Buying the Button, or the 'Super-Post'

There's been a lot of talk lately about standardizing poker rules. It's a noble concept when you first think about it, but it's probably an unattainable goal. There are lots of rules that are worth standardizing, and some fine efforts are taking place toward that end. But others are nearly impossible to agree on, because there's no clear way to make a choice. I'm not sure that we'll ever decide between a dead button and a forward-moving button, for example, and I'm not sure that we should.

More importantly, hard and fast rules discourage innovation, and the rulebook is an evolving thing. There's general agreement, for example, that the new tournament chip-race method, whereby each player can get no more than one chip, is fairer than the old one, in which one person received a windfall. But this method of racing was developed only a few years ago, after major tournaments had blindly accepted the old way for decades.

Rules are important – they give us structure and fairness, and make the game run smoothly. They should be respected. But rules also need flexibility, both within and between cardrooms. A rule that's right for a big pot-limit game might be a hindrance to a friendly $1-$3 stud game. What's best for the players at Bellagio in Las Vegas might not be best for those at the Vic in England.

There's a new rule starting to take hold about which I want to help spread the word. It involves another choice in posting blinds. It applies in one specific instance – when a player returns to the table after just having missed his blinds, and he is between the button and the blinds. Under normal circumstances, that player has the option of waiting another round until his regular turn for the big blind comes around, or posting a live big blind and a dead small blind once the button has passed. These rules were created to maintain the fairness of blind payment and position; in each round of play, each player should pay the big blind once and the small blind once, and have the button once.

Under the new rule that is evolving, that player has a third option: to post a live big blind and a dead small blind before the button passes, when the button is on his immediate right. Here's the tricky part: There are no other blinds on that particular hand; there are just the blinds from the posting player, and on the following hand, the poster gets the button with the blinds resuming in the "normal" fashion.

Think about that for a moment, and make sure you understand how it works. By posting in this manner, the player in effect "buys" the button. The returning player doesn't have to wait for the button to pass in order to post and get a hand, the table gets to play an additional hand that round, and everyone pays both blinds and gets the button once. The bottom line is: Everybody's happy.

Like all new rules, it will take some getting used to, but it is off to a good start. The private poker room I used to co-manage, The Mayfair Club in New York City (which now, unfortunately, is closed), had this rule in effect three or four years ago, and it was dubbed the "Super-Post." (I don't know who was originally responsible for the idea, but it caught on quickly.) I understand that it has been used for almost as long in some Northern Nevada cardrooms. And perhaps most importantly, it recently came into use at Foxwoods, one of the largest poker rooms around. They call it "Buying the Button" at Foxwoods, and the dealers routinely ask a player returning to the game between the button and the blinds if he would like to buy the button. During the recent World Poker Finals, there was lots of discussion among traveling players about the new rule, and it seemed to meet with universal acceptance. Once you see it in action, it's easy to get used to.

It's particularly fascinating to me that the Super-Post evolved concurrently on the East and West coasts; when I first heard that they were using "our rule" in Nevada, I was surprised, but happy. And I'm glad to see that Foxwoods has adopted the rule (it wouldn't surprise me to find out that some former Mayfair player proposed the idea to the powers that be in Connecticut).

The next time you hear someone complain about the lack of uniformity in poker rules, remember that all new rules had to start somewhere, with someone trying out seemingly radical ideas. This new rule makes sense – spread the word.