Position, Heal Thyself

My recent column on the evils of soft-playing produced a greater volume of response than any topic I've addressed during six years of writing for this magazine. And although I'd anticipated that the majority of responses would be positive, I didn't expect it to be unanimous. It is a fact of life, after all, that people who agree with a given editorial position generally experience a sense of quiet validation upon reading it – and tend to let it go at that. It's the folks who disagree who are roused to the effort of firing off letters and e-mail. So, I found it pretty significant that of the many readers who took time to write, those who thought that soft-playing was acceptable behavior numbered exactly: zero.



Interestingly, several readers raised the issue of a related practice that is spreading "like wildfire," according to one reader, "like a cancer," according to another. Like soft-playing, it involves an arrangement between two players to minimize risk, but it also serves as a means of minimizing the effects of bad position. Since poker is very much a positional game, and since the practice in question violates both the spirit and the letter of the rules, I am more than happy to comply with their request to address it.



Let's talk about position for a moment. One of the first lessons we learn in poker is that late position is preferable to early position. For one thing, the player in late position gets to see what his opponents do before he acts, which means that his decisions are based on information unavailable to them. Conversely, the player in early position is flying half-blind. Not only is he ignorant of the relative strength of his opponents' holdings, but he is equally ignorant regarding the matter of volume. A player with the dealer button, seeing six-way preflop action in front of him, can happily throw his chips into the pot with a hand like 8-7 suited, but can just as easily throw it away if a player in early position raises and others fold. But the player in early position has no such luxury, since he can't be sure if the ensuing volume will justify entering the pot. If many players call, terrific, but if not, the value of his straight and flush possibilities are irrelevant in terms of the price he's (not) getting, and his cards are practically worthless otherwise. Playing this hand from early position means taking a chance, but guess what?

That's poker.



Of course, there are legitimate tactics that can be employed to offset positional weakness, but our topic for the day has to do with an illegal one. It involves a ritual that is both unethical and just plain silly, a routine I've seen performed at limits ranging from $3-$6 through $20-$40. (One e-mailer wrote that this practice has begun to infect his $40-$80 game). Here's how it typically goes: Player A, in early position, limps into the pot. Everyone else folds to Player B in the big blind. Player A, seeing that he didn't get the volume he was hoping for, says: "Just the two of us? Oh hell, let's chop." But the dealer informs him that only blinds are allowed to chop, that all voluntary action is binding, to which Player B responds: "Don't worry about it, I'll just raise" – by which he means: I'll raise, you fold, and then I'll toss your money back.


In other words, these two are going to chop this pot anyway, despite the rule expressly forbidding it. In doing so, Player A is exempting himself from the normal risks of playing from early position, conveniently ignoring the fact that poker is a game of incomplete information, that the availability of this information is largely dependent upon rotating position – and that it's supposed to be the same for everybody. But it sure isn't the same for everybody if some players are allowed to renege on their action when it suits them. In effect, he's saying to his fellow players: "Why should my action be binding just because yours was?" Such a mindset is not only disrespectful of one's opponents, it makes a mockery of the concept of rules in general, for what is the point of even having a rule if the thing it's designed to prevent can so casually be achieved simply by taking a quick ceremonial detour?



Not only is this ritual a transparent sham, it doesn't even fulfill its own ostensible purpose. After all, the whole rationale for it – for going through the motions of (a) raising, (b) having the dealer "award" the chips, and then © having the "winner" toss them back, as opposed to just chopping the pot and being done with it – is to avoid the violation of a rule, thus projecting the appearance of propriety. But if that's the purpose, has it been accomplished? Not at all! As just noted, the final step involves one player passing chips to another, and that's certainly against the rules. All that's been accomplished, then, is that the violation of one rule has been substituted for the violation of another. (And let's not forget that the "action is binding" rule is being trampled on, as well.)



Nevertheless, if a player objects to this chip-passing, it's amazing how some dealers will heave a heavy sigh – a sigh meant to convey to the objector that chip-passing in this particular context is somehow "different." What's different about it? No answer – which is pretty understandable, given that the underlying premise, if converted from sighs into words, would boil down to this: It's permissible to break a rule as long as the reason you're doing it is to get around another rule. That's what will make it OK.



As bad as that sounds in the abstract, it's much worse in reality, because tolerating this practice means that the rule-breakers can afford to play more hands from early position than their rule-abiding opponents can, which results in a mathematical advantage for the offenders. This is bad enough when it happens in a full game; when playing shorthanded, a player gains a huge edge if he's allowed to freeroll by committing chips to the pot and then welshing on his bet if he doesn't like what develops behind him. Incidentally, there's a word for gaining edge by breaking the rules. It's called cheating. (And there are several words for allowing cheating, especially when applied to those who are paid to ensure its prevention.)



To put the whole matter in perspective, imagine what would happen if we extended the premise behind this practice to its logical conclusion. Consider hands like A-K offsuit and big pocket pairs. Unlike the small or medium suited connectors we talked about earlier, these starting hands are monsters against one or two opponents, but will often crash and burn against a large field. So, if a player in early position holds pocket kings and seven uncooperative opponents resist his efforts to narrow the field, should he be allowed to take his bet back? Sounds pretty absurd, doesn't it? You know why? Because it is – but allowing a player to renege on his action when he attracts too many callers isn't any more absurd than allowing it when he attracts too few. Either way, it ain't poker.



One fellow who e-mailed me pointed out that in one cardroom where he's played, it's the dealers who actually recommend this ritual (alas, I've witnessed this myself), and that if anyone objects, these same dealers advise the players to pass the chips under the table or stand up and walk around the table – as if the principle at stake is not the transfer of chips, but the route they travel. This sort of thing is beyond dysfunctional; it's downright negligent, and dealers and floorpersons who think it's "no big deal" need training in poker fundamentals – especially those pertaining to the integrity of the game.

Brian Mulholland can be e-mailed at [email protected].