The Rules Guy: How To Conduct Yourself at the Poker Table

Most players learn poker’s explicit rules pretty quickly: the “one-chip rule,” for example, or “verbal declarations are binding.” But not everyone seems to have digested the game’s vast book of unwritten rules, admonitions like “don’t berate other players (particularly bad ones)” or “say ‘nice hand’ even when you mean something entirely different.”

Enter “The Rules Guy.” TRG believes that civility and sportsmanship are never wrong, and that bad behavior (even when you’re simply trying to get an edge) is bad for the game. Have you got a question about how to conduct yourself at the poker table? Email TRG at [email protected].

The Confusion of Collusion

Dear TRG,

Just a couple spots before the bubble in a Main Event satellite at the Rio awarding 55 seats, the following hand took place at a neighboring table. With blinds of 3,000-6,000, the big blind was all in for 3,500. The action folded to the small blind with a very healthy stack, enough to cruise to a seat, who folded for 500 more! The floor gave the gentleman a three-round penalty that didn’t affect his chances at all. The short stack guy got a seat, and some other sap (me) got iced out on the bubble. What should have been done? What can be done moving forward?

— Violated in Vegas

Dear VinV:

A few things first here: We cannot know it was collusion, though it surely looks like collusion, and the floor person surely thought so too. It’s possible that ignorance or carelessness was at work here: If the small blind has 7-2 offsuit and failed to realize that the big blind was all-in for less than the actual big blind, he might have auto-folded thinking it would cost him 3,000 to complete. (Admittedly: This is unlikely.)

But even though we can’t be 100 percent sure that he was colluding, we can be 100 percent sure that he should have called the 500. (Technically, he’d have to complete the 6,000, of which 2,500 would be returned.) Risking 500 to win 7,000 (probably more if antes are in play) is an absolute no-brainer. Even to a math dolt like TRG, a price of 14:1 sounds like a good bet with any two cards. Plus, there’s a little bonus equity that comes from possibly eliminating another player.

The big issue here, of course, is the punishment. The floor was right to impose a penalty, but can it really be considered a penalty if there’s no real injury or loss to the offending player?

A three-round penalty is essentially always going to be meaningful in a traditional freeze-out tournament; at a minimum, it will cost the perpetrator 4.5 big blinds. Unless you have, say, 50 big blinds, that’s got to hurt. But in this situation, a three-orbit penalty might even be a benefit: only an idiotic move would prevent the small blind from winning a seat, and you can’t make an idiotic move if you’re not at the table.

There should be a Solomon of poker (or the poker world should clone the awesome Matt Savage), because frankly, The Rules Guy can’t see a meaningful penalty here. It would be overly harsh to oust the small blind from the tournament, and you can’t penalize the big blind here unless he actively promoted the fold on the part of the small blind.

In other words: not even the almost Solomon-like Rules Guy has a solution for recourse. Which means that this might be a situation of, “that’s poker and sometimes it sucks.” (If you do have a solution, please send it to The Rules Guy at [email protected].)

Finally, while TRG definitely believes this was a very bad situation for you personally, Violated in Vegas, the outcome of this collusion was far from certain. The small blind could have called and lost, giving the big blind a decent new lease on his satellite life. The small blind could have called and won, and you still might not have won a seat (since you weren’t literally on the bubble. This is not to say you weren’t wronged; you were, but it’s still possible you could have missed out on a seat in the main event.

The Curious Case of the Missing Player

Dear TRG,

Here’s a situation for you: multi-table tournament at my local card room. When the number of players gets down to 10, there is a short break while the tournament director posts the seating chart for the final table and players reconvene. One player, who happens to have a massive stack, uses this break to duck outside to a nearby bar for a quick drink. While he’s gone, tournament staff sees the stack sitting at the now-vacant table and assumes they are out of play. Staffer scoops up the chips and mixes them into the great pool of chips. Players seated at the final table waiting to start notice that there is a player missing—a common occurrence—but also that there should be a stack of chips at the empty seat.

The TD says he will recreate the stack, using the computer number of “total chips in play” (which is not exact because of rounding during color-ups, and subtracting all the other players’ chip totals to arrive at approximately the correct stack for the absent player. A player objects that it can’t be fair to approximate a stack. The only fair way is to end the tournament and pay each player what he has in equity. (Same player realizes later that it would be just as hard to determine the equity as to determine the stack size.) TD stuck to his guns and approximated the big stack and continued the tournament.
So, what is the correct way to handle this?

—The Professor in Portland

Here’s my question, Professor: Why oh why do all the hard questions come to The Rules Guy? TRG is a columnist, not the Director-General on the United Nations Commission on Poker Justice. (Though that position should be created, and TRG would be an excellent choice.)

This is a tough one, but TRG likes what the TD did here. Poker tournaments should be decided on the felt, not on the basis of equity. (Note that this is not the same as chopping the prize pool; that is and should be up to the players. This is about winning the damn tournament.)

The equity chop in your situation is simply a terrible idea (as you point out in your query, it also requires recreating the stack in some way). But TRG doesn’t see too much a problem with recreating the stack anyway. You know how many chips are in play; you can count how many chips are in other stacks. The difference between the two is how many chips he has to have. Make an adjustment based on how many color-ups have been done, if required. The decision to play on is clearly correct and really the only possible course of action.

But it must be noted that the player who wanted a “quick drink” is absolutely crazy. Players quickly learn to protect their hand against being seen inadvertently or being mucked inadvertently; the same caution clearly goes to chips. Protect your stack at all times. If you have to leave the table (and getting a drink is perhaps the last thing you want to do during a tournament), make sure your chips are in place and that someone is watching over them. It’s not clear to TRG that the player should be penalized, but it’s crystal-clear that he bears some of the onus for this situation. ♠