I play in two or three live poker tournaments every week. These games are played at pubs or clubs and all are run by amateurs who are usually also playing in the tournament themselves. In the last post I detailed how this situation can lead to controversies over the rules and the way that they are applied. And because these are amateur-run games there are often no actual written rules to refer to. In the end it comes down to common or accepted practice. And common practice in these situations can deviate a lot from what is considered to be standard practice in more formal games.
The organisers of some of the games I regularly play in have recently adopted the Tournament Directors Association Rules as their standard, which is a step in the right direction. However, adopting these rules wholesale is not necessarily a good idea for relatively informal games, and there is a tendency to enforce some rules and not others. In other words, we are still essentially operating by the principal of: 'the rules are what the Tournament Director says they are'.
In addition, because they are designed for use in tournaments that have professional dealers, the TDA rules don't cover the procedures for dealing or the responsibilities of dealers. For example, some of the clubs I play at have now introduced a 'no poking' rule. The normal procedure for player-dealt games is for the deck to be passed to the player on the dealer's right, and that person then cuts the cards, leaving the cut card at the bottom. Up until recently what happened was that the dealer held out the deck, the other player then poked the cut card into the deck and the dealer then moved the top half to the bottom and proceeded to deal. Now we've been told that we have to place the deck and the cut card on the table and the 'cutter' then moves the top section of the deck onto the cut card, then the remainder of the deck, then passes the deck back to the dealer. Personally, I don't have a problem with poking, but if that's the way they want it done, that's okay. The only problem is, poking is standard practice at my Wednesday night game and if I place the deck on the table the cutter wonders what the hell I'm doing. I guess I just have to remember which game I'm at and whether it's okay to poke or not to poke.
Another thing I occasionally come across that would never happen in a game with a professional dealer is the 'pot counter'. On my Wednesday night game there's a particular player who sometimes counts out the chips in the pot to see how much is in there. Presumably he does this to help him decide how much to bet. Now, the dealer (not the player) is actually allowed to do this in a pot limit game, but it's definitely not allowed in a no limit game. The most a dealer is allowed to do in no limit is to spread the chips out a bit so you can get a better view, but that's all. But the person who habitually does this also happens to be the game organiser, so there's not much point in complaining about it.
Because of the informal nature of these games you tend to get a lot of hands in the pot. People usually take change out of the pot themselves, usually before the betting round is completed, which tends to lead to a certain amount of confusion when someone then raises. Then there's the 'pot tidier'; the player who just can't stand to see an untidy pile of chips and has to put them all into neat stacks. And of course, on the other end of the spectrum there's the 'pot splasher'; the player who, instead of placing his bet in front of him just chucks the chips in the general direction of the pot, leaving the other players to guess at how much has been bet.
But the one thing that really gets to me in these types of games is the table talk. The rules of tournament poker are that you cannot say anything about a hand in progress, whether you are in the hand or not. You can't tell anyone what you folded, you can't suggest what the best hand might be, you can't make guesses about what another player is holding; you can't do anything that might influence the actions of another player. This rule is regularly and consistently flouted in the games I attend, and it can get pretty annoying. I have spoken up about it a few times when it's been particularly bad, but my complaints have fallen on deaf ears. Just last week I had a little hissy fit when someone insisted on pointing out that a player holding a 6 would have the nut straight. When I complained, the person involved couldn't understand why I should care about someone suggesting what I might be holding in my hand. So, the constant babble about the possibilities presented by the flop, or the hand someone would have had if they hadn't folded, goes on, and on, and on.
Some of the irregular rules in these tournaments are the result of ignorance of the standard procedure that is followed elsewhere. For instance, in any professionally run tournament if a player has to be moved to a new table it is the player 'under the gun' (sitting to the left of the big blind) who is moved and they are then dealt in at the new table and take on whatever responsibilities their new seat carries, including paying the big blind. This is a very sensible system as it means that it is usually an advantage to be moved to another table and no-one has to sit out any hands.
For some reason, all the local games run a different system. When someone needs to be moved, it is the player one position behind the dealer (or in some cases, two behind the dealer). But if they move into the blinds or the dealer position they have to sit out until the button passes them. So this sometimes means sitting out three hands. I ended up in this position once, coming into the big blind and having to sit out until the button passed. One of the other players was loudly complaining about how this gave me an unfair advantage. I was more of the opinion that sitting out a number of hands is a disadvantage. But either way, it's rather an odd way to do things. I suspect that this method originally comes from the National Pub Poker League games, as I know that they do things this way. But wherever it comes from, I'm going to try and get the Interclub competition to change to the 'under the gun' system and with a bit of luck it might spread to other games from there.
Another example of ignorance of normal procedure is the raising rule. This is one that doesn't come up very often and when it does, it doesn't make an awful lot of difference to the game, but it illustrates how easy it is to end up following procedures that are not actually correct. All poker rules state that if you raise, it should be a minimum of twice the previous bet or raise. So if there is a bet of 200 and someone raises 200 to make it 400, then a re-raise would have to be to a minimum of 600; the previous player raised 200 on top of the original bet, so the new raise has to be 400 plus the original 200. Nobody does it this way in my local games. They always say that a raise has to be twice the total previous bet, so in this case it would be to 800. I've argued the point on this a couple of times but got no traction whatsoever, so now I just go with the flow and play by the 'double the last bet' rule.
Another rule that I think comes from the NPPL is the forced check. If a player bets or raises out of turn, the players who had yet to act get their turn, then when the out of turn player's turn comes they cannot take aggressive action; they can only check or call. The standard rule is that the 'OOT' player's bet is binding unless the action has changed, in which case they can reconsider their original bet. This is completely different to the forced check rule. In one case the offending player cannot take the action they intended, in the other case they must take the action they intended. It's kind of like an instant penalty for acting out of turn, which seems unfair to me, especially in what is an otherwise pretty informal game structure.
There are a couple of local rules that I've come across that I think are grossly unfair. One of these involves 'blinding out' an absent player. Normally if a player is not at the table their cards are folded and if they are in the blinds then those blinds are paid and go into the pot. But one of the clubs that I play at also rules that if a player is absent for one full circuit of the button, then they have to start paying the big blind every hand. This seems very unfair to me. The absent player has paid the entry fee like everyone else and shouldn't be penalised any more than the normal payment of the blinds in turn. Even if someone leaves the tournament, then putting their big blind into the pot every hand gives that particular table an advantage over other tables. Even though it doesn't come into play that often, I really don't like seeing this rule being used.
The worst of the lot is Bill's 'Big Blind Check' rule. This rule is only played at the Onehunga Workingmen's Club and although it only comes up rarely, it's just plain ridiculous. According to this rule, if a player in the big blind says, 'check' when there is a bet in front of them, it is ruled to be a call. So if you are in the big blind and you miss the fact that someone has raised and you check your option, you just called that raise. I cannot imagine any reasonable justification for having a rule like this. It just seems like a deliberate attempt to trap players into losing their chips.
The creator of this rule, Bill, says that this very thing happened to him one night at the Auckland Casino, and that's why he uses it. All I can say is, if that did happen, then either the casino has a really stupid rule or one of the dealers made a stupid mistake. Either way, there's no good reason to adopt a game rule that is clearly unfair and could result in someone losing their entire stack because of a moment of inattention. Without exception, when visiting players are told about the BBC rule they are astonished. However, Bill refuses to give it up because 'they play it at the casino'.
One of the most important things I've learned as a poker player is that you must be able to adapt. You have to adapt to the stack sizes, the number of players at the table, the betting limits, the type of players and a bunch of other thing. Adapting to the local rules is part of this process. You just have to check out what the local practices are and, like them or not, adapt your play to suit those conditions. So that's what I do. Occasionally I can get the locals to conform more to standard poker procedures but the rest of the time it's just a matter of being aware of what the unusual practices are and adapting to them.
Just remember, if you ever play poker at the OWMC, pay attention when you're in the big blind.
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