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Message: [QUOTE="OzExorcist, post: 962910, member: 23910"] [B]*WARNING: LONG AND POTENTIALLY BORING POST FOLLOWS*[/B] [B]Cliff notes version:[/B] [B]- "Action lines" don't really prove anything[/B] [B]- The WSOP rules are eight different kinds of vague on this issue[/B] [B]- It's borderline, but Jack Effell probably got this one right in a trade-off between fairness and the technical rules[/B] Now, on with the long and boring: [B]BETTING LINES[/B] FWIW, I'm 99% sure that the presence of an "action line" doesn't [B]actually[/B] mean anything. Common sense still has to prevail. [URL="http://www.lasvegasvegas.com/pdf/RobertsRules.pdf"]Robert's Rules[/URL] says it's when the chips are released, and doesn't seem to care whether there's a betting line or not: No reference to an action line - a bet is a bet when you release the chips, regardless of which side of the line they're on. Think about it, common sense [B]has[/B] to apply even if you have an action line: someone tosses out a bunch of chips, obviously intended to be a bet, but two of them land behind the line. Do you not include them as part of the bet, even though that's obviously what they were intended to be? Also, the WPT effectively uses an "action line" by having the outer rim of their tables lit for players to keep their chips on (at least, they did in their first two seasons - haven't seen many later episodes). Players move their chips off this section onto the felt then take them back all the time. [B]THE CANTU / LOSEV HAND[/B] As to the actual Cantu / Losev hand... when I first saw it last night I thought it was a horrible ruling too. Watching it again today I wasn't so sure, though it [I]definitely[/I] leaves the way open for all sorts of angle shooting. The [URL="http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/pdfs/wsop.tournament-rules.08.pdf"]WSOP's own rule[/URL] on what his action constituted is kinda vague: For starters, note that it says "raise". "Raise", not "bet". Call me a grammar nit, but Losev didn't make a raise in this hand. He made a bet, and bets don't seem to be covered by this rule. This is pretty much a direct copy of the [URL="http://www.pokertda.com/rules.pdf"]Poker TDA rule[/URL], FWIW. Also, what he did doesn't really conform to their definition of a string bet (emphasis added): Look at the footage, that's not really what Losev did. Even though he goes forward and back, it's in one motion, and he didn't return to his stack, as such. He definitely didn't return to his stack to add more chips, which is what the rule is really supposed to prevent. This is actually a much clearer definition of the [URL="http://www.pokertda.com/rules.pdf"]Poker TDA rule[/URL], which just stops after the first sentence. So Norman Chad got that one wrong on the call, IMO. This doesn't conform to the WSOP definition of a string bet. [B]'FORWARD MOTION' - WHERE'S THAT ACTUALLY WRITTEN ANYWAY?!?[/B] Now for what it's worth, try bringing up the [URL="http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/pdfs/wsop.tournament-rules.08.pdf"]WSOP rules[/URL] and searching for "forward motion". You won't find anything. You will, however, find a load of statements to the effect of [I]"We're Harrahs and what we say goes and you can like it or lump it"[/I]. You won't find any mention of forward motion in the [URL="http://www.pokertda.com/rules.pdf"]Poker TDA rules[/URL] either, which the WSOP apparently follows despite several obvious instances since 2006 when they've chosen to ignore them :p Robert's Rules only mention forward motion twice - once in reference to dead hands, and the other in reference to betting out of turn in [I]limit[/I] games. [B]SO WAS IT AN ANGLE SHOOT? FAIRNESS VS TECHNICAL RULES[/B] I dunno, it's a pretty close-run thing. The camera angle makes it a bit difficult to tell exactly how far he pushed them out. He had the button that hand, they never made it past the button and he never released them. I think we need to think about the spirit of the rule here: what it's supposed to prevent is the angle shoot where you move out a bunch of chips, get a reaction from your opponent on the bet size, then adjust it based on that reaction. Unfortunately, Losev's eyes are out of frame when he makes the bet, so we can't see where he's looking. Shame, because that would kinda settle the in-spirit argument. If he was looking at Cantu when he snapped the chips back, I'd say it was. If he was just staring blankly at the felt, as he had been the rest of the hand, then I'd say he just changed his mind or realised he'd grabbed the wrong denomination chips or something. Two things make me think it wasn't an in-spirit violation: 1 - It was instantaneous. He didn't hover with the chips out on the felt staring at someone trying to get a reaction. If he did pick up a reaction off Cantu, he picked it up and then made the decision to pull back in a nanosecond. 2 - If he [B]did[/B] pull back the bet because he picked up a reaction from Cantu, [B]WTF did he still bet 1.5 million for?[/B] It's still a sizeable chunk of his stack. Wouldn't he just throw in a single chip if he'd got a read that Cantu was happy he was betting, like Michael Carroll did when he was trying to explain the situation to Jack Effell later? (FWIW, it's an interesting inconsistency when Effell says that Carroll [I]wouldn't[/I] be allowed to do that, which really makes me think they were making this call on fairness grounds and not on the technical rules - discussion to follow). [I]"Who the hell cares about the spirit of the violation: a violation is a violation!"[/I], I hear you say? Not necessarily so, according to the WSOP tournament rules (emphasis added, once again): I put it to you that that's what's happened here. They've decided that, for whatever reasons (and I suspect the fact that Losev has very limited command of the English language with which to understand the violation would be among them, as would the reasons I've mentioned above) this is such an "unusual circumstance" and that fairness has to take precedence over the technical rule. If anyone should be accused of angle shooting here, I think it's actually Cantu. He obviously wants to get three million into the pot. The action's to him though, and he can make a valid raise to three million. What he's effectively doing is trying to construe the rules so he can get the amount [I]he[/I] wants in the pot without having to fear a re-raise from Losev. [B]AFTERTHOUGHT[/B] One other thing to think about too: If you're going to insist that this is a violation, that making a forward motion with a stack of chips but only using some of them for the bet is a violation of the rules, then you're going to start having to pull up [B]all[/B] of the people who pick up a stack of chips in their hand, move their arm forward, count out a bet that's less than the full stack, then put the remainder of the chips back on their stack. Think about it, you see it all the time. That is, in effect, no different to what you saw in this hand. Bunch of chips go forward, and some of them come back without becoming a bet. [/QUOTE]

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