Let's Play by the Rules

Baseball, football, and basketball have well-defined and uniform rules. Tennis, golf, and soccer have well-defined and uniform rules, as do chess, backgammon, and bridge. How about poker? I don't think so. The basic rules of playing poker are as seemingly well-defined and uniform as any other game or sport, although there are some differences between tournaments and live games. In a poker game, everything's fine until somebody makes a mistake.



Sometimes it's the player and sometimes it's the dealer, but when somebody makes a mistake, things can get ugly until a floorperson is called to render a ruling. I think floorpeople should start wearing black and white striped shirts so that people will take them more seriously during these tense moments over who takes a big pot.


What kinds of mistakes do players make? A player may act out of turn, bet an inappropriate amount, put in too much or too little when calling a bet, silently throw in one big chip when intending to raise, prematurely expose cards, not protect his cards from being killed, pick up someone else's cards, misread his cards, sit down in front of someone else's chips and play with them, sit down at the wrong game, or say things not allowed by the local censors. I've seen all of this happen, and more.


What kinds of mistakes do dealers make? A dealer may start dealing the next card before the completion of the action, forget to burn a card, expose a player's card, deal to an empty spot, miss dealing to a tournament stack, skip a player when asking for action, misunderstand the amount bet, kill an unprotected hand, kill the winning hand, pay a losing hand, forget to ask players to post the blinds, forget to move the button, move the button too far, or allow a player's mistake to go uncorrected. I've seen all of this happen, and more.



In some situations when things haven't gone too far, the dealer announces a misdeal. Everybody politely passes his cards back to the dealer. Inevitably, one guy whines about the big hand he had to give up and another guy tells him that the misdeal probably saved him a lot of money. In some other cases, it's not as simple and polite, especially if there's a big pot involved. Oddly enough, there's one situation that came up three times in the past week.


The first situation occurred in a local cardroom in one of Florida's jai alai frontons or greyhound racetracks. My father was playing in a small-limit hold'em game, and he was holding two pair – aces up – and his opponent showed one pair of aces. The dealer mucked the opponent's hand and pushed the pot into my father's stacks, where the chips became intermingled. Apparently, the board had four hearts, and someone realized that the opponent whose hand had been mucked had held the winning hand with a heart flush. The custom in some of these small, friendly games in these circumstances is to give the mucked player's hand half the pot, and that's what my father did after estimating how big the pot was. His opponent wasn't happy about the situation and called a floorperson over. The floorperson said that if three people could vouch for having seen a heart in the player's hand, he would get the whole pot. After three people vouched for the hand, they never pulled his cards out of the muck, and awarded him the rest of the estimated pot out of my father's stack. It was a very small recreational game and there were no hard feelings. Wow! I thought this was bizarre, based on my prior experiences.


The second incident happened in some private club where a friend of mine was playing in a small no-limit hold'em tournament. On the river, there were four spades on the board. After all the action was completed, two players laid down their hands and declared a pair of aces. The player with the weaker kicker conceded the pot and allowed the dealer to muck his hand. As the dealer started pushing the pot to the other player, someone said that he saw a spade in the mucked hand. After some discussion, the floorperson was called over. This time, the floorperson asked the dealer if he thought the mucked hand was a flush. The dealer said that he believed it was a flush after a failed attempt to pull the cards out of the muck. The floorperson said, "We try to do the right thing around here," and the pot was redirected to the player with the mucked flush. Everybody was happy, and play continued. Wow! I thought this was another surprising outcome that goes against all of my past experiences.


The third incident took place in a big Atlantic Citycardroom. My wife was playing in a small no-limit hold'em game. Before the flop, there was a raise and several callers. After the flop, a player made a bet and everybody folded except my wife. The dealer didn't notice that my wife was still in, and started pushing the pot to the bettor and mucked his cards. My wife was astonished, as she had hoped to see the turn and the river before the pot was awarded to anybody. Once again, the floorperson was called over. My wife was holding on to her two cards, and the dealer explained the situation. The floorperson's ruling was that the bettor's cards were dead as soon as they touched the muck, as it was his responsibility to protect his cards until the hand came to a complete resolution. The pot went to my wife, just for being the only person left in the hand with two live cards after the flop. Everybody nodded his head in agreement, and play continued without further discussion. Now, that's the kind of ruling I'm used to hearing under the circumstances.


In every cardroom I've played in Atlantic City, Connecticut, Las Vegas, and California, I believe that once a player's cards touch the muck, they're dead and out of contention to win the pot. Whether it's the player's or the dealer's error, those cards are dead, dead, dead. I'm also aware that there have been variations in some rules (in both live games and tournaments) not only between different states, but between casinos in the same state, as well. When one of these obscure situations comes up and I hear what sounds like an unusual ruling, I like to ask for a copy of the cardroom's rulebook. Although I'm asking half seriously and half in jest, I have yet to see one of these rulebooks. Regardless, let's play by the rules, whatever they are.


Robert is the 2002 World Series of Poker champion. He recently introduced the popular new card game of HAWAII HI-LO to casinos in Atlantic City and Mississippi.