I will not be using either the names of my e-mail correspondents or the names of any Internet poker sites in this column. I am trying to help rectify a problem, not play the blame game.
I received an e-mail recently from a fellow who was upset with an Internet poker site. He saw that it was making a mistake in interpreting a poker rule by making the amount needed to raise a pot higher than the rules of poker dictate. He accordingly notified the site. The site's reaction was to first misunderstand his point, then give him the brushoff, and lastly, tell him flat-out that he was wrong. I will give you a blow-by-blow account of this correspondence, editing slightly for shortness and clarity.
Customer: I have found a glitch in the way your software calculates raises. I have attached two screen shots of the hand in question. The problem is that the software is forcing you to raise double the raiser's bet, not the raiser's raise. Using the above hand as an example, the blinds are $10 and $20 (I am the small blind). An early-position player raises to $80. Therefore, the raise is $60, and thus the minimum reraise would be an extra $60. This means that whoever wants to minimum-raise Player A should be able to make the bet $140 ($20+$60+$60), but your software will let me raise only to $160 (look at the raise button in Screenshot1), which is double Player A's
bet. As mentioned above, Screenshot1 shows how I (the small blind) can raise only $150 minimum to make it $160. Screenshot2 is of when I tried to manually type in $130. This is a major flaw in your software. When will it be fixed?
Website reply: Thanks for playing at our website! If there is anything else we can help you with, please let us know. We are here for you!
Ciaffone comments: "Customer" went to the trouble of contacting the website when he found an error in its software, and did it a favor by sending an e-mail clearly explaining the problem. It appears to me that he got an automated reply (and maybe did not realize it). He tried again. This time, he received a reply from a human being, who addressed the problem, but faultily.
Website reply: After reviewing the records of the screenshots that you sent us, we found no error. The blinds were at $10-$20, Player A made a bet of $80 (he was next to the big blind, and made the first bet), then Player B called, and since you had $10 on the table, for you to make the first raise, you will have to bet $150 to double the bet that Player B made (total of $160). A betting round consists of (1) a bet, (2) a raise, (3) a reraise, and (4) a cap (the last raise). In no-limit games, the raise amount must be at least as much as the previous bet or raise in the same round.
Ciaffone comments: You can see that the website person who answered the e-mail not only failed to realize that his website was using a faulty rule, but showed his sublime ignorance of poker in two other ways. First, he used the wrong terminology, calling the $80 wager a bet instead of a raise. Second, he did not know that "cap" is a limit poker term that is not a part of no-limit rules. The customer gave a detailed response to the website, pointing out all of these errors. The site had a different person respond this time, as follows:
Website reply: Remember that you cannot just raise what a player raised. Player A made a $60 raise. If you would like to reraise his bet, you cannot do it for $140, since the complete highest bet on the table at that time is $80. If you want to reraise the $80 bet, you must do it for the complete amount, meaning $160 is the minimum reraise you can make. The big blind is $20, so Player A can raise to $40 (the minimum raise) or any amount he wants - in his case, $60, making his final bet $80. Any player who posted the big blind already, to make a reraise, must pay the difference, $60, to complete Player A's bet, and reraise the whole bet, making it $160. So, basically, this is how the raises and reraises work. If there is anything else we can help you with, please let us know.
Ciaffone comments: As you see, the person who made the second reply repeated the error of thinking the total bet must be doubled. There was more correspondence between the customer and the website, but the bottom line was that the website failed to acknowledge that it was in error, let alone correct the problem.
I would like you to note some things about this correspondence. It illustrates how we no-limit players often run up against people who appear to be much more familiar with limit poker rules than no-limit poker rules. People often e-mail me when they believe that they have gotten a bad ruling, and a large portion of these complaints come from someone who has been the victim of having a limit poker rule erroneously applied to a situation that arose in no-limit.
I have found that many websites have neither a professional player on the staff nor a "go-to" person on rules questions. Even I sometimes make no impression when complaining that a faulty poker rule is in use. I once told a prominent website that the minimum allowable bet does not go up on the last two betting rounds in no-limit. The site simply told me that I was mistaken! This is one more example of a limit poker rule being incorrectly applied to a no-limit game.
My general impression of Internet poker websites is that their programmers seem to use only their own limited knowledge of poker rules and procedures instead of taking the time to get everything right by checking with a professional. You would think that with the many millions of dollars at stake in this highly competitive market, it would be worth the trouble to listen to customer complaints and have someone on the staff who knows poker well investigate them.
Barry Greenstein told me in 2006 that he had been trying for years to get the Internet sites he played on to quit putting the big blind on the button in heads-up games. Some have finally shaped up, and some still do it bass ackwards. Poker websites do not even listen to one of the greatest players in the world, or a leading rules authority like me, so do not expect them to listen to you.
All of this illustrates one of my favorite sayings: "Those persons most in need of good advice are those least likely to follow it."
Bob Ciaffone has authored four poker books, Middle Limit Holdem Poker, Pot-limit and No-limit Poker, Improve Your Poker, and Omaha Poker. All can be ordered from Card Player. Ciaffone is available for poker lessons: e-mail [email protected]. His website is www.pokercoach.us, where you can get his rulebook, Robert's Rules of Poker, for free. Bob also has a website called www.fairlawsonpoker.org.
