Saturday, August 01, 2009

New TDA rules

The 2009 version of the Tournament Directors Association rules has been released. Well, sort of released. For reasons that I can't figure out, it seems that one must be a member of the club to download the latest version, whereas previous versions were freely provided. Nevertheless, Dan at Pokerati broke the embargo (such as it is) and published them anyway; you can view the full set of rules here.

Back in June I did a post about a rules question that arose during a World Series of Poker event. Specifically, is a player entitled to get a count of an opponent's chips (from either the player, or from the dealer if the player is not cooperative) if those chips have not been made part of a wager? The two rule books I have both say emphatically yes. But readers spoke up in the comments section about casinos that seem to employ the contrary rule.

I was most intrigued by a commenter who wrote, "We discussed this rule at great length at the TDA Summit this past Tuesday. You will see this spelled out in future TDA rules." So I looked through the new set of rules eagerly, hoping to see this addressed. I have to guess that they were unable to achieve unanimity on the matter, because it doesn't seem to have been put into a rule one way or the other.

2 comments:

Memphis MOJO said...

"But readers spoke up in the comments section about casinos that seem to employ the contrary rule."

At the time, it seemed some of the commenters mixed up tournament situations with regular cash games. In cash games casinos may wish to keep the game moving(?). Also, all casinos who hold tournaments don't necessarily subscribe to TDA rules. If not, they can do what they want.

JD Schellnutt said...

I have a rules question in reference to obtaining an opponent's chip count during tourney play. I was watching the replay of last year's WPT $25k buyin Belagio tourney that got down to Luke (IwearGoggles) Stoudenmeir(sp?), Mike Watson, and David Bennyamine. In one hand, Luke asked David for a count after David announce allin. David told him 3.8million (or something like that...I can't remember) when in actuality he had something like 4.8million. The difference may have been enough for Luke to have gotten away from the hand and not made the call as it were. I guess my question is, what is the rule to keep someone (in this case David) from angle shooting by giving announcing a false lower count of chips when they want the call, and conversely a false higher count if they want the fold? If you ask for the count and the player says 3.8million, are you allowed to request that the dealer verify the allin amount you would have to commit to prior to making your decision? Thanks.
JD