Earlier this year, I wrote a follow-up column about the "F-Bomb" rule, which penalizes someone for using foul language. Although I do support the rule, I believe it isn't being enforced properly at many tournaments. My comments in my previous column were aimed at the selectiveness of enforcement: "The problem that I am seeing more and more is that poker rooms are still selectively enforcing the rule. Dealers are not calling a floorperson over when a player uses foul language, and other players aren't, either. Floorpersons are also being selective regarding whom they give penalties and whom they don't. If this doesn't change, I will likely reverse my stance on this rule."
Although I used to spend time on the floor in tournaments, lately, the only perspective I have is as a player. It is important to get the view of a floorperson, and that's what I got in the form of an e-mail from a floorperson I will call George. George works the major tournaments, including the
World Series of Poker. Regarding the selectiveness of applying the rule by player, George wrote:
As a floorperson, if a dealer calls me to a table and says, "Joe Smith said the F-word," he gets the penalty. If he says, "Phil Hellmuth said the F-word," Phil gets the penalty (in fact, I gave Phil two such penalties in 2006).
I hope this would be the case with all of the staff at tournaments, but I know of cases where it is not. George seems like he understands how to apply the rule, but he also has his own issues with the rule. One of them is as follows:
The dealers: Some are break-in dealers and are just plain scared to call that rule on a "name" player. Some ignore it completely, and call a floorperson only if the table starts to complain. Some don't speak enough English to even know what is going on at the table or are afraid that if they call a floorperson too many times, they will be disciplined.
This is a training issue. We cannot emphasize enough the importance during dealer meetings that this rule has to be called no matter what, at all times, for it to be effective.
I agree with George that the dealers must do a better job if this rule is going to work. Dealers are the first line of defense, and the only way to properly enforce any rule.
George's second issue with the rule is that he doesn't completely agree with it:
I had to give a player with a very short stack a penalty late in an event after a wicked one-outer bad beat after he said the F-word in frustration. He did not yell it across the room, and did not personalize it in any way. It was the instant expression of emotion that the one card fell that could beat him. Sometimes it is just the only word that comes to your mind in that situation. As a player, I have often felt that frustration.
The problem here is that we can't pick and choose who gets a penalty for emotion versus a penalty for berating a player or dealer, or making it personal in some other way. That would lead to the favoritism you speak of. It really is an all-or-nothing type of rule. I completely agree that the players have to help with the enforcement, and dealers need to be held accountable for their game, or the rule loses its intention and integrity.
I don't agree with George about the nature of the foul language. Foul language is foul language, it's that simple. To allow a penalty to be given only because the foul language was aimed at another person would be making it even more difficult to enforce. The rule is designed to prevent foul language, not foul language that is only directed at someone else. As I have said in the past, this rule is about cleaning up the language overall in tournaments. What's the difference between someone yelling the F-word at the top of his lungs because he lost to a one-outer on the river and the person who yells "F--- you" to the player who just snapped off his pockets aces? It's foul language, that's all.
This is not a perfect rule, by any means. But, if the dealers and floorpersons who are paid to enforce the rule would do it without prejudice and hesitation, the end result would be that we won't need the rule at all. Poker will have cleaned itself up.
Michael O'Malley is the poker room manager for www.PartyGaming.com, and can be reached at [email protected]. His website is updated regularly at www.rzitup.com.
