Joined: Feb '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 35 (M)
Posts: 1886
During the Christmas holidays I went home and had the chance to play some poker in my local pub. Since I left for france in August they'd started up a regular poker night, a poker league and weekly tournaments with a fair prize (not strictly legal). Anyway despite a fair buy in of 6 GB pounds the quality of play was pretty low, these were not regular players. When I played in my university poker club, we played tourneys of 3 pound buy ins, occasionally five and the standard was much higher. It was at these tourneys I learned how to play live poker properly.
So I played with some of these inexperienced players and I found they weren't always familiar with the rules. They understood the basic rules of course but they didn't know to have a dead dealer when the small blind from the hand before was knocked out. I explained it was so not to give an advantage to the person who would miss the big blind.
Sometimes if the blinds were 100 200, the person UTG would try to raise to 300. Or the first would raise from 200 to 600 and another player would try to raise to 800. In casinos the min raise would be another 400.
The standard response to anything I said would be 'who are you? the rules police?' or 'go back to france with your french rules'. So I tried to keep quiet and let them play their way but of course there were cases that weren't particularly fair, sometimes to my advantage, sometimes not.
So I was wondering what you thought of rules when it comes to live poker games. Are they important or something that only casinos and big gamblers need to be concerned about? Are all rules equally important? Here's some examples
the burn cards They did burn cards at my local pub but probably didn't know why. I also know from uni that if the dealer accidently turns over a card in the deal, it is common practice to replace the first burn card with this card that everyone must see. They did not do this at my local.
dead dealer For those not aware, when a small blind is knocked out the next deal carries on as though they had not been knocked out, in other words the same dealer should deal again. When a big blind is knocked out there should be no small blind next hand. The first person left of the dealer should be the big blind and the following hand that person will be the small blind, in other words the person who was small blind when the big blind got knocked out should deal twice.
cutting the deck It is customary for the dealer to offer the person to his right the chance to cut the deck after shuffling. The hand is then dealt as normal. The person to the right can decline to cut the deck if he or she wants. This rule appears to accuse everyone of cheating when they shuffle but in fact it means they can't be accused of fixing the deck after it has been dealt.
action before voice I believe that in professional tournaments if you throw in double the bet but say 'call' the move counts as a raise because the action counts first. If you throw in a different number of chips to what you say, you are not allowed to take chips back or put more chips in. Another case of 'rules are rules' is when someone calls a bet but doesn't realize the bet was raised. According to the rules they must now call. But in amateur games most people would allow them to take their chips back.
PS: I thought about creating a poll for this but I thought that there were two many polls around atm and I wouldn't want to ask another pointless yes/no question.
Joined: Feb '09
Location: Belgium
Age: 34 (M)
Posts: 686
Very nice post man I surely apply all those rules (except the cutting the deck when im with friends, where there is 100% confidence). Must be boring to play with people that dont know exactly the rules and dont want to learn it... I have a club near my home (and there its a legal club !) where it is 5€ rebuy. Many beginners, but at least, they accept (and they have to ^^) the rules when they dont know it.
Joined: Mar '09
Location: Chile
Age: 34 (M)
Posts: 62
Posted by Tchungpo:
Must be boring to play with people that dont know exactly the rules and dont want to learn it...
sometimes when i play in home games, there is this regular guy (really BAD player tbh) that always makes the game so slow, bets out of turn, when is his turn to act he is always doing something else (talking, or smth) but is never aware of the action and takes for ever to make a move (and his move is always the wrong)... geez i hate playing with that man... the only positive aspect is that i always make huge profits when he is playing with us (last night i took about 200$ of the guy)
Joined: Apr '08
Location: Argentina
Age: 45 (M)
Posts: 748
Posted by awood88: action before voice I believe that in professional tournaments if you throw in double the bet but say 'call' the move counts as a raise because the action counts first.
I'm not so sure about that one. I usually play in a casino where the opposite is true, it doesn't matter much what you di but what you say, and you must be vocal about your actions
Joined: Jan '09
Location: Italy
Age: 53 (M)
Posts: 3871
First of all I have to say I only play live poker once or twice a year with some friends and when we do poker is not important but only an occasion to stay together without wives and children.
About the rules you mentioned I think most important is the dead dealer one; is also useful to burn cards for the reason u explained. But the most important thing imho is not which rules are to be applied or but that before start playing every player should know the rules applied.
Joined: Nov '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 47 (M)
Posts: 2194
Its tricky to play a decent game when you have to keep stopping to teach people the game but you must have known that you had it all sown up? Its good to teach these people as they will be on the internet soon thinking they can play! Then its our job to take advantage of them, they are the new fish we all need to feed. Feed the fish and watch them grow.... When there big enough to swim in the big pond then we can eat them alive...lol Well matbe some of you can... not me im carp...lol OR a mino..
Joined: May '09
Location: Spain
Age: 49 (M)
Posts: 1331
Hi!!
Great post!!!! That´s the reason because i leave to play livepoker in some pubs or houses. I spend so much time 'explain' the game. Now I only play in casinos.
Joined: Oct '08
Location: Estonia
Age: 48 (M)
Posts: 453
Everybody, who is playing homegames, should read Darwin Ortiz book "Gambling frauds" or smtng. There are so many ways to cheat and humans are weak, so be aware, your best friend could scam you.
