One Player to a Hand

Recently, a situation occurred in a local Las Vegas poker room that involved a high-profile player. This player was sweating a friend of his in a high-stakes Omaha game. During a hand, the sweater told his friend, the player, that he had made a flush on the river before the player had turned his hand faceup. The player tabled his hand and won the pot. The sweater was asked to leave the table, he did, and the game went on. This is not a unique situation; I have seen it happen several times - especially when the sweater happens to be a poker player himself, and even more so when the game is Omaha, in which mistakes in reading a hand can, and do, occur frequently.

What made this particular occurrence different is that someone posted about it on one of the popular online poker forums. The person who posted the story was doing so more for entertainment value than anything. It was as if he were saying, "Look, even the pros break the rules." But the ensuing dialogue caught my eye, and I found it to be very interesting.

According to Robert's Rules of Poker, there are two rules that would cover this type of situation. They are under "Poker Etiquette," as follows:

Reading a hand for another player at the showdown before it has been placed faceup on the table

Telling anyone to turn a hand faceup at the showdown

Not only is it in the rules, but it is common knowledge in poker rooms around the world that you don't help a person read his hand unless/until he lays it faceup on the table.

So, I was surprised to read some of the comments made in regard to the posting about this situation.

One player who made the final table of the World Series of Poker main event a few years back nonchalantly stated that he would tell his friend what he held, even if it was against the rules. Another high-stakes online convert shrugged it off as "no big deal."

I spoke with several people in the industry to gauge their reactions. It was clear immediately that everyone agreed that it was bad etiquette, and against the rules, to allow more than one player to read a hand. Everyone agreed that the situation, as described, warranted removing the sweater. What was not so clear among the people I spoke with was what the penalty, if any, should be for the player.

One of the people whose opinion I sought was Barry Greenstein. Barry is not only a high-stakes player, but someone who takes the integrity of the game, and the rules, very seriously. This is what Barry said:

It is amusing to read the posts of people who have grown up with the computer reading hands for them and pushing the pots to the correct player. In live poker, it is and always has been against the rules for anyone to comment on a hand not tabled. I don't think I have ever played in a casino or home game that doesn't have a rule stating "one player to a hand."

The question is not about the legality of the situation. It is clearly against the rules. The question is, what is the penalty?

In home games, I have seen players cheat by clearing their throats or kicking a friend under the table to get him to lay his hand down so that it could be read. The normal rule is that if the hand is read by another player before being tabled, it's dead.

If you bring someone to sit behind you and he comments on a hand, you are responsible for his actions. If it hurts you, that's your problem. Just to check to see if I was behind the times, I called the best floorman I know, Raven, at Commerce Casino. He said that if that had happened at the Commerce, the hand would have been declared dead.

I called Pete Popovich at the Bellagio about the incident. He said they had discussed it and decided they wouldn't have killed the hand, but would have removed the sweater. He thought there had been a precedent set, in which the gaming commission had been involved, that implied that the best hand should win if possible.

I called Eric Drache, who is the godfather to all of the Vegas cardroom personnel, as he was the first director of the WSOP and the original cardroom manager at the Golden Nugget and then the Mirage, before the Bellagio existed. He said the precedent was set at the Mirage, but the result was different than what Pete said. Barbara Gold Samuelson played a big stud pot against a guy from Spain named Fernando. There was enough raising that it was surprising when all Fernando could produce was a pair of sevens. Barbara studied and went to throw her hand away, but her husband grabbed her wrist to stop her, and said, "You have a pair of eights." Eric was in the game and ruled that Fernando got the pot. He said that if there was a chance that Barbara might have figured out that she had the best hand on her own, he may have given her the pot, but that was obviously not the case.

Barbara and her husband protested and eventually sought out the gaming commission. The commission ruled her complaint invalid in less than a minute, citing "one person to a hand." It should be noted that the gaming commission is notoriously inept at making poker rulings, so this still leaves us with floormen making the decisions.

Even with all this, Eric said that in this day and age, he would allow the best hand to win if the person holding the hand could conceivably have figured out that he had the best hand, given more time and without the interference.

I asked the day-shift lead floorman at the Mirage, and he said what Pete at the Bellagio said: They would award the pot to the best hand and remove the guy who commented.

After thinking about these rulings, I remembered that tournaments have greatly influenced rule changes and standardization in Vegas. In tournaments, you want the best hand to win whenever possible, since the outcome affects other players. I called Matt Savage, and he said that he will always try to award the pot to the best hand, but if another player at the table illegally read it when it hadn't been tabled, that player would be penalized one round.

In the Big Game at the Bellagio, we usually make our own rulings. When things like this have happened in the past, the participants have frequently decided between themselves to split the pot, which is probably what should have happened in this case.

Barry covered all of the different angles that are involved with this type of situation. I agree with him that a player is responsible for his sweater, and anyone else he has at the game with him. If that person breaks a rule, the player is responsible. With that said, I would remove the sweater and give a warning to the player on the first occurrence. If it happened again with the same player (and even a different sweater), I would have no problem ruling the hand dead and awarding the pot to the other player involved in the hand. One player to a hand. And thanks to Barry for contributing.

Mike O'Malley is a consultant for www.PartyGaming.com, and can be reached at [email protected]. His website is updated regularly at www.rzitup.com.