Two rules controversies from the WSOP

Every variant of poker has its own peculiar rules, often ones that developed early in the game's history and are perpetuated, even though they don't make a lot of sense in the modern world. When I was in poker dealer school, I chafed against having to announce "possible straight" and "possible flush" in seven-card stud. After all, that information is out there for all to see, and if a player doesn't perceive the potential, well, it's his own damn fault! But they said that's just the way it is done--do it or your don't graduate.

Another common house rule in stud is that if you call, but can't beat even the cards that your opponent was showing (let alone his full hand including the down cards), you get your last bet back. This was instituted, apparently, to protect the most naive of players from going broke too fast. I don't like that one, either, but nobody asks me.

I have played very little of the game called deuce-to-seven triple draw (aka Kansas City lowball). Lots of poker rules apply only to specific, uncommon situations, so you tend to become familiar with them only after you've played the game long enough to have seen even the rare things come up. For example, I can't count the number of times that I've seen tourists unfamiliar with what is done when the dealer puts out a board card in hold'em prematurely, before a betting round has been completed. They tend to think that the card room staff is making up a remedy for the problem on the spot, and want to argue about it. Actually, they're just following a script that was written long ago. They do exactly the same thing every time, but the newbies don't realize that, and often think they're being treated unfairly.

Anyway, the only 2-7 (in which the object is to make what would in most forms of poker be the worst hand: five cards as low as possible without any pairs, straights, or flushes) I have played has been as one of the rounds in a mixed game. This also wasn't one of the main poker variants covered in dealer school. As a result, there are lots of intricacies of its rules that I know nothing about. Two of them that were new to me made for controversies at the WSOP triple-draw event today.

First was this, as reported by PokerNews:

Check Those Suits

Bit of controversy. After the third draw in which Mimi Tran and an opponent
just drew one, Tran's opponent spread out his hand -- 9-8-7-4-2, and Tran mucked
before realizing her opponent had five spades.They called for a ruling, and it
was determined that since Tran had mucked her hand her opponent gets the pot.
Gavin Griffin pointed out that the hand probably would have turned out
differently if we were playing in Los Angeles, where one must announce if one
has made a flush. One isn't obligated to make such announcements here,
though.

My first thought was that Tran was plain out of luck, pure and simple, just like a million other dummies (myself included on a couple of occasions) that have misread an opponent's hand and mucked the winner. How is there even a controversy here? She screwed up, and has nobody else to blame.

The note about Gavin Griffin's comment, though, was enough to send me to my rule books to check. As it turns out, things are not as I had assumed.

Cooke's Rules of Real Poker says this:

7.18.03. Verbally Announce Pairs

Any player spreading a hand at showdown with a pair in it must announce
"pair" or risk losing the pot if it causes any other player to foul a
hand.

Similarly, The Rules of Poker by Krieger and Bykofsky says:

8.5.3

Players holding a pair in their hand are obliged to announce the pair's
presence at the showdown. If they fail to announce a pair, and that failure
causes an opponent to foul his hand, the player holding the pair in his hand may
lose the pot.

These books don't explicitly extend the same principle to straights and flushes (which are even worse in 2-7 triple draw than pairs), but one would tend to assume that the same thing applies. If not, then the rule is even dumber and more illogical than I already judge it to be. I don't know if Vegas casinos routinely employ this rule when spreading 2-7 as a cash game. If they do, however, I don't know why the WSOP isn't using it for the tournament.

I don't like this rule even a little bit. In my not-so-humble opinion, the rules of poker ought to be universal and standard across all of the variants, insofar as it is possible to make them so. In hold'em I certainly do not have to make a verbal announcement of what my hand is at the showdown; I just have to expose my cards. Reading my hand, comparing it to his own, and deciding whether he holds a winner or a loser is my opponent's responsibility. I shouldn't have to help him. I can't think of any good argument why it should be different in triple draw. The only thing the rule has going for it is tradition, which isn't sufficient rationale, in my view.

Here's the second rules controversy, again as reported at PokerNews:

Discard Controversy

Tournament Director Jack Effel is being chased from one side of the
Amazon Room to the other by several players who are unhappy with his decision
regarding the procedure to use when more draw cards are taken than are in the
deck.

To reiterate, at the start of the tournament Effel declared that discards
will immediately be killed and placed in the dead wood. (This is the pile that
includes mucked hands but excludes burn cards.) Those cards will be shuffled
back into the deck if needed. However, burn cards will stay down on the table
for the duration of the hand.

Howard Lederer thinks all discards should be kept separate from mucked
cards; you should never have the chance to get back the same card. Typically, in
2-7 Triple Draw, the discards are kept in a separate pile from the muck for this
very reason. However, under Effel's rule, it's possible that a player could
receive in the third draw a card he discarded before the first draw.

Greg Raymer, and several other name pros, are even more unhapy with the
chance to receive the same card in the same round. They all agree that there
should never be the chance for such a situation to occur. However, again, under
Effel's rule, each player discards, and those discards are immediately killed
and placed in the dead wood. If the stub proves insufficient to cover all draws
in that round, the dead wood is shuffled and then the draw is completed.

Again I had no idea there was disagreement about how to handle this, so once again I hit the books.

Cooke:

14.26 Reshuffles.

In any situation in any game requiring a reshuffle, neither discards nor
burns shall be included in the reshuffle. If there is any doubt as to whether a
card ought to be included in the reshuffle, then it shall not be so included.

OK, that seems to be in agreement with what the players are arguing.

Krieger:

8.7.4 Insufficient cards

If too few cards are available to complete a drawing round, the muck is
shuffled and used to complete the draw. The universe of cards available to
complete the draw therefore includes discards from previous drawing rounds and
discards from any player who received all of his replacement cards on the
current round.

Aha! So that conforms with what the WSOP tournament director is requiring (at least insofar as it pertains to cards discarded in an earlier round; reading between the lines, it seems to agree with the players about discards from the current drawing round), in direct contradiction to Cooke's rules and the players' experience. So at least we know that Mr. Effel isn't just making stuff up here.

I don't know if there's a more compelling case for one point of view than the other, nor do I know how this problem is handled in cash-game situations. I also don't see any good reason not to include the burn cards in the reshuffle. But it certainly sounds like something they had darn well better get cleared up before next year's event.

By the way, kudos to the PokerNews team for including stories like these. They are interesting, educational, and, in my opinion, add a lot of color to what can otherwise become a fairly dull hand-by-hand chronicle of the goings-on.