(Distributed Sept. 19, 2006)
IF YOU PLAY THE GAME, YOU’VE GOT TO KNOW THE RULES
Picture this: You’re playing no-limit hold’em at a full table with a $300 maximum buy-in. You haven’t had much luck, but finally get all of your chips in with two big pairs and are about to collect a $400-plus pot.
As the last player to show, you start to turn up your obviously winning cards but one of them inadvertently snags the felt. It bends, then springs up into the air back at you. You can’t catch it, so it flutters to the floor in plain sight of several players and a poker room manager standing nearby.
The manager picks up the card immediately, tosses it onto the table — and declares your hand dead. The dealer pushes the pot to the opponent on your right and deals the next hand. Your opponent says nothing as he stacks the chips.
How would you feel?
Well, this actually happened recently to a friend of mine. He was so upset that when the manager asked if he wanted to see the rule book, he just walked out of the card room.
“I was angry — not about losing, but about being treated unfairly, especially by another player,” my friend said. “I know I am a fair player and never would have accepted that pot. It left a horrible feeling in me about the way it was handled and the game itself.”
He told me, “I don’t know when I’ll even feel like WATCHING poker again.”
A week later, however, he returned to the card room and asked to see the rule book. There’s a line that says a player’s hand is dead if he or she drops a card, the main intent of which is to protect against cheating.
“Oh well, a loss is a loss. I’m over it,” my friend said.
This incident offers several important lessons. New players in particular may not be familiar with poker’s rules, but clearly they should be. Many card rooms post rules on the wall. Read them!
The “card down/hand dead” provision is pretty common, but not universal. In fact, the most comprehensive set of rules for general use — Robert’s Rules of Poker authored by Robert Ciaffone — states: “If you drop a card on the floor out of your hand, you must still play that card.”
That wouldn’t apply in this case, of course, because each poker room adopts its own set of rules and by playing there you agree to abide by them.
There is, however, an overriding rule in virtually every card room that says something like: Management retains the right to make decisions in the spirit of fairness, despite what a strict interpretation might indicate.
And, naturally, every card room adheres to the most pervasive rule: Decisions by the poker room supervisor are final.
That’s why I think the decision in my friend’s case, while correct in the strictest sense, was a bad one. The circumstances — an accidental drop, no cheating whatsoever, no doubt of the winning hand, the supervisor being involved — called for a different result.
So, if this or something similar happens to you in a card room, what should you do?
First, stay calm. Ask that the action be stopped — and the pot not awarded to an opponent — until the ruling is explained to you. Ask to see the rule book. Describe honestly what happened. If it’ll help, request a review of the surveillance recording. If all of that fails, ask the supervisor to consider the “spirit of fairness” rule.
Now, let’s turn this around. If you’re about to be awarded a pot after something unfair happens to another player who clearly would have won, offer to give all or at least half of the pot to that player. I’ve seen this happen a lot, and both my friend and I have done it multiple times.
If you’re an honest person, it’ll make you feel better. And, it’s good for the game of poker!
E-mail your poker questions and comments to russ@luckydogpoker.com for use in future columns. To find out more about Russ Scott and read previous LuckyDog Poker columns, visit www.creators.com or www.luckydogpoker.com.
COPYRIGHT 2006 RUSS SCOTT
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