IADaveMark
Rock Star
Silver Level
Was watching a recent PokerGo stream and, while contemplating his action, Patrick is futzing with his chips. One of them drops out of the stack he was holding and rolls into the middle of the table (past the Holy Bet Line). No one said anything other than the commentator who said, "oops!" as if he was expecting someone to freak out. It was obvious that it was accidental and, therefore, was rightfully moved past.
It reminded me of a situation I had at Aria a month ago (when I chopped-binked a daily) where I was picking up a couple of chips for a post-flop raise and, while handling them while I was pondering the board, one slipped out, dropped about 1/2", and tapped the top of the stack I had just removed it from. While I was catching it, I believe it actually tapped twice. So the guy immediately checked behind me.
I was a bit startled and said, "wait what? I haven't acted yet." He pointed out that he thought I had checked because of the "tap tap" of my chip. I wanted to just let it go but the dealer called the floor over and got the official ruling that it seemed enough like a check that it needed to stand. No big deal. (I raised the turn and took it down anyway.)
Now this guy wasn't trying to be an ass. It was just a non-verbal miscommunication that never really happens for me (since I usually don't do anything with my chips until I'm cutting them out). I could have made it worse or he could have made it worse. In essence, it was the same non-issue as in the PokerGo clip. But someone could have made a big deal out of it.
So why do people go out of their way to try and trap people into rules infractions? I'm sure we've all been at the table with someone (or heard commentary on some scandalous video analysis) saying that should have been a call, min-raise, etc. While "angle shoots" are a thing in poker, I make the case that people who bitch about things like this, call the floor over, rant about it on YouTube, etc. are actually worse for the game (specifically the game in play as well as the game of poker in general) than the angle-shooters are.
It reminded me of a situation I had at Aria a month ago (when I chopped-binked a daily) where I was picking up a couple of chips for a post-flop raise and, while handling them while I was pondering the board, one slipped out, dropped about 1/2", and tapped the top of the stack I had just removed it from. While I was catching it, I believe it actually tapped twice. So the guy immediately checked behind me.
I was a bit startled and said, "wait what? I haven't acted yet." He pointed out that he thought I had checked because of the "tap tap" of my chip. I wanted to just let it go but the dealer called the floor over and got the official ruling that it seemed enough like a check that it needed to stand. No big deal. (I raised the turn and took it down anyway.)
Now this guy wasn't trying to be an ass. It was just a non-verbal miscommunication that never really happens for me (since I usually don't do anything with my chips until I'm cutting them out). I could have made it worse or he could have made it worse. In essence, it was the same non-issue as in the PokerGo clip. But someone could have made a big deal out of it.
So why do people go out of their way to try and trap people into rules infractions? I'm sure we've all been at the table with someone (or heard commentary on some scandalous video analysis) saying that should have been a call, min-raise, etc. While "angle shoots" are a thing in poker, I make the case that people who bitch about things like this, call the floor over, rant about it on YouTube, etc. are actually worse for the game (specifically the game in play as well as the game of poker in general) than the angle-shooters are.
