English Only -Cultural Bias or Basic Fairness? By Brian Mulholland

Several issues back, Linda Johnson made mention in her column of a lawsuit that was filed against Lucky Chances Casino and Artichoke Joe's for invoking the English-only rule during the play of poker hands. Apparently, the attorney for the plaintiff is arguing that this policy is discriminatory and violates the rights of some players. It was with great dismay that I read this, but in retrospect, I guess it was to be expected. We are living, after all, in the Golden Age of Litigation, so I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that in the poker world – a world in which many different folks play many different cards – someone finally decided to play the race card.

In small poker rooms, especially those located away from the ethnic and cultural diversity of large urban areas, English only isn't much of an issue – or a problem. Those who work in such rooms are rarely confronted with the necessity of enforcing it, or of dealing with those who resist its enforcement. In such locales, the element of peer pressure is often an effective deterrent to anything that could threaten the integrity of the game, such as the collusion that the English-only rule is designed to prevent. With a core group of regulars who play with each other week in and week out, these games feature a kind of built-in "Neighborhood Watch." But in larger rooms set in or near big cities, peer pressure is an inadequate substitute for vigorous policing, and for obvious reasons. For one thing, the concept of "peer" pressure loses much of its meaning in a room with 50 or 60 tables, since players in these rooms must inevitably spend a great deal of time playing against complete strangers.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that some human beings are overly sensitive to being told they can't do something – and it is doubly unfortunate that this hypersensitivity often distorts their perception of the motives for imposing constraints in the first place. This phenomenon isn't limited to any specific racial group or cultural background – it is an individual sensitivity. Impose the English-only rule at a poker table that includes Martians and Martian-Americans, and some will instinctively see the fairness of the injunction against speaking Martian, while others will resentfully conclude that the "real" reason for the restriction must have to do with an underlying anti-Martian prejudice. It is for the benefit of this latter group that I'd like to recount the following:

Recently I was playing in a shorthanded Omaha high-low game. It was the middle of the night, we were fivehanded, and as sometimes happens during a lull in the action, a game that had been proceeding in relative silence suddenly turned downright chatty. The subject was baseball, and a middle-aged gentleman to my right was showing off his extensive knowledge and memory of the uniform numbers worn by old-time players. As a kid, I was something of a sports-stat geek myself, so I knew the answers to his first few questions of, "What number did so-and-so wear?" He began quizzing me, and soon it became a game. A 3 would hit the board and one of us would refer to it as "a Babe Ruth." A 5 was a Brooks Robinson, an 8 a Yaz or a Willie Stargell. A deuce and a 4 on the turn and river made "a running Willie Mays," and so on.

I was very careful to confine my comments to the community cards on board, but the other fellow got a little more carried away, and suddenly his references expanded to include his holecards. At one point, while we were still in the middle of action on the turn (in a sizable pot), he winked in my direction and announced that if a Mickey Mantle hit the river, he would scoop the whole pot. It was at this point that the player to my left, a regular with whom I'm quite friendly, became visibly annoyed – and with good reason. After all, he didn't know what a Mickey Mantle was, and he knew that I did know. What's more, he knew that I knew he didn't know, which could put me in a position to use this information against him in all sorts of ways. For example, if my own holecards had included a Mickey or two, I would enjoy exclusive knowledge of how thin the player to my right was drawing, and could isolate him and protect my hand by raising the player to my left out of the pot. Or, I could use this info to squeeze extra bets out of him. (Remember, I was seated between these two players, and had the advantage of acting first on the inside information that was unfairly being provided to me.) So, with a slight edge in his voice, the player to my left declared firmly: "Dealer, it's English only."

Everyone but me was momentarily surprised by the way he chose to express his objection. A few confused stares seemed to say: "English only? What the heck is he talking about? There's nothing but five American guys at this table – and everyone is speaking English!"

But after a few seconds, his point sank in, as folks realized that only in the most literal sense was the baseball-trivia guy speaking in English. In a much more meaningful sense, he was speaking in a language of numbers – and since those numbers conveyed information to some players that remained hidden from others, in the most meaningful sense of all, he was speaking in code. The fact that the code was encrypted within a language that was technically "English" was utterly irrelevant.

Now, I'm absolutely certain that his intentions were innocent; after all, he was compromising his own interests by giving away free information about his hand. (He had simply reached a point, late into the night, where the trivia game held more interest for him than the poker game.) But it is important to note, as a parallel to those instances when other forms of non-English are spoken at the table, that innocent intentions in no way change the fact that the integrity of the game is compromised when some participants have exclusive access to information conveyed from one player to another.

It is likewise important to note – indeed, to stress – that in those instances when a foreign tongue is spoken at the table, it doesn't matter whether or not there's any collusion or "insider trading" of information actually occurring. As we have pointed out in this space before, protecting the integrity of the game is only half the battle; the other half is guaranteeing that such integrity be apparent – and that means apparent to all. A person speaking non-English during a hand might be sharing nothing more than a dinner recipe; the problem is the doubt and suspicion it produces in those who have no means to verify that fact.

Clearly, as I indicated before, my friend's insistence on "English only" was hardly a matter of racial or cultural bias, what with the table populated exclusively by fellow Anglo-Saxon males. What I hope this true parable illustrates is that the English-only rule exists purely as a matter of basic fairness – and necessity. With all the ethnic tension that exists in the world today, it is tragic that some people imagine its shadows – even where none are cast.