Daniel Negreanu's Blog

Daniel Negreanu actually write good posts on his blog.

This time a little about WSOP 2008 and betting rules at bellagio in Las Vegas.

Daniel writes:

It seems that every year at the WSOP people go bonkers at some point and act, well, just randomly bizarre. I assume it's the pressure, but man, some of these outbursts are downright awkward and annoying.

You got one 'classy' kid yelling, "Who's the bully now," after busting a Russian, than you have another guy yell, "You are an Idiot," to an opponent four times while pointing right at him aggressively.

Some people just completely lose composure and let their emotions take over. When the amateurs do it I can give them a pass, they have likely never been in that kind of situation before, but when a longtime pro does it, it's just totally inexcusable and pathetic.

When people play for that many days they'll often just crack and lose their minds on one hand and usually go broke.

Aside from the play, I did see a hand come up which involved a pet peeve of mine. Losev pushed forward 3 million in chips, took it back, and then cut out just 1.5 million in chips.
The floor was called over and they ruled that the bet should only be 1.5 million instead of the 3 million that was originally pushed forward.

It's a dangerous precedent to set, but the procedure used at Bellagio is by far the absolute worst of anywhere in the world. The set up there is absolutely designed to help cheaters and angle shooters.

At Bellagio there is a betting line. Unless verbally declared, only chips that cross that betting line count as a bet. There are a million ways to take advantage of this rule, but here is one good one:

You are on the river and your opponent bets 100,000. You have a marginal hand and aren't sure if it's good. Here is what you do:

Take four 25k chips, splash them forward but not far enough to touch the betting line. Your opponent will likely turn his hand up.

If you can beat his hand, just take the pot, if he shows you his hand and you can't beat it, just take your chips back and tell the floor he should get a penalty for turning his hand face up in the middle of a hand!

If the floor says you have to call the bet you just say, "Nope, my chips did not cross the line and I did not say call." That's cold blooded! According to the awful Bellagio rule, though, it would be considered perfectly legal to do that.

You can read the post and see Daniel Negreanu´s blog here: http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/blogs/article/453


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