No Limit Cash Game: Can the Dealer Count the Pot?
jon don
I'd like to think I'm pretty sharp on all the rules but this one seems debatable to me. I've bet the pot many times (it's not a habit) in NL although usually it's a smaller pot and I say "I bet the Pot" and slide in the correct amount. I've been corrected by dealers when I've been over or under by mistake before. I've also said I bet the 3 seats stack many times and the action is always binding and when I've been called by the 3 seat and a third player the dealer has always made certain the pot was right before proceeding. What else can the dealer do? Can the dealer insist that I approximate the pot? Who's going to get all those worms back in the can?
I think your correct the dealer cannot count the pot if you ask. The spirit of the rule is you can't use the dealer as your private calculator to help you play proper strategy. He's not there to help you make decisions, only control the game, deal, read hands and award pots. Betting the pot and being bound to it means at most he might stack the chips and you match the stacks. He does not need to count the pot to force you to act on your verble declaration.
Verbal actions are binding and I would think this supercedes the "counting the pot rule". Now the player has acted and it's the dealers job to be certain he puts out what he stated and does not short or overbet. Now he must count the pot in order to protect the other players.
What if a player says "I bet the pot" then slides in a min raise or 1/2 the pot. Does it make for a stable game to allow the raiser to do this? How can you ever allow a player with enough chips to state a raise but short the pot with fewer chips?
If I'm sitting there with the nuts and guy "bets the pot" but shorts it 10%, you be certain I'm going to be calling the floor to make sure the pot is right. The floor man is going to have to explain to me if verbal declarations are binding in his club or not. How can he answer? "Well there binding except when..... and ..... and ......
No way, that's not a good floor or a clean game. A strong floor is not going to make exceptions to fundamentals of the game rules.
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