Touching all the bases

Yesterday I saw this one-minute clip from ABC's "Good Morning, America": http://www.yahoo.com/s/871415. You can also read the story and see a longer video feature about it here. In brief, at the end of a college softball game, a player hit the game-winning home run over the fence, but tore a ligament in her knee going around first base, and couldn't complete the circuit. Umpires informed the team that if her teammates helped her, the home run would be voided. So two players from the opposing team carried her around the bases, thus making the run count, but losing the game for their team.

Predictably, these two young women are being lauded as the epitome of sportsmanship, and the video is played with swelling violin music, blah, blah, blah.

I'm not so sure.

The news story mentions something about the coach having been about to send in a pinch runner. I don't know the rules, so maybe that would be legal, in which case scoring the run for the team was inevitable, one way or another. (If that's so, then it greatly reduces the sacrificial nature of the opposing player's gesture, which is being touted as so grandly heroic.) But for the sake of argument, let's assume a situation in which that can't be done--the player hitting the ball has to personally make it around the bases, or the run doesn't count. Should members of the other team help her do it?

On the one hand, you could say, "Well, she hit the ball over the fence, she deserves the home run, and touching the bases is merely a symbolic formality." That seems to be the prevailing attitude, judging by reactions to this week's story.

But the rules don't say that hitting the ball over the fence scores a home run. They say that such a hit followed by a trip around the bases is what constitutes a home run. Yes, the hit is the hard part and the circuit the easy part (at least usually), but they are both essential ingredients, as the rules stand. Suppose that instead of injuring a knee, the player in question had suffered a fatal heart attack halfway around. Would the opposing teammates carry her corpse the rest of the way? Should it count if they did? There have certainly been home runs invalidated because the hitter subsequently failed to touch all of the bases, often because teammates gather around home plate for congratulations, and the batter never touches down there.

Consider another parallel from golf. On several occasions, big-name professionals have been disqualified after winning (or placing highly) in matches because they sign a scorecard that contains an error, or two players accidentally sign each other's cards. See, e.g., here. In the most famous such instance, Roberto DeVicenzo missed out on a playoff to settle a tie for first place because he signed a scorecard containing an error that put his score one shot too high, which then had to stand. He famously commented, "What a stupid I am!" (See here.) Playing a winning round of golf is the hard part, signing a correct scorecard the easy part. But you have to do both in order to pick up the trophy and the check. Them's just the rules. You might argue for changing them, but do you really want to take the position that the rules, while in place, should be disregarded?

Yeah, I'm getting to the poker part.

I've seen many cases in which the player with the winning hand does not get or is in danger of not getting the pot because of some smaller part of the process that he did wrong or failed to do.

Stories #1 and #2

Lee Jones told two such stories in an interesting recent column for Card Player magazine, which, if this general subject interests you, you should read here. Here they are:

• You're in a cash limit hold'em game. Two players are involved in a pot.
They get to the river and there's a showdown. Player A turns up a pocket pair of
nines. Player B shows and tables a single 10 and tosses his other card into the
muck. There's a 10 on the board, so Player B has a pair of tens. Where do you
push the pot? We all know the official rule, the TDA (Tournament Director's
Association) rule, and so on: Player A has a complete hand, Player B's hand is
dead, Player A wins the pot. But we also know that Player B has the best hand.
We could let Player A go through the deck and pick another card for Player B,
and he (Player A) still couldn't win the pot. Now, let's suppose it's obvious to
everybody within a 10-meter radius that Player B is a novice and doesn't know
this rule - that he comes from a home-game environment and/or has never
encountered this situation in casino game before.

Well, years ago, I was a table captain and a rules lawyer. I can produce a
dozen sober witnesses (and scores of non-sober ones) to verify this fact. But
I've changed my tune. I think you give the pot (and a warning) to Player B and
his pair of tens. You don't want to create an upset novice who's likely to walk
out and never come back. By the way, I saw this exact scene in a European casino
recently. The dealer, correctly, called the floorman, who did what I thought was
a very wise thing: He said to Player A, "Look, he's got the best hand, so give
him the pot." Player A hemmed and hawed, but ultimately did the right thing and
told Player B to take the pot. Then, the floorman explained to Player B very
clearly that he was being given a gift. That, in my opinion, is good for the
game.

• I was in a cash limit hold'em game in a European casino. I got involved
in a pot with another guy, on whom I had position. On the river, he checked. I
turned up my hand. My opponent misread my hand, thinking I had a straight. He
tossed his hand facedown in front of him, and it passed over the betting line
that you see on many poker tables in Europe. His cards were, however, a couple
of feet from the muck (we were in the No. 2 and No. 3 seats). Then he looked
again and realized that I had only a pair and a missed gutshot. He turned up and
tabled his hand - trips. The dealer reached out and mucked his hand. In her
opinion (and this may have been house policy, I don't know), his hand was dead -
as it had gone facedown across the betting line. I said, "Give the man the pot -
he's got the best hand." The dealer looked at me quizzically and glared at my
opponent. "Really - he's got trips, and I've got one pair; he gets the pot." She
looked askance at us both and pushed him the pot.

This and the previous ruling are no-brainers. You have to have a really
good reason to give the pot to anything except the best hand. I think that means
that you must suspect fraud, foul play, or, at the least, severe angle shooting
to do otherwise.

I certainly see his point, and he makes it well. I can't say that he's wrong. But I don't know that he's right, either. I'm still more in the "rules lawyer" state. Maybe I'll change with time, as Jones says he did.

Story #3

Consider this story, as recently told here:

This was at a $1/$2 no limit game.

I was in midpostion with Ace Hearts Queen of clubs and 2 had already
limped. I raise it to $10. The button called as did the Small Blind. The 2 other
limpers and BB all folded.

Flop was Queen of hearts 5 of clubs 6 of clubs.

I bet $30. button folds and small blind calls. Turn was a 4 of clubs.

She checks, I check behind her. River was a 3 of clubs.

She bets out $12. At this point I know I am beat but making the crying call
anyways. I flip over both my cards and say I have the queen high flush. I ask
her do you have the straight flush or just the ace high? She flips over her 2 of
clubs, for the straight flush. very nice straight flush. She then tosses her 2nd
card into the muck face down and the dealer ships her the pot. I pipe up and say
"Dude, she just mucked her hand." The dealers eyes got huge as he realized she
did and he had pushed the pot her way.

There was an akward pause at the table.

I said "All I really want to know is what your 2nd car was miss? Please
be honest." She says it was the 3 of hearts. So I said you caught the straight
on the turn then. Yet, I have one more question. Why did you call my raise to
$10 with 2/3 off? Her answer "because I was in the (small) blind." Yikes.

So when I told this story to a few of my friends they had differnt
thoguths.

I had a couple tell me I was wrong to ask her what her 2nd card was,
that she showed me she had me beat and I had lost.

Yet others said, they would have brought the floor over and that $100+
pot would have been theirs/mine as it were.

In my reply, I said:

Mucking one card is effectively the same as mucking both of them. I don't
think there's anything wrong with asking what her other card was, though I don't
think either the question or answer changes anything. If I had the Q-high flush
there, I'd take the pot and not feel a bit guilty about it. A flush beats a dead
hand any day of the week.

I'm sure Lee Jones would disagree, as did others in the discussion. And maybe they're right. I don't know.

The rest of the cases below are stories I've told before, so rather than re-tell them, I'll just insert links to the original posts.

Story #4

See here. The more liberal, Lee Jones, best-hand-takes-the-pot-regardless-of-technicalities argument says that my opponent gets the money because he had the best hand. The alternative viewpoint is that he didn't protect his hand as he was obligated by the rules to do, and thus forfeited his rights to it.

Story #5

See what I labeled "Story #1" here. In theory, the casino staff could have gone out of their way to find the guy who had had the best hand, but after he had walked away from the table, is that really their job? Here I support them having awarded it to the second-best hand. The erstwhile winner had done the hard part of the job by having the best hand, but failed to do the easy part, which was staying put until the hand was over, and that negligence cost him the pot. See also the addendum to that post for a similar story that a reader emailed to me.

Story #6

See here. I don't recall whether the Floridian's cards were identifiable/retrievable from the muck, or so thoroughly mixed in that they couldn't be pulled out again. But suppose for the moment that the dealer had simply placed them on top of the muck, so that they could be easily recovered. Should they be? Should he be given the chance to show that he had the best hand, as he claimed, and thereby win the pot? I think Jones would argue yes, since there was no attempt at either cheating or severe angle-shooting going on, just an honest mistake.

Story #7

See the second story, the one from the Hilton, here. This wasn't quite a question of who got the pot, but it was along the same lines in that it involved a question of whether to enforce the rules strictly versus giving a break to somebody who acted unintentionally.

Story #8

See the third story, the one from the Orleans, here. In this case it didn't matter, because the hand that accidentally landed face-down on top of the muck wasn't the winner. But suppose it had been. Should he get the pot, on the view that he didn't deliberately throw his hand away, or should he forfeit it, on the grounds that he didn't table his cards in the manner the rules prescribe (i.e., face up, and not in the muck)?

Story #9

See "The Undead Hand" here. Should cards off the table before everybody sees them be grounds for forfeiting a pot that one would otherwise win (or share)?

In each of the cases I've witnessed personally, I have been and remain in favor of the more strict/legalistic reading and enforcement of the rules, what Jones called the "rules lawyer" approach. This isn't because I want to punish people for inadvertant mistakes. Rather, it's because I don't trust either myself or poker room staff to be able to reliably distinguish between innocent mistakes and deliberate angle-shooting. The easiest way to be fair is to strictly enforce all of the rules all of the time. (Granted, there are situations that no set of written rules anticipates, and judgment calls have to be made. I'm talking about situations where a rule clearly pertains, but may be harsh in its consequentes.) I can't think of a case in which I have asked for, needed, or been given the "benefit of the doubt" when I've screwed something up at the poker table.

I just don't think it's asking too much of players to perform the simple act of turning both cards face up, without putting them in the muck or tossing them off of the table, and to speak up quickly if the dealer accidentally kills their winning hand.

Still, I have nagging doubts about whether this approach is actually right and/or best for the game in the long run. Jones's column has amplified my discomfiture.