Patrick Leonard's Questionable Angle Shooting

"You got it" - this usually means a player mucks their hand and forfeits the pot. Or, in the case of Patrick Leonard it means that he wants to elicit a reaction form his opponent that he can use as a tell, or even to make him muck his hand. Even the 2+2 forum community is divided on whether this was just tricky "speech play" or "a scumbag angle shooting".

There have been some high-profile angle shooting cases recently, like the one at this year's WSOP [3] or Alec Torelli's "chip hiding" on Poker Night in America.The most recent one is also here, this time coming from the PokerStars Championship in Barcelona: another player decided to use some trickery to gain an edge in front of the cameras.

In the PSC Barcelona Main Event near the bubble British poker pro Patrick Leonard played a huge pot against Italian Luigi Shehadeh. The board ran out 8s5sAc 4cl As, and on the river Leonard faced a 116,000-chip bet, almost half of his remaining stack. This is when he told his opponent "you got it", and even "nice hand" quickly afterward, all clear indications of folding, but he did not fold just yet - he waited for Shehadeh's reaction, and eventually let his hand go. The two commentators broadcasting the event, Joe Stapleton and James Hartigan agreed that this was a bad case of angle shooting.

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You can watch the video of the incident below.

The online poker community's reactions to Leonard's behavior have been mixed. In the 2+2 forum topic dedicated to the event some condemn him for what he did as a "scumbag angle shooter", while others feel that it's nothing significant and they welcome the fact that Leonard is among the few high stakes pros who are still active on the forum.