Last weekend I was at Club Oden to play their final ranking competitions. Unfortunately the tournament went to hell and I sat down instead and played some cash game.

After a few hours this situation happened. We are 4 players at the table and play 10/10 SEK Dealers Choice. I have about 2.500 SEK when the hand started and can't remember exactly the actual bet amounts but that's irrelevant to the example below.

It is straddled to 20 SEK and I'm first to act on the button. I raise up to 60 and BB reraise to 150 which the straddle cold calls. I reraise then to about 480, BB calls, after which the cold caller goes all-in for about 900 and I decide when to go all in and then the player in BB goes all-in too. Now to the situation:

Me and the player in BB that covers me decide to run three boards and ask if it is okay for the player who has a smaller stack. We decide to play three boards and I win the first and the opponent that covers me win the last two. Now we come to the problem.

We decided in haste to play the three boards. It turns out that the player who was sitting with about 900 only wanted to play one board. He had mentioned it, but I had totally missed it and so did my opponent that covered me. In contrast, the dealer hadn't missed it and the players sat around it.

Since both me and my opponent was totally committed for him to have 2 / 3 of the pot, we were very confused when I get more chips and my opponent gets upset. Under the rules, it appears that the first board is counted as the main pot where we had three players in it. The first board was the main pot and 1 / 3 of the side pot. The other two boards were each 1 / 3 of the side pot.

Since I won the main pot, and he won 2 / 3 of the side pot, it was me who won most in this whole situation. As I thought about this a moment it is crystal clear to me that the rules were followed but that it felt very wrong when both me and my opponent had missed that the third player only wanted one board. I felt that since we both had missed that fact, that he should be given 2 / 3 of the pot.

After the pot is split up, I figured out what the difference was (about 1.600 SEK) compared to if he should have 2 / 3 of the whole pot. I then offered my opponent to have them which was fine for the brush when it was obvious even to them that we both had missed the info. However, my opponent declined and did not take the money and we kept playing.

I argue that it is easy to make a mistake like this and that if it had been the other way around I would hope that my opponent offered me to get the corresponding 1.600 SEK, which I am aware that I normally would not have been offered. Now maybe I'm way off but in general I think that you should strive for in these situations that it should be fair and that common sense should prevail. For me it is common sense that we should divide the money on the understanding of the situation from the players involved and not strictly by the rules.

What are your thoughts about the above mentioned example?