Since I haven't ranted about this before, this is as good a time as any to put on the record that I hate how Binion's is (as far as I know) the only poker room in town that uses the forward-moving button rule for cash games. I trust that they still use the dead-button rule for tournaments. (If they don't, I can't imagine how they handle the player complaints that result.) This is a pain because it's out of step with how everybody else in Vegas does it. Furthermore, they don't have any compensatory mechanism in place for making the blinds equal. Tonight I got to miss both big and small blinds for one round because of their wacky rule. OK for me, not so fair for everybody else at the table.
Short summary, for those who don't know what I'm talking about. When somebody leaves the table and he or she was about to get a blind, you can either leave the button where it is for two hands in a row and keep the blinds moving forward, or you can keep the button moving forward and have the blinds skip a seat. If the latter, there are complicated auxiliary procedures you can implement that keep everything fair--such as having somebody pay a blind while simultaneously having the button. But it's far, far simpler and overall fairer, IMHO, to use the dead button rule, especially since that's what everybody else in town does. Having a unique rule--especially one that is worse than the one that is standard--is just dumb and invites repetitive and pointless confusion and arguments. See here for another explanation of the two rules.
Shape up and join the rest of the civilized poker world, Binion's!
(Did you catch the clever point of the illustration above? It's a Dead button! Hahahahahaha! Sometimes I just amuse myself way too much.)
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Dumb rule at Binion's
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
3 comments:
A bunch of my friends and I went to Binion's during the 2007 WSOP. We talked them into spreading a 1/2 Razz table for us - with 10% rake. One dealer couldn't believe they would open that table for us since the pot had to be $20 before they would rake it.
An older gentleman spent quite a while watching us donk it up before a seat came open - the entire table was filled by us.
He politely asked if he could join us. We had no problem with that at all. He seemed to enjoy playing with us but never said a word while we drunkenly screwed around with one another. I've since seen him there during my other visits to Binion's. Clearly he's a regular and I sincerely hope it wasn't him that met his demise at the table even though he probably would prefer it that way.
I can't think of any other poker room in town that would spread a table like that for us.
Binion's will always have a soft spot in our hearts.
I don't think that the forward moving button rule is inferior to the dead button rule. they each have their benefits. The complaint about the dead button rule is that allows a single player to get the advantage of being on the button for multiple hands. The complaint about the forward moving button rule is that some players get to post there blinds from on or behind the button. (i don't know why any room would use a forward moving button rule and allow players to miss blinds except for the possible reason that the dealers are to dumb to understand how to work the rule)
They have the same moving button rule at Hard Rock.
Post a Comment