04-28-05, LearnTexasHoldem:

Calling All-In With Wrong Amount Of Chips

Question: An odd thing came up in a tournament and even a tournament director who really knows his stuff couldn't figure out what to do. In the late stages of a tournament after the flop I was acting first and I made a bet of $10,000. I was raised $30,000 more. I pondered it and said "That will put me all-in... Okay, I call."

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We turned over the cards and ran it out. I won the pot. I counted out my chips and it turned out that I had $38,000 when I was raised. The person who I beat said that I didn't actually raise him all-in, which was technically true. It was implied that I was all-in (even if it was pointed out to me that I had extra money, that remaining $8,000 would have been put in in the next round of bidding) and had I lost the pot I wouldn't have expected to get $8,000, but the person I beat questioned it (it was a bit of a bad beat I hit him with so he was a little upset).

We didn't know what to do so I suggested he just give me the $30,000 raise and keep the extra $8,000 and that was that. What do the official rules state?

Answer: The key to ending this dispute is knowing exactly what you said. If you said, "That will put me all-in... Okay, I call", then by saying "call" you stated your move and you can't take that back. It doesn't matter if the chips in the pot are off. In tournament poker if you say a move, it is binding. You qualified saying "all-in" so that didn't count, but the "Okay, I call" did it. So what happened was correct: you put the $30k in.

On the same note, if you say "raise" and only put out enough chips to call, then it is also binding. You can't take it back, and the raise stands. Likewise, if you put out more than half of a raise, it is considered a raise and you can't take it back and only call. For example, if I were to put in $155 when the bet was only $100, I would have to complete the bet and make it $200. The rules are like this in a lot of places to prevent people from making "mistakes" that they can gain information from -- like string bets.

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