Contracts and Poker: Audience

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A player is not at her seat when the last card is dealt. The deal, however, is a misdeal. The player then arrives and says, “Phew! I guess I came back in time after all.” Should she get a hand?

This question raises the issue: Who is the audience for the TDA Rules? In contract law, a contract is obviously meant to govern the parties to the contract, but there may be other audiences as well. Another audience for a contract might be parties to whom the contract rights or obligations are transferred. Most importantly, the parties should make sure the contract is clearly written for a judge or arbitrator who may later read it. For example, in one case, the plaintiff was promised that his mares would be “covered” by the great stallion Fleet Nasrullah during the year 1967. He became worried when the owner kept putting him off and toward the end of July he took his mares elsewhere. The judge couldn’t understand the problem, since much of the year 1967 remained. The parties had to explain to the judge, since it wasn’t in the contract, that by “the year 1967” they meant the thoroughbred breeding season in 1967.

Most of the TDA rules are directed at players, admonishing them on what they can and cannot do. In fact, Rule 2 states that one of the Player Responsibilities is to “know and comply with the rules.” Although there are few TDA rules directed at dealers, there are a bunch of rules directed at dealing. These rules explain, for example, what constitutes a misdeal and what should be done about the various things that go wrong. I wonder whether all that stuff needs to be part of the rules, or if it could be relegated to some sort of supplement. While I might be curious about what happens if, for example, the dealer puts out four cards on the flop, it is not anything I need to know to be a responsible player at the table. I would limit the rules to what a player has to do – that is enough to try to comprehend!

In fact, the TDA does have two supplementary documents posted on its web site – the Recommended Procedures and the Illustration Addendum. The function served by the Illustration Addendum is similar in contract law to the Official Comments to the Uniform Commercial Code, which frequently have illustrations that indicate how the rule is to be applied in concrete situations. This is valuable, for a picture is worth a thousand words. It is less clear why the Recommended Procedures are not rules. The TDA offers this explanation:

TDA Recommended Procedures are intended as policy suggestions and general guidelines that can reduce errors and enhance tournament management. They also may apply to situations that have too many variations to address with one universal rule.
To “reduce errors and enhance tournament management” sounds like the function of the rules. It is unlikely that there are “too many variations to address with one universal rule,” for that is in fact the function of the more general rules such as TDA Rules 1 and 2. It will take further examination to determine whether some of these Procedures should be Rules.

Perhaps the real distinction between the Rules and the Procedures is with the intended audience. It may be unnecessary for players to be familiar with certain rules that are directed at the TDs themselves. For example, players probably do not need to know the procedures for Efficient Movement of Players (RP-6) or Timing of Dealer Pushes (RP-7). On the other hand, players should probably be aware of the rule on Personal Belongings (RP-3). It provides:

The table and spaces around it (legroom and walkways) should not be cluttered by non-essential personal items. Each cardroom should clearly display its policy on items that may or may not be allowed in the tournament area.

If the word “must” is used for rules that players have to follow, then the switch to “should” suggests that these things are discretionary and not rules that players have to follow. The WSOP Rules, with their usual attention to detail, make clear that this a mandatory rule. Rule 106 provides:

Foreign Objects: There will be no foreign objects on the table except for a maximum of one card cap (also known as a card protector). Card caps can be no larger than two (2) inches in diameter and no more than one-half (1/2) inch in depth. Participants may not place any food or beverages on the poker table with the exception of one (1) capped bottle of water.

If the function of the Procedures is to address areas of concern to tournament staff, perhaps an analogy is to the Rules of Baseball, which have additional rules called Rules of Interest, which are aimed at umpires, who serve many of the functions of tournament staff. A baseball player does not need to know, for example, the ground rules at the various parks, nor when a game is called because of weather. On the other hand, as with the TDA Procedure on Personal Belongings, baseball has umpire regulations regarding the use of elbow pads, but the Rules of Baseball are silent on the use of elbow pads. One would think that if umpires are going to enforce this rule against players, then players should be aware of it.

One dealing rule that is rarely followed, Rule 34.C, provides that “In a misdeal, the re-deal is an exact replay.” So in our example of the player who is not at her seat when the last card is dealt, if that deal is a misdeal, that player should not get a hand on the re-deal. I’m not sure most dealers are aware of this rule, or if they are, whether they would be willing to enforce it. But I’m also not sure that as a player I want to risk causing bad feelings by telling the dealer what the rule says.

It would take just a bit of reorganization for the TDA to put the appropriate rules in each section – rules addressed to players in the main body of rules, and rules addressed to dealers and floorpersons that players don’t have to know in the supplement. ♠

Scott J. Burnham is the retired Curley Professor of Commercial Law at Gonzaga Law School in Spokane, Washington. He can be contacted at [email protected]. This column is adapted from his article, A Transactional Lawyer Looks at the Rules of Tournament Poker, which was published in Gaming Law Review and Economics.