :)
 
JusSumguy

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OzExorcist said:
But by stubbornly insisting on waiting for them to turn their cards over, even when it seems pretty obvious that you've just caught them bluffing and you've won you're... disrupting the game.
On the issue of the angle shot, I agree Oz. But...

In a cash game, if a guy has pissed me off. I'll force him to show his bluff just for the ridicule factor... and the yuks.

-
 
OzExorcist

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LOL - for sure, from time to time circumstances dictate that you need to do stuff like that :D

I'm just saying it's poor form to make a habit of it and be holding the game up every time you call someone who was obviously bluffing on the river.

If he thought a hand was going to be shown in order to win the pot then he indeed was angle-shooting as he gets to see our hand 100% of the time and the portion of the time in which we are beat he gets his cards retrieved from the muck and wins. By abusing that rule he gets to see our hand strength all the time and we only ever see his when he allows us to, namely every time we are beat.

Grossberger wasn't intentionally angling or he never would have posted the scenario here, even if he was angling it - it is only as bad as his opponent who we know for sure is angling.

*le sigh*

The only chance villain has of getting his hand retrieved from the muck is if he was given incorrect information by Grossberger. And the only chance that hand has of winning the pot once retrieved is if it is indeed two pair, otherwise he made a false declaration. So... your argument that villain was angle shooting and Grossberger wasn't makes no sense. He can only win the pot if the opposite is true.

We don't know for sure what villain had, so there's absolutely no way we can "know for sure" that villain was angle shooting. I actually think it's unlikely, and here's why:

Go back and read the whole exchange again - if it's being reported accurately, villain declared his hand then asked a yes or no question ("I have two pair, can you beat that") and got an answer that wasn't no*. It's clear that he took what Grossberger said to mean "I can beat two pair".

Maybe he heard wrong, maybe he didn't think about what else the answer could have meant, but if that's what he took Grossberger's statement to mean, then I can see why he'd muck two pair (particularly something like bottom two pair). In his mind he's just been told it's no good.

Was mucking his hand based on that verbal statement alone the smart thing to do? Hell no. But put yourself in villain's shoes for a moment: you've made a huge bet on the river, you've been called, you say you have two pair and you ask your opponent if he can beat that. Your opponent says he possibly can beat two pair. Does anything in that scenario lead you to reasonably believe that your opponent has one pair or less?

* "no" is the only truthful answer anyone holding one pair can give to that question BTW - any other answer is misleading or an evasion at best
 
duggs

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pretty cut and dried angle shoot, dunno how you disagree scourgge. its no different to deliberately miscalling your hand. you have a busted straight draw but table it on river and announce straight. opponent mucks his set without really double checking the board,
 
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:jd4: I agree. I am thinking back many many years ago before the popularity of teXas holdumb, You were obligated to show your hand at the showdown . People are so worried about "oh, I dont want anybody to see my bluff" that it creates various sets of rules and confusion. If its that important to them then they shouldnt have bluffed/dared in the first place. You have plenty of opportunities to make a legitimate fold BEFORE the showdown. There was the old saying "you have to pay to see them", not only that , but it would help severely limit colluding players. WTF is "angle shooting" (rhetorical question as the term has way too broad of a meaning , as in , its too open to interpretation). You either cheat or dont cheat, its a black and white thing.
 
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