I was obligated to show first because I made the bet.
They can because verbal "action" is binding... which is why he auto showed his cards.
Actually yes they can .
Yes they can ban the player, but they cant legally force the player to pay. At least thats what Bart Hansson from Crushlivepoker say, and I consider him to be a leading expert on low stakes live cash games. So the advice is to protect yourself by not showing your cards prematurely. There was also a recent call to Crushlivepoker, where someone misread their hand and mucked the winner. So the general advice is, that if in any dought at all, just hold onto your cards, until the dealer ask you to show them, and never muck a hand, that got to showdown. Its not that important to keep other players guessing about, what you had.
I have to agree with that. If someone say "I think im gonna call" or "I think I have to call", they are just thinking loud and perhaps trying to study your reaction, but they are not actually calling (yet). "Im gonna call" is so close to "I call", that its an angle and should result in a warning. But its still not "I call". In the more funny department there is a hand, where someone was bluffing the river and got raised. However he thought, his opponent had only called and congratulated him "good call", but the opponent thought, he said "I call." They eventually figured it out and moved on to the next hand
This is a word-play angleshot meant to get you to act or provide info about your hand. What a dealer or floor does in this instance is very inconsistent; it should be a call and a warning about the angleshot but as you experienced it often is not called that way.
I don't think this is an angle, unless there was a proper time gap between saying you're gonna show me anyway cos I'm gonna call and you flicking your chip in. Its only an angle if you wait to see her reaction, or potentially turn over her cards. If you say it vaguely simultaneously as putting chips in the pot, then its just a clear call!
