Did I do the right thing?
 

I've been playing recently in smaller WA cardrooms. The jackpots in these places aren't the bad-beat kind. Rather, they award a jackpot if you hit a straight flush or quads. Obviously, hit much more often than the bad-beats, sometimes several in one night, and they're usually a couple hundred dollars, sometimes between $500-$1000.

A couple of nights ago at Suquamish (4/8), I held pocket KK and the flop came K2K; I was looking at a $200 jackpot. One guy stayed in. This player was pretty lousy, had a lucky run earlier in the night, but had dwindled his stack down to maybe $50. Since I was already getting the $200 payout, I just checked to him, and he bet into me on flop and turn. At river, I told him "you REALLY REALLY REALLY want to CHECK this. LOOK AT THE BOARD." I couldn't tell him that I had the quads, because by the rules, that would have invalidated the jackpot. Everyone else at the table immediately understood my meaning and intent. I guess he didn't understand, and he bet anyway. He showed 22 for the boat, and of course I won the pot and jackpot as well.

Well, I had $200 coming to me, and I wanted to keep this player in the game for a while, so I took the pot, chopped it myself, and gave him half. The table generally agreed (it appeared to me, anyway), that it was a cool thing to do.

Ever since, I've been second-guessing myself on this. On the one hand, I showed some generosity and appeared to earn some goodwill points at the table. I also had my ulterior motive of keeping him in the game longer; he was definitely the big fish that night. On the other hand, I had already warned the guy in the clearest way I could, and the money I gave back to him he would lose anyway, just probably to someone else. Also, I feel I may have showed some weakness to the other players at the table (several of whom were pretty good).

Interested in your thoughts; should I have warned him in the first place? Should I have played more aggressively against him, knowing I had $200 coming guaranteed? Should I have chopped that $80 pot and given him $40? I know the conventional answer is "No Way!"....just wonder if it was an astute "image" move, as I intended, or just plain dumb.

Re: Did I do the right thing?
 

Just plain dumb. You give him money to get him to stay around and lose more money? You already won more money from him.

Re: Did I do the right thing?
 

DUMB Unless he was your boss and you have to work with him the next day.

Re: Did I do the right thing?
 

Poker is about maximizing your profits, not chopping them with some fish who didn't know better. Very nice "real world" move, dumb poker room move.

Re: Did I do the right thing?
 

bet/raise until the other guy stops...you say that you want to win this guys money, but you want to do it over a long time and let other good players have their shot at it??????

Im sure that the other good players won't think you are an [censored] because you raise your quads on the river, and if they do why do you care?

Taking X dollars from the guy right now is just as good, if not better than taking X or X-Y (if someone else beats him) over a longer period of time...

btw congrats on the jackpot...

Re: Did I do the right thing?
 

There is quite little point in keeping a fish at the table by giving them money, because you are then only HOPING to win back YOUR OWN MONEY. Dumb. You might be a nice guy, but nice guys finish last, don't you know that? You can do a lot of things to keep a fish at the table, like being pleasant, talking to them, whatever, but paying them to stay with money you won from them is pretty self-defeating. Since you were playing 4-8 limit hold'em, I assume it will take you five hours or more to make up that $40 or so, on average. Would you donate five hours of your TIME to keep this guy at the table? The fact you got the high hand bonus is irrelevant.

al

Re: Did I do the right thing?
 

Telling him what to do with his money during the hand was wrong. At that point you're contesting a hand, and you telling him what to do was condescending and rude.

Chopping the pot with him was fine. It's your money, and whatever you want to do with it is your call (same reasoning as piping down about his money in the paragraph above).

Martin

Re: Did I do the right thing?
 

all around terrible.

not maximizing your profit on flopped quads vs a flopped full house really cost you. you could have made a lot of money on the hand itself...

then you had a 200$ bonus...nice.

then you took half the pot and redistributed the money back to everyone at the table...through the fishy guy.

it appears you don't care about money

Re: Did I do the right thing?
 

You did the wrong thing. Keep the money.

Re: Did I do the right thing?
 

Clearly wrong.

If you want to be nice, call his bet (don't raise) but keep the money.

Do you think if you had trip kings, he would be giving you back any money? Frankly, I would keep raising on the river until he called.