Did I cheat?

The dealing at the shoe has gotten worse daily as dealers work straight through. Couple this with the fact that many of the temps are just awful and I have seen many wierd situations come up. This one happened to me yesterday:


10-20 Shoe game. Some limpers and a raiser on the button, I defend with TT, the limpers call.


Q 9 5 or some such, I checkraise the button, coldcaller and button stick around. 3 to the turn which is an 8. I bet again, coldcaller raises, button cold calls and I..........


....I watch as the dealer pushes my initial bet into the pot along with everyone elses 2 bets. She then burns, turns and I miss, then check-fold the river. No one seems to notice or care.


So I saw the river for 1 BB instead of 2.


Did I cheat?

you did cheat, but i think what youre implying is that you did it in the best interests of the game.


the downside is that someone may have witnessed you saving the bet but not realize that you voluntarily forfeited the pot and thus they think you are scum.


but if you turn it around and ask yourself if you are the guy gets pushed the pot, would you rather redo the river and risk the whole pot just because its a bet short? i didnt think so.


but be prepared to defend yourself clearly and simply if things get crazy, as they sometimes do, and you are accused of shorting the pot.


brad

Yes.


You've got to say something here, preferably before the river card is dealt in order to avoid creating confusion.


Most of us have seen players "give away" entire pots after the dealer incorrectly pushed it to them after misreading an opponents hand at the showdown (ex: dealer thought opponent had just a pair and missed that opponent had a straight which wins).


If other players can can give up entire pots which were pushed to them because of a dealer error, you should be able to put in the proper number of chips on a turn call.


Seriously, if you see the player who won the pot tommorrow or another day, you should give him the $20 you owe him. You'll never regret losing $20. You might regret having the feeling that you didn't play fairly.

no way. no harm, no foul. nobody said anything. if you HAD said something, wouldn't proper procedure dictate dealing a new river card? and couldn't your correcting the turn action (which is THE DEALER'S fault, not yours) be construed as an angle to get a new river card?


let it go. you are there to win money based on your opponents' mistakes. nobody caught the mistake. not the dealer. you win. end of story.


unless of course, its eating you up inside. then give the guy the $20.

technically no. you didnt claim a pot that was not supposed to be yours because you had not put in the right amount by missing a bet. say you needed to spike a T on river and it comes. if you had no intention of calling the raise on turn and muck anyway on river whats the difference? if you planned on claiming the pot if you won on river when a bet lite yeah your intent was to cheat. seems like dealer screwed up and players werent aware and it happened faster than you could respond to it. it would be better to say something before she turns up the river card in the future.

In theory, they could have somehow determined you didn't call, and denied you the pot had you won.


Besides, most of the dealers that do that for me, I have to pay them off almost as much as I save anyway.


eLROY

No, in no way is it eating me up inside. I just thought it was an unusual situation since basically, I blinked and suddenly I was looking at a river card. It happened that fast.


And since there is no way in hell I was calling the turn, there is also no way that I am giving anyone twenty bucks.

I can buy the arguement that it was cheating. Not convinced, mind you, but its a defendable stance.


But it is absolutely ridiculous to suggest I pay anyone $20 since in no way would I have voluntarily put another nickel in the pot.

So you would have mucked if a T fell on the river..? I hope so.

Should have also mentioned to the dealer that you hadn't had a chance to act before the card was turned.


G

Horseshoe is the place to save a bet, eh? You are right about one thing- those dealers are the worst I've ever seen. For the record, this type of thing has happened to me at both the Bellagio and Mirage, but the players catch the error faster than you can say "call"! Babe

Just to clarify ... I presume you would have folded to the turn raise, if given a chance, and that as it went down, if you would have hit a ten on the river, and it was the best hand, you would have accepted the pot and all river bets. Right so far?


Then yes, you cheated, IMO.


I would have done the same thing you did, sometimes, depending entirely on two variables: My bankroll, and who the victims were. The ethical analogy I like is yer basic starving father walking by a sidewalk market. There comes a times when stealing isn't wrong, IMO. It's all a matter of degree.


Tommy

This offends me.


What if I had 2,000 kids?


Are you going to start telling me how many kids I can have?


Are you going to tell me this same father would steal to feed someone else's kids, even if his own kids weren't starving?


A parasite that has kids is a plague.


eLROY

ok calculate how much EV freeroll you got and give that to the guy. I'd love to be there when you walked up and said "The dealer made an error in my favor to your detriment yesterday. Here's $7.42."

this happened to me before....i mentioned it to the dealer...as she was turning the card...

"uh, do i get to act?", then she froze...had to call the floor for the ruling...i folded, then reshuffled the card and brought the new river...


the reason i stopped the action? everyone makes mistakes, and this is one that id want someone else to notice. but i also want to promote a fair game. by calling one on myself, i think, maybe erroneously, that it helps the game overall. especially if more players did it...


after all, if im going to point out if it was someone else who missed the bet, which ive done, in this case, it only makes sense to put myself on the block also. 2-way street the way i see it...


i wouldnt give the guy $20 though. thats ridiculous. but i wouldve stopped the action...


one poster made a good point about if you spiked a T on the river...then what? it would take alot to stop the action, and replay from the turn on that one.


b

A person who views other people as parasites is the worst plague of all.


Hope you enjoy Alaska for many, many years.

"I would have done the same thing you did, sometimes, depending entirely on two variables: My bankroll, and who the victims were. The ethical analogy I like is yer basic starving father walking by a sidewalk market. There comes a times when stealing isn't wrong, IMO. It's all a matter of degree."


Whoa! It's OK to cheat if you are short-stacked, whereas it wouldn't have been OK had you been beating the game? It's OK to cheat if your opponents are impolite people but not OK if they're gentlemen?


I agree that there are times stealing is less wrong than not stealing (Jean Valjean is a good example), but this doesn't seem to be one of them, at least not to me.

A similar thing happened to me at Mohegan sun. I had up to that point always played 10:20 seven card stud and had moved up to 20:40 for the first time. On 5th street my only opponant bet, I called. On 6th street my opponant bet again it was then that I realized that his 4 chips consisted of a green and 3 reds and that when I had called him on 5th I had done so with 4 red chips (autopilot from 10:20). I called again. On the river same action. I won the pot and then tossed him $20 saying that I figured it was about 50:50 for him to be the favorite in the hand at 5th street and explaining what had happened. Everyone at the table was quite surprised but I believe it was the only way to handle the situation.

Completely different. In your case, you had acted on your hand. Your intention to call was clear; all that remained was for you to put the rest of your chips in the pot. In Clarkmeister's case, he had not yet acted. I would have spoken up myself, but assuming that he was going to muck the river no matter what came, I think that what he did was fine.

For some reason, I was working under the assumption that you wanted to see the river card.


If you were going to fold anyway, it's irrelevent- unless you spiked a winning card.

he didn't have time. river was turned before he could say anything.

I don't think it's actually cheating. Unethical? Yes, probably, at least a bit. Would I do it? Probably not unless my 2 opponents were real jerks--then I'd be smiling that they were stupid jerks.


After all, it is the dealer's obligation to run the game properly and each player has a silent responsibility to follow the action and keep an eye on the game. We've often heard the saying, "you snooze, you lose"...and I believe it sort of applies here. Sort of like reading your own hand properly...if you don't and the dealer doesn't either, well, don't blame the guy next to you who saw it but remained silent.


I really feel like it's rather a gray area, but I don't think it could ever be considered downright cheating. The dealer and the other players must share some of the responsibility.

river card already dealt. he could tell the dealer about it and the dealer could back up the action to the turn where he could either fold or call. after action complete on the turn, next the river card that was dealt goes back into the deck and shuffled. im not sure if the burn card goes backin and a new river card dealt. what would happen if he spoke up after river dealt is that the floor would be called by dealer and the action would be backed up close to what i say. time consumming and if he didnt plan to claim the pot let it be without backing up the action.

That's ridiculous. He had to have plenty of time to say something.


This is what Clarkmeister wrote: I bet again, coldcaller raises, button cold calls and I...I watch as the dealer pushes my initial bet into the pot along with everyone elses 2 bets. She then burns, turns...


How much time do you think elapsed after button cold calls and Clarkmeister watches as the dealer gathers all the chips and burns? 4 seconds? 3 seconds? 2 seconds?


How long does it take to say "Wait. I haven't acted"? Say it out loud. It takes about 1 second.

Andy, you forgot this part:


"It's all a matter of degree."


If the choice is between dying and cheating, you can be damn sure I'll cheat.


And if you and I ever disagree on a matter of heart or society, I'll die!


Tommy

I'm not arguing the merits of my inaction. That's why I threw it up here. To see what others said.


But doesn't M raise a reasonable counterpoint? Poker is inherently a cruel game. Isn't it their job to protect themselves in this case? If someone makes zero effort to protect their hand, why is it the person next to them who is obligated to look away. If I raise, I can tell you for damn sure that everyone is CALLING my freaking raise before I let the dealer proceed.


I think it was on the same day that a dealer raked in my $5 chip I was using to protect my cards. Is it the responsibility of the players involved in the pot to point it out, or is it my job to retrieve my chip from the pot?


The question is, do the others in the hand have an obligation to protect themselves? Is it any different than when I table a hand of KQ on an AQ224 board and I see them look at QJ (without tabling the hand) and watch them muck?


I don't know the answers. But I'm interested in where people draw the line in this game. Because it is inaruable that at SOME point, people simply have to protect themselves. Where is that point?

i believe in protecting the integrity of the game...not the players...screw them..haha


i dont think you cheated, btw, as i know how fast it can happen. then if there's action before you can do anything, then what? i also really doubt your an angle shooter. youve never came across that way in any post...

of course you may be hiding those posts /images/wink.gif haha

j/k


at the cardroom where i play, players will often be looking at eachothers chips and will help point out if someone has too many/few chips for the call/raise/bet. thats protecting the game to me.

not sure what ya mean by the QJ thing. are you saying your the only one to see the hand? thats up to the other players to see, or have made available to them...they should be requesting that in that case...it has no bearing on the play. only info that is gained. which if the other players were observant, would be privy to it also. not sure if this answers your question /images/smile.gif


when its the basic mechanics of the game, its different. if its player based. its up to the player. this error was a basic mechanic to me...


ciao baby...


b

bernie's point regarding how fast it can happen is a good point also...by the time recognize what is going on and decide for sure what to do or clear your throat it can all be over, so I can't be sure I would halt the dealer in time even if I intended to. Then once the next card is dealt you might just say, well, heck with it, too much trouble now, and nobody noticed, and someone else is already checking or betting by this time. So even if you eventually decided you should have spoken up, it might be too late (like now, heh).


Like I said before it's a gray area, but I think those who believe you flat-out cheated are wrong.


Let's say the cashier overpays you ten dollars and you notice it. Well if you say nothing did you actually steal it? What if the mistake went the other way, would you be sure you would be able to get it back? Heck I remember a marathon session when the cashier UNDERPAID me $900. I started to turn away, and was about to walk away from the window when I stopped cold and got paid. I was so happy to be getting out of there I almost really blew it. What if I hadn't realized it 'til I got home.


When gambling, the cardinal rule is to protect thyself. Just my opinion.

You didn't cheat. The conduct may be arguable, but I would define cheating as an action or attempt to influence the outcome of the hand or game with an intentional pattern of conduct that violates the rules of the game. At most your conduct was unethical, but I wouldn't feel comfortable even going that far. Ideally you would have caught and stopped the problem, but lapses happen. If your intent was to wait and see the river then take whichever course of action benefitted you (which I don't believe was the case)would I see a big problem. That would be very unethical. Where's the line exactly? I don't know.


BTW, you have now posted twice about potential unethical plays. This one and the one with the angle shooter and your girlfriend. Your asking about these hands is a sign you don't have to worry about your ethics. Angle shooters, cheats, or other miscellaneous scumbags don't ask about these things or give them any thought. If everybody thought about these things as carefully we would be playing a very clean game indeed.

he said himself it happened before he could react. which i believe. sometimes you are so focused on the action and the ebb and flow that when something isn't right, sometimes it takes a while for the thought process to hit your lips.

"Is it any different than when I table a hand of KQ on an AQ224 board and I see them look at QJ (without tabling the hand) and watch them muck?"


interesting that you make this point. i was thinking of a pot about a year ago where this same sort of thing happened. the player actually tabled his hand, sort of, and then it was mucked, with no complaints whatsoever. then the dealer pushed me the whole pot, and the guy i should have chopped with said nothing. nobody said a word. i think i was the only one who even noticed. i didn't say anything. why should i? protect your hand is a RULE printed in every cardroom's printed set of rules, it is the number 1 rule in poker. and if somebody is a big enough chump to let that happen, 'welcome to my table, sir.'

TA: "Just to clarify ... I presume you would have folded to the turn raise, if given a chance, and that as it went down, if you would have hit a ten on the river, and it was the best hand, you would have accepted the pot and all river bets. Right so far?


Then yes, you cheated, IMO."


Sounds to me like you are sort of making a case for "thought-cheating", Tommy.


Of course it is ethically questionable, at least...but do his thoughts and intents (as opposed to his actions) really define whether he was cheating or not?

Maybe the dealers are making lots of mistakes because no one's bringing attention to ALL of them. Sure they hear about the "big" ones. But sometimes they need to get hit over the head a few more times. Hearing about all of them, they may start to do something about it. And, you may prevent them from making a mistake that WILL cost you a huge pot.

Although I do agree that you TECHNICALLY cheated, I also agree with your assessment and action on this hand.


I think you would be in a position to feel much guiltier though had you caught a miracle on the river, then raised! NOW what do you do?


Dave in Cali