Generous to a Fault? “All In” the Way You Look at It

An interesting “what would you do?”-type poker discussion to share with you, if you haven’t seen it already.

It starts over on the PokerStars blog where Lee Jones, Head of Poker Communications, recently published a post called “Letting one off the hook.”

There Jones describes playing in a $1/$2 cash game and having the good fortune of flopping an ace-high flush versus a lone opponent. His leading bet was called, then after Jones still had the nuts following the turn card, he bet again and this time was raised. At that Jones reraised back, his opponent announced “all in,” and Jones quickly called, showing his cards.

That’s when the story becomes interesting enough to write a post about. Upon seeing Jones’s hand, his opponent then claims not to have said “all in.” Meanwhile the dealer had heard him say it, and after the floor was called another player said he heard it, too.

Skipping ahead a bit, in the face of all the growing hubbub Jones ultimately decides to let his opponent “off the hook” and not be forced to go all in, with Jones just taking what was in the middle as if the player had folded and not shoved. Jones explains he honestly didn’t think the player was trying to angle shoot, but he doesn’t spell out all the reasons why he thinks that way.

It’s a nice story, and like most I tend to like these hearing such tales of good sportsmanship in poker and in other contexts. But yesterday Rob of Rob’s Vegas and Poker Blog posted a response to Jones’s post in which he respectfully suggests Jones should not have been so generous.

In “He Let This One Off the Hook -- But Should He Have?” Rob points out how letting his opponent wiggle his free negatively affects the integrity of the game. “If we allow someone to say ‘all-in’ and not really mean it, the game falls apart,” says Rob. It’s a persuasive point.

As I read both posts, I thought about how in a tournament setting such a situation could never be condoned -- there letting someone call “all in” and then take it back not only affects the players in the hand, but everyone else, too. In a cash game one might argue differently, but as Rob notes it’s still important that everyone abide by the rules, and that the players not be allowed to let each other not follow them when occasions such as this one arises.

When looked at in a vacuum -- i.e., without the session-specific info about the player and situation Jones possessed when making his decision -- I’d lean toward Rob’s way of thinking here when it comes to not letting players “off the hook” like this. Indeed, even imagining extenuating circumstances, I think it’d be hard for me to imagine justifying allowing someone not to have to commit chips after verbally agreeing to do so.

Anyhow, check out both posts and decide for yourself.

Image: “IMG_4600” (adapted), Stewardship - Transforming Generosity. CC BY 2.0.

Slow Roll with a Side of Schadenfreude

This morning I woke up to review some of what happened at the Aussie Millions Main Event while I was sleeping. There was still a couple of hours of play left to go, so I also turned on Jason Somerville’s Twitch stream to catch the end of Day 4 and see them play down to the final seven-handed table.

Reading back through Twitter, I saw the buzz about some of the excitement from earlier in the night, and later ended up going back to watch a few of the earlier hands. Probably the most talked-about moment involved a hand between Mikel Habb and Samantha Abernathy. Habb was eliminated in 15th in the hand, while Abernathy made it to Saturday’s final table.

In the hand Daryl Honeyman opened with a raise from UTG, and Habb -- who’d just won a hand and was chatting a bit -- made a just-over-the-minimum reraise the small blind while claiming he meant only to call. It was enough for Somerville to entertain the idea of an angle, a thought encouraged when we were shown Habb had pocket kings.

Abernathy then pushed all in from the big blind with a pair of sixes, forcing a quick fold from Honeyman. At that Habb took nearly a half-minute before calling, going through what appeared some theatrics as he held his head in his hands, then stood up for a while as if in deep thought over what to do.

Somerville described the show as a “slow roll,” and it was kind of hard not to think that to be an apt descriptor. The flop and turn changed nothing, but a six dramatically fell on the river -- a “six for justice,” said Somerville -- and Habb was eliminated.

The fact that Habb was standing with two fingers held up high (for victory?) when fifth street fell only seemed to add an extra layer of schadenfreude to the whole scene.

To give Habb a little bit of the benefit of the doubt, when watched out of context, it wasn’t wholly clear if it had been an out-and-out slowroll, or if perhaps he really was wondering about putting in the last of his stack with pocket kings. In fact, just looking back a little on the stream seemed to support the idea Habb was tighter than usual (but that tight... right?).

A little earlier there was a hand in which Habb had opened from the cutoff with A-Q-suited and was called by both Tino Lechich (button) who had K-J and Dylan Honeyman (big blind) with J-5 of spades. The flop came Q-4-2 with two spades to give Habb a pair of queens, but when checked to he checked as well. Lechich then fired a bet, then Honeyman raised with his flush draw. At that Habb folded his top pair, top kicker, with Somerville kind of amazed that he’d given up his hand.

You could tell from Habb’s table talk afterwards -- which included him telling everyone what he’d had -- that he was probably not as seasoned a player as the others, with the fold further underscoring the impression that he was playing especially tight, too. He talked a lot, actually, and in ways that caused him to stand out considerably from the rest of the players.

In any event, the back-and-forthing over Habb this morning reminded me how easy it is in poker to become conspicuous simply by playing in an unorthodox way, not following the usual etiquette or customs of the table or poker room, and/or perhaps being unsure about rules or the order of play.

I’m not referring to Habb at all here, but merely to the interesting and sometimes intimidating subculture of poker that can make things strange and potentially uncomfortable for newcomers. Meanwhile from the spectators’ point of view, such out-of-the-ordinary occurrences (like, say, slow rolling, intended or otherwise) tend to make the “show” a lot more interesting to watch.

Looking ahead to these several final tables coming up from Melbourne -- the $100K, the Main, then the $250K after that -- we probably won’t be seeing as much non-standard stuff going forward, although the poker should be on a high level. Will be watching for sure, either live or scrolling back on the stream.

Images: twitch.tv/jcarverpoker.

Acting Like a Winner

Last weekend my Carolina Panthers held on versus the Green Bay Packers to go 8-0, the best start by a long shot in the team’s two decade-plus history. Seriously, we Panthers fans don’t even know how to act at this point.

Speaking of knowing how to act when winning, I couldn’t help but fire a message to my buddy Rich at one point during the game. I can’t remember when it was exactly, but it was following some theatrics from Newton celebrating the Panthers’ success. It might have been near the end when victory was finally in sight, now that I think about it.

What I said to Rich was that while I like Newton, he’s basically incapable of “acting like he’s been there before.”

To be fair I’m mostly ambivalent about this issue of Newton’s celebrating. Some Panthers fans (and even more Panthers haters) are much more energized when complaining about Newton doing his “Super-Cam” gesture after scores or even getting excited after first downs (as he often does). Indeed, I am such a Cam fan, I tend to give him a lot of leeway in this area.

Newton’s hugely talented and even though he takes risks and is fully capable of errant throws now and then he’s such a huge positive overall. Add to that the fact that there’s almost nothing I like better in sports than when Newton delivers footballs to kids in the stands following scores. The kids love it, which is very cool. And it reminds adults what it was like to be kids, which is also cool. (There was an especially nice story related to the example pictured above from last weekend, by the way.)

Rich had a good answer for my acting-like-you’ve-been-there remark about Newton. “Why should he?” asked Rich in response. “Enjoy every second.”

That night and over the next two nights I watched the World Series of Poker Main Event play out, where eight of the nine players came up just short of the ultimate goal of winning the whole sucker. With each bustout came very sportsmanlike behavior all around, and in fact I can’t even remember any overdone celebrations whenever anyone won a big pot. (Not that anyone other than Joe McKeehen did a lot of that, actually).

Of course, none of those guys had ever “been there before” (although a few had gotten deep and/or won big tournaments previously). But they all had long ago absorbed those lessons in etiquette most poker players do regarding tempering celebrations when you win, and similarly toning down the complaining when you don’t.

Anyhow, the Panthers have obviously never been here before -- that is, undefeated through half a season. I hardly expect Carolina to replicate that feat in games 9 through 16, obviously. But I think there will be a few more celebrations, which I plan to do my best to enjoy when they come.

On the Unwritten Rules

I mentioned a few weeks back that I’d been watching more baseball this year than I have been in the recent past. Am still doing so, and while I don’t necessarily have a fave team anymore (used to be the Braves, long ago), there are a handful of teams I’ve been following a little more closely than others, mainly because they’ve turned up on the tube most often.

One of those teams getting extra coverage, of course, has been the New York Yankees, off to a hot start this year although currently trailing the surprising Tampa Bay Rays in the American League East. And speaking of the Yankees, there was an interesting incident last week in a game between New York and the Oakland A’s you might have heard or read about, if you follow baseball, too. The incident involved Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, Oakland pitcher Dallas Braden, and a lot of talk about so-called “unwritten rules.”

To summarize what happened briefly, in the sixth inning of the April 22 game, Rodriguez had been on first base when Braden was pitching to Robinson Cano. Cano hit a high pop-up, during which Rodriguez had rounded second and was halfway to third when the ball landed foul. A-Rod then trod over the mound as he headed back to first base, kind of a no-no insofar as pitchers tend to be a bit fastidious over their workspace.

Braden saw what Rodriguez did, and was not a happy camper. When the inning ended he gave A-Rod an earful, yelling at him to “stay off my mound.” There’s a video of Braden’s outburst and more details of the incident over on the MLB site, if you’re interested.

When asked about it afterwards, Rodriguez expressed surprise that Braden had gotten so upset, adding that he didn’t think “a guy that has a handful of wins in his career” should be barking so loudly, anyway. Braden has been a major leaguer since 2007 and currently has 17 wins to his credit. Rodriguez, meanwhile, has been around since the mid-1990s, is a three-time MVP, is closing in on 600 home runs, and for the last decade has been the highest paid player in baseball.

Rodriguez has failed to acknowledge certain unwritten rules before. There was an incident in 2007 when he yelled out at Toronto outfielder Howie Clark causing him to miss a pop-up. And back in the 2004 playoffs versus Boston there was that play in which Rodriguez slapped the ball out of Red Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo’s glove as Arroyo tried to tag A-Rod while running to first (see picture). Rodriguez was called out for interference, and then was later called out again by Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling who described Rodriguez’s action as “junior high school baseball right there, at its best.”

Schilling’s shot referred to the fact that besides breaking a written rule there, Rodriguez had violated another of those unwritten rules, too, by doing something major leaguers shouldn’t do. Of course, A-Rod has long been a lightning rod -- pun intended -- for other reasons, too, including his gaudy salary, his high level of achievement (something that always draws haters), and his admission to steroid use back when the policing of such was so badly managed by the MLB.

The whole episode reminded me a lot of the many unwritten rules in poker -- i.e., that sometimes elaborate code of conduct players and sometimes others (dealers, poker room managers, tourney directors, reporters, etc.) all are expected to know and follow. What sometimes gets referred to as “etiquette” and which tends only to get attention when someone fails to follow the code.

Slowrolling would be an obvious example at the tables -- not technically disallowed, but a clear violation of an unwritten rule. Other examples would include acting in a timely manner, refraining from verbally abusing the dealer or others, not “hitting and running” (i.e., winning a big pot quickly and then immediately leaving), or not speaking or interfering with play when not involved in a hand.

I suppose what Rodriguez did when he crossed Braden’s mound was a bit like touching another player’s chips unnecessarily. Not cool, man.

And, as a few commentators have been pointing out, Rodriguez’s response afterwards -- a kind of incredulity borne from the difference in experience between himself and Braden -- suggests another unwritten rule, namely, that seniority allows one greater freedoms. Such also often seems to be the case in poker, where the “name” players sometimes seem to get away with more egregious behavior and/or are given the benefit of the doubt more readily than are others when it comes to violations of etiquette. (Scotty Nguyen, Phil Hellmuth, and the 2008 WSOP spring to mind.)

Interesting stuff, and perhaps indicative of something more profound -- and paradoxical -- about human nature and competition. We like to compete, and perhaps have a kind of natural instinct to do so. But we also tend to surround our competitions with all sorts of guidelines (rules, written and unwritten) that not only ensure fairness, but a kind of decency as well. We want to beat each other, but we want to get along with each other, too.

Most of us, anyway.