Bonus: Angle Shoots, Game Integrity, Cheating

Today I want to talk about the integrity of the game. Angel shooting. Cheating. And our responsibility to maintain the integrity of the game as well as our own integrity.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, Welcome into another episode of the Low Limit Cash
Games podcast, a podcast exclusively for the low limit players
where the big cash games and we also have quite
a few people that have joined the Patreon and send
me questions about low stakes online. Although that's not my specialty,
there's a lot of new ones to that that I
don't necessarily specialize in, but people tell me they learn

(00:23):
from it. Nevertheless, glad that you hear. This is what
I'm going to label a quote unquote emergency episode. It's
a bonus episode. Wasn't planned, didn't have it in the agenda,
didn't have it on the calendar. This episode is as
a result of not one, not two, but three things
that have happened over the past week, and I just
feel it needs to be addressed. So you know, I

(00:47):
love poker. I'm very, very passionate about poker. I'm not
a poker professional. I don't play poker for a living,
but I do play full time hours most years. Think
I played sixteen or I forget now sixteen or seventeen
hundred hours of poker last year. I believe I played
pretty similar to the year before that, and pretty similar

(01:07):
to the year before that. Suffice to say, most years,
I play somewhere between one thousand and sixteen hundred hours
of poker. It's a lot of poker. You know. I
don't work. I don't have to work. Very fortunate in
that regard. I enjoy staying in hotels, I enjoyed being
in different towns, and I enjoy poker. I'm very, very

(01:28):
passionate about poker, and I'm passionate about all aspects of poker.
You may hear me from time to time talk about
my appreciation for how poker is a microcosm of life.
And I believe the world would be a better place
if everybody with some frequency sat down at a table
with a bunch of random poker players. I just think

(01:49):
it brings out, for the most part, the best in
all of us, and it allows us to grow as humans.
I don't really know many other pursuits where on any
given day you can sit around a table and have
conversations with people from Iran, Iraq, Russia, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, Moldova, Mexico, Brazil.

(02:20):
I mean, this happens frequently to me, like this isn't
a rare occurrence, and I can't think of any other
thing I've ever done in my life where that really
ever happened, but maybe on an occasion where it may
have happened and I was in a conversation with one
or two other nationalities, maybe it was once. But in poker,

(02:42):
it happens all the time. All the time, it happens,
and you have an appreciation for people. People or people
doesn't matter where they're from. People care about their family,
they care about their future. They generally care about right
and wrong and pursuit of happiness, and they generally aren't

(03:05):
out to harm you. You just learn that it doesn't
matter where somebody's from, they're not inherently evil. And if
you stay insulated from society and you just go to
your church where everybody's the same color as you, and
you hang out with your family where it's everybody you
know and they're the same color as you. And the

(03:27):
place you work is you know people from your community
and they're all the same color as you, and they
all speak the same language as you. And then you
get your news from your preferred news source, which reflects
the way the people that you hang out with all think.
You can be conned into believing that other people from
other places are inherently evil. You just can. You can

(03:49):
believe Russians are evil, you can believe Ukrainians are evil,
you can believe Iranians are evil. You can believe Iraqis
are evil. You know, you can believe people from Mexico
or evil, or you know, any adjective or descriptor you
want to throw in there, lazy or you know, colin artists,

(04:10):
or you know, you can just any kind of label
you want to slap on somebody. But when you rarely
hang out with people from all over the world, the
one thing you quickly discover is that people are all
the same. And so that has nothing really to do
about this episode of the podcast. I'm just talking about
why I'm so passionate about poker and why I think
even things other than strategy and poker are important. And
that's the things I'm going to talk about this week.

(04:31):
So this week I had three different things happened to
me in my poker universe, all similar in some regard,
and I want to run it by you because this
all falls back on another concept of life that I
learned from my father and I learned from other adults

(04:52):
that I had the good fortune to be influenced by
in my youth and in my formative years, and that
is that your name and your reputation are the most
valuable thing you have. And I don't care what your
lot in life is. I don't care if you're a
sanitation worker. I don't care if you work on Wall Street.

(05:13):
I don't care if you work in car sales. You know,
I don't care if you're an entertainer. I don't care
if you're a convenience store clerk. You trade on your reputation,
the trade that you are in, whatever trade that is,
you're trading on your reputation. People are buying what you're

(05:34):
selling based on your reputation. And I don't mean that
necessarily in just a financial sense. I don't mean it
as in, you're a car salesman trying to sell a
car and people are buying you. Although that's true. People
are buying you in every aspect of a life, whether
they choose to hang out with you, whether they choose
to go to dinner with you, whether they choose to
become friends with you, whether they choose to vouch for

(05:56):
you when somebody questions you. This is all based on
your reputation and your Reputation is the thing that will
precede you. It arrives before you. You show up somewhere,
someone there knows you, and they have talked to other
people there about you. Your reputation. Reputation will procede you.

(06:17):
It will also follow you when you leave that place.
The reputation that you have, the way you conducted yourself
when you leave, it will follow you, and it will
follow you every day until the day you leave this planet.
And even after you're gone, your reputation will still be
here vouching for you. When your name comes up in conversation,

(06:41):
your reputation will be attached to it. And there's nothing
that you can have or protect or cultivate that's more
important than your reputation. So I want to first say
that I'm going to talk about three different people. I'm
not gonna call them by name, I'm not gonna give
any details about them, but this podcast will involve three

(07:03):
different people, and I believe that all three of these
people are probably outstanding people. They're probably great people. They
probably care about their community, they probably care about their family.
They're probably not you know, I have never even considered,
you know, doing anybody wrong in any kind of a
physical way or anything like that. There's probably good people.

(07:27):
They saw you on the side of the road, they
would probably stop and help you. So I just want
to make that very very clear. But when you get
into the world of poker, things become black and white
areas become more shades of gray because you are trying
to do everything within your ability to take money from

(07:47):
other people at the table. That's what poker at its
core is in the way the game of poker functions.
As I mentioned that, that's the one I was so
clear to be in this at the beginning of this podcast,
the llay out the other many great things I think
there are about poker, because there's a lot of other
great things about poker, but at its core, it's you know,
you know, eight or nine people sitting at a table
and they're attempting to win money off the other people

(08:10):
at the table. That's what you're trying to do, and
you do it in deceptive ways. Poker is one of
those things where it's okay to lie, it's okay to exaggerate,
it's okay to try to deceive people in certain ways
where we generally draw the line in poker is one

(08:30):
very bad angles When you try to angle shoot somebody,
This is doing something that's not necessarily ethical. It's not
cheating per se, although it can cross the line into cheating.
Angle shooting isn't always cheating. Sometimes you can angle shoot
within the rules so that it's technically okay, but it's

(08:51):
just ethically bad. And I'm not going to necessarily go
into a list of what those things are. But then
secondarily that is just cheating. You can just cheat people.
So before I'm going to talk about three instances that
happened before, before I talk about the first one, I'm
going to ask you a question, and I want you
to answer me honestly. If you were at a if

(09:12):
you were at a poker table with you know, say,
say it's nine handed table for whatever reason, it's nine
handed table, So there's eight other people at the table
with you, and one of those people had a a device. Uh.
It could be any kind of device, could be electronic,
it could be having a mirror set up a certain way.

(09:35):
It could be you know, having their phone positioned a
certain way. Whatever they had some way where they were
surreptitiously able to see the whole cards of the person
sitting to their right. So would that be digitally, electronically,

(09:55):
old school mirrors or you know whatever. They they have
some way of seeing their opponent's whole cards, and now
they're able to use that information in various ways. So one,
when they're playing that player specifically, they can play that
player perfectly. When them and that player are in a
hand together, they can play against that player perfectly because

(10:19):
they know what that player has. But not just that,
when they're playing anybody else in the hand. You can
also play better because you now know what four of
the cards out of the deck are, rather than your
opponent only knowing what two of the cards are, which
is the two he has in his hand. Obviously he
knows the community cards on the flop, whether that be
the flop turning river, you know, he either knows three, four,

(10:40):
or five of the cards, but you both know those.
But other than that, your opponent only knows the two
cards in his hand. You, on the other hand, know
the two cards in your hand, and you know the
two cards of the person that you surreptitiously discovered, and
so you know, how could this help you? How could

(11:01):
this help you? So? Okay, well, let's say that you
were playing in a hand, and you know, it gets
to the river and you hit a you know, you
hit a like a Queen high flush or something, and
you bet, and now your opponent shoves all in on you,

(11:24):
and you're like, oh crap, I mean, this isn't the
best opponent in the world. But would he really be
shoving a worse flush than a Queen high flush? You know,
I lose to a King high flush and I lose
to an Ace high flush. Would he really be shoving
like a JACKI flush? Here. Now assume that you had
surreptitiously learned through your mirror or your phone or your

(11:47):
device or whatever way you were secretly getting information from
the person next to you. You were able to steal
information about their whole cards. Let's suppose that you knew
that that person had had folded the ace of hearts right,
and it's a heart flush on board, and you have
a Queen high heartflush, and you've bet, and now your

(12:07):
opponent is shoved in on you, and they canna have
a King high flush which beats you, or an aside
flush that beats you. But you're like, well, I mean
they're not the best player, like they might, you know,
maybe they would shove worse flushes sometimes, but man, I
lose to King high aside flushes. But now you know
something they don't know. You know that the person to
your right folded the ace of heart, so it's impossible

(12:30):
for your opponent to have an ace high flush. So
now the only flush that they shove with it beats
you is a King high flush. And so now you're like, well,
I think sometimes they probably would shove a Jack high
flush or a's in high flush. And so now that
makes your decision easier to call because you know, out
of the three flushes you think they would shove, or

(12:51):
or out of the four flushes you think they would shove,
one of them is impossible. You only lose to one
of them, and you beat two other ones. So now
you call because mathematically you should just call. And in
even more extreme scenarios, you have the King high flesh
right and you and you and you bet, and now
they shove all in on you. But you just know
you have the nut flush even though it's a King

(13:12):
high blush. You know it's the nut flush because you
know because you surreptitiously gained the knowledge of the whole
guards of the person next to you, So you're not
cheating or or acting out of line with the person
who who's sitting next to you. You were used, but
you were you know, because you were next to them.

(13:34):
They like you used your phone or whatever method you
use to gain information about their hand. You now know
that the other person doesn't have the ace high flush either,
and you just have an easy call and you call
them all in and you win, and they were bluffing.
So I think we would all agree that that's just cheating.
You're just flat out cheating everybody at the table. You
are just one hundred percent flat out cheating everybody else

(13:56):
at the table. I would hope that you would agree
with that. If you were using some kind of device
or a mirror or some you know, some kind of
weird method that you came up with to steal the
information about your opponent's whole cars next to you, it's
just flat out cheating, and you're cheating. You're not just
cheating them. You can use the information you have about

(14:17):
their whole cars to cheat everybody else at the table.
Sometimes not all the time, not every hand, but in
some hands you can use that information to cheat them.
I hope we would all agree that that's cheating. Now,
I'm just gonna take it one step further. So, now
you're sitting next to a person who just exposes their hands.
They're not good at hiding their hands, and you just

(14:40):
you can't, you can't help it. You've just seen their
hands like they just you know, the way they pull
their hands up, they pull the card up off the table,
look their hands and put it back down, and you
just see their hand like you didn't. You didn't come
with a device, you didn't use your phone, you didn't
use mirrors, you didn't use some kind of fancy contraption.
It's just them being loose with their cards. If you

(15:05):
allow them to keep doing that and use that information,
is that cheating? Is it now no longer cheating because
of the way you're getting the information, because you're not
surreptitiously getting the information. You're getting the information because the
person next to you is very careless with their cards.
Does that mean you're now not cheating like you were
cheating before. You were cheating the player against because you

(15:26):
had knowledge that they didn't know you had, So you
were cheating them. You gained the information about your opponent's
whole cards in a surreptitious way. And now you're in
your hand with somebody that not the person searts your cards.
You're in your hand with somebody completely different, but you
know something, you know a card that's missing, and use
that information to cheat them. That's cheating. But now this
time you didn't steal the cards. You didn't. You didn't

(15:48):
surreptitiously get it. The person next to you was just
clumsy with their cards, and you know their whole cards.
And you get in that same spot you have the
king high flush they shove on you. You know they
don't have the aside flush because you saw your very
careless neighbor flash the ace of hearts? Is this? Is
it no longer cheating? Now? Is it no longer cheating

(16:09):
because the person next to you is careless? It's one
hundred cheating. I would hope that you would agree with
me that you're still cheating the other players at the table.
This is just flat out, undeniably cheating. Now let's go

(16:30):
step further. Let's say that you that you warn the
neighbor next to you, go, hey, man, you're flashing your cards.
You'd be more careful. I can see your cards and
to three hands later, he flashes you again, and you're like, okay,
look man, this I'm telling you for the second time.
I'm not trying to see your cards, but you're just
flashing them. You know, please protect your cards better. And

(16:51):
you know, three hands later, he's still flashing your cards
and you're like, Okay, I'm just not gonna keep telling
this dude all day to stop flashing me his cards,
but I'm going to use that information. You know, if
I get in hand with him, you know that's on him.
Now I've done my part. I've done my part. I've
told him I'm seeing his cars. He keeps flashing them.
It's off me. I've done my part. So now five

(17:12):
hands later, you see that he flashes the ace of hearts.
You get in the end with the other guy, you
have the King I hearts. You bet he shoves on you.
You confidently call because you know he can't have these hearts.
Were you cheating there? Of course you were still cheating
there because you know something that he doesn't know. You know,
you were using information that you should not have access to.

(17:35):
And you, while you did do the value the thing,
you did do the honorable thing. You really tried to
get your neighbor to not flash his cars. It doesn't matter.
You're still without anybody else's knowledge at the table. You're
not telling anybody else at the table that you saw
him flash the Ace of hearts. You're not sharing that
with anybody. You're keeping that in your own little head.
And then the spot comes up this hand and you

(17:56):
use it, and you went a big pot because of it.
You cheated. Now let's take it a step further. You
know you warned the guy, and now you wear sunglasses
so nobody can see you looking over there because you
know he's going to keep flashing his cards and you're
wearing sunglasses, and you're like, well, I warned him, I
did my part. I was an honorable person. But if
he's going to keep flashing on the I'm gonna put my

(18:17):
sunglasses on. And I was just gonna keep looking at
his hand because he's showing it. I've done my part.
It's not on me. One hundred percent. You're still cheating.
You're cheating everybody else at the table. That is one
hundred percent cheating. You're just cheating. The only way you're
not cheating now is for every time he flashes your

(18:39):
cars to say, table, I saw this guy's cards again.
He showed me the Ace of Hearts. You just you
have to tell everybody else at the table what you saw.
You just have to. That's the only way to maintain
the integrity of the game. You just must do that.
As an ethical person, you must tell the rest of

(18:59):
the table. My opponent next to me flashed the Ace
of Hearts and I saw it. That's the only way
that it's not cheating. It's just cheating. Anything else is cheating. Now.
I mentioned that because that's literally something that come up

(19:19):
in my pocus in my Poker universe this week. That
exact discussion in conversation came up in my poker universe
this week. And the person again who I'm not saying
anything about, not calling them out, not call them names,
not trying to get a posse out out after them.
I'm just using this thing that happened as the means

(19:41):
to talk about this. But they defended it to the death.
They defended it, gave all these analogies about how poker's
like a battlefield and where it wore and you, I mean, no,
it's not a battlefield. We're literally not at war. You're
playing a social game where the integrity of the game
is paramount, and you have now because of your actions,

(20:06):
you have now compromised the integrity of the game. So
it's it's just cheating, plain and simple. So look, not
only should you tell the person they're showing their cars
and look, I give him a couple of chances, but
after that, I just tell the table. I'm like, look,
he just keeps flashing his cards. He had the as
of hearts in his hand. I'm just I'm not gonna
be the only person that knows that that's unethical and

(20:29):
it's cheating. So we had we were. I was actually
playing poker this morning. This is so crazy that all
this stuff tied together one week. So I'm playing poker
this morning. Now this incident I'm talking about this other
thing happened I don't know, like three four days ago.
I'm playing poker this morning, and this lady, very nice lady,
very polite lady. She had no ill intent in the world.

(20:50):
She's just here to have some fun, laughed a lot,
very pleasant, glad to have her at the table. Could
not cover her cards for nothing. She would just pick
them up and just hold them way up high and
she's sitting in like seat four, So everybody on that
side of the table sees her cards. I'm in seed eight,
I'm on the opposite of the table. I don't get
to see her cards. Well, you know, to their credit.
People on the other side of the table kept saying, hey,

(21:12):
I can see her cards. I see and you know,
the floor or the dealers like, hey, you got to
put your cards out. Everybody's trying to teach this woman
how to look at her cards, and she's obliviously she
can't do it. Like I've never seen somebody not be
able to look at cards, but she just couldn't do it.
Every hand, it was every single hand. Well, this one
gentleman at the table who was two seats over from her,
you know, not only did he kept saying, I can

(21:33):
see your cards and warrying her about it if he
saw her cards. Now he started just saying what the
cards were, as he should have. Eventually we call the
floor and we're like, look, we you know this lady's
obviously knew we don't want her to leave the game.
We wanted to have a good time. Obviously, you should
always be welcoming in the poker world to do players,
you should go out to way to help them. But

(21:53):
this lady wasn't new. She knew hand ranking, she knew
how to bet, she knew how to play poker, she
just didn't know how to hold her cards. Or well,
that's not even true. On two or three hands, she
actually looked at them correctly, so I know that she
was capable of doing it. So out of the I
don't know, out of the thirty thirty or thirty five hands,
we saw her play three of them she held them perfectly.

(22:16):
The rest of them she just didn't care, and she
would just laugh and giggle like I don't know why whatever.
But eventually it came down to the floor, came over
and said, look, if you can't conceal your cards, you
are affecting the integrity of the game. We're gonna have
to I'm gonna have to invite you to leave. You
can go play any of the casino type games because
it doesn't matter if people see your cards over there,

(22:37):
but you just so, I mean, eventually she had to
leave the table. Same thing. So it's kind of weird,
Like the exact scenario that I had come up earlier
in the week, which caused a lot of drama, you know,
too much. Further than that, actually came up real life
with me this morning Blamberger, which was I was sitting
there thinking, how bizarre is this? No one other thing happened,

(22:58):
And this other thing I'm going to tell you was
an angle. It was an angle. I'm not gonna say
it was cheating. It doesn't rise to the level of cheating,
but to me, it's an angle. So we were playing poker,
and again I'm not calling any names, and I'm looking
to call anybody out, and I'm not looking to deride anybody,
like we all do things, we've all done things, whatever.

(23:19):
But we were at one of the friendliest tables ever
and we'd been playing together for hours. This table was
a laughing We're just having the most fun. We're goofing
around like it's literally, seriously one of the most fun
times I've ever had playing poker. I just everybody there
was a joy to be with, just a great just
a great night of poker. It was amazing. So at

(23:44):
one point one of the people there who I know
very well play with. This person often is sitting to
my right, And of course when I'm in a poker game,
I like to look to my left a lot to
see if I can pick up what people on my
left are going to do, so that you know, sometimes
I see if somebody's looking to that they're going to
raise or something like a hand I might open with
like a nine eight suit or something. I'll just fold

(24:04):
it because I can see to my left. Now, this
isn't angling or cheating. This is just paying attention to
the game. You should be watching everybody around you. And
sometimes as you see to the person your left is
getting ready to raise, and you were thinking about opening
up a small suit protection, you can just fold it
because you know now they're going to three baby. But
you also should look to the right. So I just
happened to be looking to the right as the action's
coming around and the player to my right lifts up

(24:25):
the front of his cards, puts them down. Then he's
next to act and he announces all right. I don't
know exact words, but it was something to the effective
to heck with it or whatever, or I'm just going
to go in all in dark or all in blind.
I only said darker blind. Well, I clearly said because
I'm paying attention. I clearly saw that this person looked

(24:47):
at their cards, and I'm like, so, and I'm next
to act and I'm like, are you sure you didn't
look at your cards? Oh? Good, look at my cards.
I said, okay, I'll give you a chance to answer
it again. I was watching you. I literally saw you
look at your cards. No, didn't look at my cards.
I was like, okay, one more opportunity. I wanna give

(25:08):
you a chance to come clean. I was looking directly
over there when the act before the action was on you,
and saw you look at your cards. Refuse. To me,
it looks card well. I look down at pocket tens.
I don't think my pocket tins are ever good here.
But sometimes you have a feeling that the poker gods

(25:30):
will be on your side. Sometimes the poker gods help
you dispense justice. And this person's all in for like
two hundred or something like I think I had like
an eight hundred thousand dollars stack, like I'd been doing
very well in the game. You know, I'm up eight
hundred dollars six hundred seven, eight hundred dollars or something.
He's all in quote unquote blind for two hundred. I

(25:50):
have pocket tens. I know I'm behind hundred, said I'm behind,
but I'm like, you know what, poker God's about to
teach you a lesson. I call everybody else full. We
flop a ten right straight away on the floor like
the poker gods just came down and said, yeah, we're
not tolerating this. This is unethical, man, This angling is

(26:10):
bad angling. And bank bank bank stacked him, and you
know he felt bad about it, uh, because he had
to table his hand. I mean he didn't have to.
I mean he could have, but he had to before
me because I called his all in and he was also,
you know, in rotation before me, so he has to
show his hand first. I didn't show. I want to
see his hand. I want the whole table to see

(26:32):
his hand. I'm trying to make a point here. Now.
He could have just mucked them. He just shoved them.
He could have just shoved them in the muck. But
he didn't. He showed him and it was pocket kinks.
And I gave him a little speech. I gave him
a little speech. I said, man, your reputation isn't worth
two hundred dollars. It just isn't like this is. You've

(26:54):
been here, this has been one of the friendliest, funnest
tables ever. Nobody here trying to angle anybody or take
We're just playing the game straight up. We're laughing, we're joking.
You went a pot. I don't care, a pot, I
don't care. It's fine. We're here having fun like we're
all doing the best we can. But nobody's out here
trying to head hunt. Man, nobody's actually trying to angle people.

(27:15):
And I said, your reputation, not only at this poker room,
but your reputation in life, is way more important than
two hundred dollars. Man, it's for three weeks from now,
you won't even remember this two hundred dollars. But three
weeks from now, I can promise you everybody at this
table remember what just happened. They will all remember it.
They will remember it six months from now, two years
from now, you'll be the guy that angled by saying

(27:37):
you were all in blind like this is going to
follow you for a long time. Well, he left that
it was two days ago, and happened to see him
again today. He came over. He shook my hand, he apologized.
I was like, dude, pology accepted. Apology accepted for sure,
because it's not like you were cheating, but you're just

(27:58):
angling hard, and it's like, there's really no need for that, man,
there's really no need for that. Like there's ways that
you there's a lot of ways that you try to
take advantage of other people at the table. You pay attention,
you try to memorize what hands are opening with. These
are all brain skills, these are all these are why
we love the game. It's an intellectual pursuit. It's a

(28:19):
psychological pursuit. But when you step from the psychological to
the paying attention to the database of information you're keeping
all these things. We're keeping track of mannerisms, tales, speech,
all this stuff. You know, all that's firmly within well
accepted parameters of WHATSA. When you cross from that into

(28:42):
an angle, you place yourself in another category of that's
just it's not good. It's just not good. It's not good.
I've been accused of angling a couple of times. Matter
of fact, I got accused of angling this past Saturday night.
But it's somebody I know very very well. We were
laughing and yucking it up, and I don't for a

(29:04):
second believe that he thought I was actually angling. We
were just having fun. We're just joking around and blah
blah blah blah blah. And he's like, oh, you're angling, man,
you're angling, But you know, we were joking around. But
anytime I seriously believe somebody thinks I'm angling, I will
do anything in my power to correct it because I
don't do it. And I've actually made mistakes at the
table once or twice where people thought I was angling,

(29:25):
and I'll tell you one of them and then one
hundred percent was not an angle. But I saw how
it could have been an angle, and I apologized profusely,
and I offered to do anything I could do to
alleviate fear, like you know, what, what do y'all want
me to do to you know, I'll do anything because
I don't angle. I ain't here to angle, man. My
reputation is more important than that. But so I was

(29:45):
in a hand with a very very tough poker player,
one of the toughest poker players I ever played with.
And it was a two five game. It's a big
two five game. He's in seat one, I'm in seat two,
and we get in this hand where now on the turn,
and it was either the turnar it was the turn
he now shoves. I think he checked. I bet and
he shoved on me. And I had a very good hand,
but the hand he's representing I just probably don't beat. Now,

(30:08):
you know, there's a couple of bluffs. So so I
go into a long tank, like I really need to
count a lot of combos. This is a spot where
I need to do I need to do my due
diligence right because it's a big you know, it's big
for me. If you play ten to twenty, then you
probably don't think my little two five game was big.
But it's big for me. You know, I don't know.
It's like a two thousand and three thousand dollars pot,

(30:28):
and so I tank. So and everybody at table's really
cool about it. They're all like, no, no, this is
a huge pot. You should take your time, man. And
I'm like, I appreciate it. And that's generally the way
we are. You know, you don't want people tanking all
the time, but when it's when one of the bigger
pots of the night and it's a tough spot, the
table is generally cool with you tank, and so everybody's

(30:50):
really nice about it. Well, you know, I had some
you know, a few one dollar chips in front of me.
And so after I've tanked for like a minute, minute
and a half or something, I just keep apologizing. And
I always try to be mindful of the dealers. Every
time you tank for a minute and a half, you
have now cost the dealer another hand they could have
dealt because you could have acted, They could have had

(31:11):
new cards in the air, and now they could be
earning another dollar. And so I said, almost simultaneously, I
picked up a dollar chip and I threw it like
slightly before I said it, like I didn't time it well.
I wasn't trying to angle or anything, but I wanted
to throw. My intention was to throw a dollar chip
to the dealer to compensate him for, you know, me

(31:33):
costing him a hand. So I'm costing him a dollar
or two dollar tip. And so I go to throw
the chip at him, and I throw it and then
I and then you know it, apparently it leaves my
hand and maybe even plops on the table or whatever
in front of him or whatever. As I then say, hey,
this is for you man, because I'm apologize, I'm costing
you a tip. Well, a couple of people were like,

(31:56):
whoaoa dude, what are you trying to do? That looked
like you were tossing in a call. And I'm like, no,
We'll wait a second, one hundred percent no, because you
know you can do the flick of chip in call thing.
And I'm like, no, dear God, no, no, for Heaven's sake, no,
it's not an angle. As you know, I just felt
I feel bad for the dealer. Like we've had times

(32:18):
where I'll give you another example. We had a time
where New Year's Eve, our room did this buffet and
so at like midnight or whatever time, I don't know
what time the buffet was, but they announced buffet open,
and so everybody leaves their table to go get in
line to grab buffets like cattle. And so we're just
sitting here and the dealers at most of the tables
are sitting there with the games, just sitting because people

(32:39):
have gotten up and gotten in the line to go
get this buffet. Well, I waited because I'm not going
and I'm sitting there, and I feel bad for the dealer.
So I tipped the dealer. I tipped the dealer a
few bucks to make up for the hands that she
was missing while we're all sitting there, like, I try
to be mindful of dealers. You can't play poker without dealers, guys.
So I mean, uh so, here's the thing that So
the guy was in the hand when he's a consummate professional,

(33:01):
like he's been playing poker for years and years and years.
He knows to not expose his hand. He's not even
if I were trying to angle him, he ain't falling
for it. But I wasn't trying to angle them. But
it looked like an angle, or a couple of people
at the table perceived it as an angle. I was
so terrified that I would gain a reputation for angling that.
Like I was like, I just I don't know what

(33:21):
I need to do or say. But guys, y'all all
know me. Like the people that chipped up and said it,
like they weren't people that I played with a lot
of people that I played with a lot, and they
just know that I don't No amount of money is
worth that to me. I'm just not going to do it.
I just I'm just not like, I'm not going to
angle you to get money. Those two guys piped down.
I think some other people at the table vouched for me,
you know, and they're like, ah, it's just awkward timing,

(33:43):
and and so it was fine, but I go out
of my way. I will go out of my way
to avoid even the slightest perception that there's some impropriety
going on, because it's not worth my reputation. When when
I show up in a poker room, I want everybody
that's there that's ever played with me to go. I mean,
that's a stand up guy. There's a stand up guy.

(34:04):
I'll only end on one other note. And I've talked
about this. I talked about this an episode of Pot,
so you may have heard it. But I got into
the spot where, in my opinion, it was a bad
floor ruling, but nevertheless, the floor ruled that me and
another person in the hand would would split a pot.
I'm not going to get into what happened or why
it happened. That it's kind of irrelevant now. The dealer

(34:25):
messed up. The dealer messed up and caused originally the
pot to be pushed to the other guy. Because the
actions of the dealer caused me to inadvertently muck my hand,
I'm not going to get into all how that happened.
But nevertheless, even though the dealer influenced it and caused

(34:46):
me to prematurely muck my hand, steal my responsibility, doesn't
matter that the dealer screwed up, doesn't matter that the
dealer was pushing chips to me. You know, none of
this matters. I mean, I know this is and weirdy,
but the dealers literally pushing chips to me. As the
chips are coming towards me, I moved my cars around

(35:06):
and muck them. And then the other person announces that
they actually called and their cards are face up now
and mine are in a mug. And I mean it
was horrible. I mean, they didn't call, and none of
that matters. It was a misunderstanding. It was a misunderstanding.
But the floor made a wrong ruling. The floor ruled
that we should chop the pot. That's the floor said,

(35:28):
the fairest thing we can do is chop the pot. Well,
that was the wrong ruling. It was a nice ruling.
They were being polite because they knew I mucked the
best hand. But they were being polite and so they
were trying to make it right. But it was the
wrong ruling. The ruling should have one hundred percent ben
that I mucked my hand. Therefore I am not entitled
to the pot. His hand showed. So in the moment

(35:50):
I took half the pot, I took it because I
was so furious. I was just I was, I was.
I've only been furious at the poker room maybe twice
in my life, three times, maybe in my entire life.
That was one of the times I was livid. I
I took the half of the pot. Whatever, we made

(36:11):
it through that session, whatever. The next day, so overnight,
you know, I'm thinking about that as I'm laying in bed,
I'm thinking about the hand. I'm like, you know what,
even though I was wronged, he didn't wrong me, and
the ruling was wrong. I mucked my hand. The rules
are you monkey hand, you lose. It doesn't matter how
it happened, doesn't matter that dealer Ica is just I

(36:33):
mucked my hand, and it's my responsibility to protect my
hand at all time. So the next day, I'm in
the poker room and this gentleman that we were in
the hand with he walks in, and so I go
to the cage and I buy the exact amount of
chips that was half the pot to the best of
my recollections is what my memory was. And I go

(36:56):
over to him at the table and I set the
racket tacks chips down, Sime, and I said, this year,
this is the half of the pot they gave me.
You're you're, you were entitled to that pot. I mucked.
I had the one in hand, I said, I want
you to know I had the one in hand one
hundred percent. I had the winning hand had I had
the nuts. I flopped the nuts. And there was another
guy betting, and you were calling, and I was just
calling because I knew we were going to get it

(37:17):
all in by the river. I said, I had the
stone cold nuts, but all that's irrelevant. My hand was mucked.
And I said, by are the rules. You're entitled to
that pot, and I don't. I don't want to get
something I'm not entitled to, even though I had the
best end. And I said, you tabled your hand. You
did it right, You tabled your hand. There was misunderstanding,
but your your your hand was on the table face up.

(37:37):
Mine was in the muck. And I sat the chips
down beside him and I said, here, I want you
to have one. I said, there's no hard feelings, none
of that had anything to do with you. And I
just want this to be good man, and I just
want you to know that I would never angle you
or I would never take money. I'm not entitled to
just I'm like, I feel horrible about it. And he
was kind of taking aback and say oh no, no, no,
I'm like, no, take it seriously, and I should his hand.

(38:00):
I walked the way. Well like twenty minutes later, he
comes back to my table and he goes, here's He says,
here's your chips. I tell you what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna cheap. I'm going to keep a green twenty
five dollars chip out of here for conversation whixcept you know,
the pot was like a six hundred dollars pot or something.
He's like, yeah, I'm just gonna keep a green chip.
He said, I'll keep a green chip. That way you
can feel like you gave me something back and you

(38:20):
just keep the chips because he said that it was
need one. And I mean, it's just been super friendly,
and you know he's he's of the utmost character, and
I've tried to be of the utmost character. This turned
into a long pot about character and integrity of the
game and stuff. But guys, brother, this is your first
day showing up to play poker, or it's your tenth

(38:41):
year or your twenty fifth year of showing up and
playing poker. Nothing is more important than two things, your
reputation and the integrity of the game. And you should
do everything in your power to maintain both of those
to the highest possible standard. Maintain your reputation in the

(39:06):
poker world to the highest possible standard, and do your
best to help police the game. As a player sitting
at the table with eight other players, every player there
should be doing their best to police that game. I
know the dealer's supposed to police it, and they do
their best, but it's a game of a lot of
moving parts, and it's all upon us to help police

(39:29):
that game, to uphold it to the highest possible levels
and standards. The integrity game should be the top most,
utmost priority. Nobody should ever feel like they got angled, cheated,
taken advantage of in any kind of way at a
poker table. We should do everything at all costs to

(39:50):
avoid it. Cheating is cheating. Don't be a cheating all right,
hope you've enjoyed this episode of the pot Learn how
to crush one, two, one, three, No Limit. I know
we didn't talk any strategies today, but I think today's
pod was very important. You can head on over to
the Low Limit Cash Games dot com Lowlimit Cash Games

(40:11):
dot Com and you can become a fan of the pod.
And I do a strength if you love strategy pods,
we doing every single Sunday over there. You get one
free one here a month, and then all the other
Sundays of the month they go over there. There's no ads,
there's no fluff, there's no intro, there's no outro. Just
jumped straight into the strategy. It's quick and efficient. It's
five bucks, and would love to have you for that.

(40:32):
Of course, we have a full blown training package tier.
I'd love to have you for that. And if you
want to get coached one on one, we may or
may not have slots for that. I keep that very
close to the best. I don't work with a lot
of people, but I love you have you there. I'll
tell you one thing I won't tolerate. If you come
in to my Patreon and you sign up on my
discord and you start talking about how you cheat people
and you're proud of it. I will refunde you your money,

(40:55):
and I will remove you from the discord, and I
will remove you from the Patreon because I don't want
to associate with that type behavior. I just won't. I'm
just not going to do it. Best wishes to you,
but to me, nothing in the game is more important
than honor and the integrity of the game. My reputation

(41:17):
and the integrity of the game. That's the two most
important things, all right. All the links to everything is
down in the information section below this pod. You can
check it out there. And I appreciate you being here
for my forty one minute diatribe about ethics and integrity
of this beautiful game we love called poker.