March 25, 2012

Another Silly Rule at the Horseshoe

"There are some remedies worse than the disease."

~Publius Syrus, "Maxim 301"

Last week, I had to travel to Omaha to take an examination under oath (basically a deposition in an insurance claim investigation, usually when fraud is suspected). When the insured failed to show (not uncommon, as it is easier to drop a bogus claim than risk legal trouble from lying under oath), I found myself with a couple of hours to kill. As often happens, my car dropped me off at the Horseshoe.

It was mid-afternoon on a Monday, so there were only two $1/$3 NLHE games running, with a long list. After a 30-minute wait, they finally opened a new game, giving me a little less than two hours of playing time. I managed to make the most of it, racking up for $525 profit, mostly from a young gun running two all-in bluffs into my made straights. Thank you, come again!

Although my card-playing was pretty boring, the Horseshoe's idiosyncratic rules once again caused some commotion. I've previously written (see HERE and HERE) about the Shoe's silly betting line and all-in rules; to their credit, the Shoe's managers have now abandoned those rules. The Shoe no longer requires all-in hands to be shown in cash games, which brings the room in line with every other poker room I've played in, and encourages looser all-in bets and calls (always good for the game). The Shoe also now disregards the betting line on the table, which is now merely advisory (though that rule change leads to its own set of problems, particularly when chips are cut in front of cards but behind the line.).

The Shoe's poker room management jealously guards its place in the wacky poker rule pantheon, and only dropped those two quirky rules because they adopted an even more mischief-inducing rule, to wit:

At showdown, a player must table both cards face up. If a player attempting to table his cards has one or both cards land on the table face down, the player's hand is dead, even if the player's intent was to table his hand, and even if the cards do not touch the muck pile.

Of course, this rule isn't posted anywhere, so I am paraphrasing the rule as explained to me by several dealers and regular players throughout my session. But during the course of play, the rule was enforced several times, usually at the insistence of the obvious regulars in the game. In two instances, the rule nearly caused a serious problem.

In the first instance, a large pot developed between three players, with a river Jack putting two Jacks on a rather draw-heavy board. After the river went check-check-check, a lady rolled over a Jack and said, "All I've got is trip Jacks." The next player mucked, but the last player loudly insisted the lady's hand was dead because both cards were not tabled face up. The dealer told the player to roll his hand, which was a busted draw, and the dealer then awarded the pot to the lady, but with a stern warning that any future infractions would result in her hand being ruled dead.

In the second hand, the player in the 8 seat (immediately to my right), was in late position. The flop was 5-5-7 with two of a suit. It checked to the 8 seat, who bet and was called in two spots. The turn brought a 6. Again the action checked to the 8 seat, who again bet and was again called in two spots. The river brought the Ace of the flush draw suit. An early position player bet big, next player folded, and the 8 seat thought and then called. The early position player showed AK for two pair. The 8 seat went to table his cards in front of him (well clear of the muck), and the cards somehow caught on his fingers, over-rotated, landed on their edges, then flipped over face down. The other player immediately declared, "That's a dead hand!" The 8 seat reached out and rolled over K5 for flopped trips, which would have been the winning hand. The dealer declared the hand dead, but the 8 seat protested. The dealer called the floor, and the dealer described what had occurred. The 8 seat stated he had been trying to table his hand, and that since he had bet his trips on two streets and called the river, there was no way he had been trying to fold. The floor asked the dealer if the 8 seat had been trying to table his cards; the dealer (to his credit) stated it looked like the 8 seat had been trying to table his hand. The floor then ruled that the hand was live, but cautioned the 8 seat that his ruling was an exception to the usual rule, and that his hand normally would have been ruled dead.

When I asked the table about the rule, several regulars and two dealers told me that the rule had been implemented "to prevent angle-shooting". Now I'm clearly in favor of encouraging players to follow proper showdown protocols, but this rule seems to cause more problems than it solves. First, this rule appears to be unique to the Shoe, and involves a rather important part of play (the showdown). Players who are not regulars in the room can be taken advantage of by regular players familiar with the rule. Second, and to my mind more important, the rule is excessively punitive, resulting in what is generally a winning hand being declared dead. Poker rooms should be in the business of awarding pots to players who hold the strongest hand on hands that go to a showdown, not looking for reasons to rule a hand dead on a technicality. Finally, there are already plenty of rules regarding various showdown angle shots. If a player somehow causes a problem by only tabling one card at showdown, or by fake-mucking then showing a hand, enforce the rules already on the books and handle the situation accordingly.

The Shoe's new showdown rule is like curing a hangnail by amputating the finger. It's effective, but makes it tough to do chip tricks.

13 comments:

  1. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen or heard of in a casino, and I've played plenty over the past 8 years

    As often happens, my car dropped me off at the Horseshoe.

    A good car will do that.

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  2. "...to prevent angle shooting..."

    I'm still mystified as to exactly what problem this solution is searching for.

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  3. Clearly the angle is that a player might keep a card facedown against the felt in an effort to rub of a pip to change the value of a card.

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  4. I noticed that rule come into play when I was over there a few weeks ago to finally play a cash game. I didn't think much of it, but I didn't realize it was an oddity.

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  5. @ Mojo: When shopping for my company car, I knew I wanted XM/Sirius radio, a backup camera, and an innate ability to locate juicy poker games.

    @ Local Rock: Yes, the underlying problem is still a major head scratcher for me. Near as I could tell from the table talk, there apparently had been an epidemic of people "fake mucking" to induce another player to muck or to show a bluff, then the "fake mucked" hand would be rescued as it hadn't yet been killed. If this were the real problem, then there are perfectly good rules already in place to handle this kind of angle shooting.

    @ Pete: According to quantum mechanics, as long as a card isn't observed, it can be any card at all. So by keeping one card face down, you always have the hope of turning up a card that helps you win.

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  6. @ Herb: Thanks for stopping by! What other poker rooms do you regularly play? Do they have a similar rule re showdowns? Perhaps it's a regional rules variant that I had not encountered previously.

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  7. Ah yes, I think I remember something about that quantum mechanics thing from a physics course during my wasted youth. The Hiddenbooger Uncertainty Principal. Or something like that.

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  8. When do we get an IMOP trip report?

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  9. It's amazing that they come up with stupid rules like that when there isn't even a problem to begin with. Must be an overreaction to something one of the regulars complained about once. You'd think they could just deal with whatever the original incident was just using common sense, but then, as a wiser man than me once said, "Common sense isn't all that common."

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  10. That's the only room I've been to, I'm still in the process of building a bankroll to play regularly. Mostly I play in a local bar league where I'm one of the top players. The bar league is free and has the occasional newbie, so I'm used to seeing irregularities in what's considered acceptable.

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  11. only angleshooting i see is being done by the regulars trying to take advantage of people who normally play else where and wouldnt exist such a weird rule to exist.

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  12. I'm with Memphis MOJO. I don't think I've ever witnessed, wrote about, heard about or even dreamt about a poker rule this atrociously awful.

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