At first, my strategy was to limp in when we were playing blind versus blind. Then I began to raise every third hand we played in the blinds including normal raises such as pocket pairs, royal court cards, and suited connectors. The first time I raised from the small blind, he noticed and exclaimed that it was the first time I raised his big blind. After that he started making more raises. I noticed and took a mental note to start back raising more. We began building the action, forcing the other to call with garbage hands and play poker. Until the last hand we played together in the blinds and had a big disagreement with the action.

Everyone folded to the small blind. I looked down at King-Six of Clubs. I thought about raising but instead limped in with the intention of back-raising if he decided to raise. He threw out four red chips to make it $20. I thought about it for a moment before picking up a black chip from my stack and then reaching out to where the red chip that I had limped in with was located, picked it up and then set both the red and black chips down and spread them so that he could see I was raising to $105. The dealer announced a raise, but my opponent objected. He questioned if it should be a call because I did not announce a raise and claimed that I only tossed out the chip. The dealer began to explain but very quickly gave up and called the floor over.

When the floor arrived, we explained the situation. My opponent maintained that I had not picked up the red chip and I insisted that I did. The floor ruled that it was a call because poker is a verbal game. I disagreed with him, mainly because poker is not a verbal game. Poker is a game of observation. I asked if we could get a second opinion. While I suspected that at this point the big blind would not call my raise, I still wanted to make sure we were getting the correct ruling. As we waited for another floor to come make a ruling, the first floor came over to tell us that someone was on their way. We sat there in silence as the mood at the table changed. It was clear that this had upset my opponent.

The shift manager soon arrived and asked what happened. We again explained the situation to the shift manager but this time when I explained that I had picked up the red chip along with the black chip and then set them down and spread them out, my opponent objected before I finished speaking. He insisted that I had never picked up the chip and asked that they go check the camera. The shift manager right away shot down that idea and said he would not be going to check the camera. He asked the dealer if she had seen what happened. She apologized because she had been distracted by something else that happened at that time. The shift manager then asked if anyone at the table had witnessed what had happened, everyone said they had not seen anything and could not speak one way or the other. The only thing the shift manager had was what my opponent and I were saying which were contradicting. The shift manager took a moment to collect his thoughts and ruled that because we both had contradictory accounts of what had occurred, no one else saw anything, and there was nothing affecting the action, the raise would stand. Again, my opponent objected but the floor explained again why the raise would stand. My opponent finally conceded and folded.

After this incident, my opponents demeaner changed. He appeared to be stewing in his seat. What made it more awkward is that we were sitting right next to each other. At one point the dealer had to tell us to drop it because he had called me a liar, I told him that he shouldn’t be calling me a liar. The table was quiet and less talkative. I thought for sure this game would fall apart as slowly one by one; players began to rack up.

Looking back at the situation, I can see why he would want to object to the way I raised. In a previous hand I had verbalized raise but, in that instance, I had tossed out the black chip. Then there is the fact that I had plenty of red chips, why would I toss out a black chip to call when I could easily put out the red chips? I don’t think he was trying to angle me, but it is not in his best interest to face a raise.

When it came time for me to rack up and leave. I looked over at him and said, “No hard feelings?” I reached over and offered a fist bump. He looked up, bumped my fist, and said, “Ya, have a good night.”