From this article just posted at PokerWorks:
"In most brick and mortar poker rooms, friends, spouses, and lovers are discouraged from playing at the same table. Management would rather avoid any hint of possible collusion than fade accusations from players who are looking for a lame excuse for losing."
That caught my attention, because I have never heard of such a thing. I have seen intimate partners playing together countless times, including some where they were regulars in the room and well known to management. In all my years playing, I have never heard of couples being asked not to play together, or read anywhere that such a request is made as a matter of policy or routine in any poker room anywhere. When you extend the claim to "friends," as this article does, it becomes even more ludicrous. Though I've never had reason to attempt an actual count, my offhand guess is that the majority of tables I've ever played at have had at least one pair of friends playing at some point during my session, and yet I've never even once heard it suggested that they not do so as a matter of room policy.
I don't know who "PokerHack" is (the author of the article), or where he or she got this impression, but I'd like to hear more about it. If this is the case for "most" B&M poker rooms, as claimed, it should be trivially easy for PokerHack to call a few poker room managers in Vegas and get on-the-record quotations either confirming or denying that they make it a point to discourage couples and/or friends from playing together when they know about it. I would be extraordinarily surprised if the claim turns out to be verifiable.
Hey, PokerHack--want to bet $100 that you can call the managers of ten randomly selected Vegas poker rooms and get at least six of them to say that they do, in fact, routinely ask couples and friends not to play together when they know it is happening? If not--that is, if you're not confident that you could confirm your assertion--then how about retracting it?
Posts
11 comments:
Whoever wrote that apparently doesn't go down in the trenches.
There is one couple who played regularly at the Pink Chicken whom we required to play at different tables and, if at the same table, could not be seated in adjacent seats. They frequently whispered what cards they had to each other, he whispered her direction on how she should play a hand, etc.
Other than that, I've never seen it either.
My then boyfriend and I were always split up at the casinos we frequented in Blackhawk, Colorado 2003-2005, even when only 2-3 tables were running. We didn't mind or care because both of could play for 8-12 hours at a time and barely speak to each other lol.
I gave PokerHack the information. I dealt the Mirage and Bellagio for years. Specifically in high limit, if one of a couple was in a game, the other could not take a seat - if they were on the list, they were continually moved down by one and the person below them went into the game first until the partner (married or boyfriend) left the main game.
I am the editor of PokerWorks.com and I write the blog Table Tango. But you definitely don't have to take my word for it. If you ever happen to run into Irene somewhere around Vegas in a poker game, ask her about her and husband Max. He's since passed on, but she can tell you the rule was created specifically because of them, back somewhere around 1996-97.
Linda: I accept your word about your own experience and that of your friends. But I stand by my observation that in five years of playing all over town I've never seen or (before now) heard of any casino having a policy or practice of routinely disallowing couples to play together, and I know of some that must not have any such policy because they eagerly accepted couples as regular players.
Furthermore, your writer went much further. He or she said that "most" poker rooms won't even let "friends" play at the same table. That claim strikes me as well beyond dubious and into absurd. I don't understand how it could be made by anybody who has spent any time in Vegas poker rooms.
For a bit more clarification, I have played low limit with a table full of friends in various rooms in Vegas, and have posted many times that my friend Marie and I play together and sit next to each other.
I asked my writer to do the article specifically because of the seating situation at the WSOP this year with the last woman standing situation.
I see the perfect hotbed for a horrible issue when large amounts of $ are at stake. I can almost guarantee you that if both had gone farther than they did, the question would have been posed by someone on 2+2 or in person to the TD that there was possible collusion going on.
As soon as they were seated next to each other, I expected to see sirens flashing somewhere and noise going off. At least one person (I saw the live chat/comment) at PokerNews.com live coverage brought up the fact of cheating.
For millions of dollars and all the fame you can handle, a slight nudge of the knee under the table can change the outcome.
So...you may never have heard of it, but you may never have asked about it either because it wasn't in your playing experience and you never thought about it.
No harm done either way.
Linda, do you think that it is a demonstrable fact that "most" B&M poker rooms as a matter of policy and practice discourage two friends from playing poker at the same table?
Put another way, suppose we randomly selected 10 poker rooms and called their managers and asked, "If you know that two people are friends when they come into your room to play, will you routinely discourage them from playing at the same table?" The article on your site claims, as I read it, that the answer to that will be "yes" in at least 6 of the 10.
Frankly, I find that to be, literally, incredible, given that most times I play I can easily identify friends sharing a table, and nothing is said or done about it.
If you think that at least 6/10 poker room managers would answer affirmatively to the above question, then you can stand by the claim in the article (though you might consider running the experiment to see). If not, then it seems to me that a retraction is in order.
We can separately discuss the best way for a high-profile tournament to handle the very rare kind of situation that arose late in the ME this year, but that was not at all the focus of my post or my challenge to the accuracy of specific assertion made in the article in question.
I live in Pahrump. I have no intention of calling 10 or so poker rooms in Vegas and I have no intention of retracting any of the article. If you do call or visit Las Vegas poker rooms to ask the question, make sure you ask to talk to the MANAGER, because a huge percentage of brush/list people couldn't tell you anything about poker room rule...I kid you not...they simple don't know.
Do I think that if a group walked in and wanted to play, or two friends walked in and wanted on the list that they would be discouraged from sitting in the same game? No! The main reason being that most poker rooms in Vegas are too small to have more than one table of a particular limit running and they need all the players they can get.
It's common knowledge that you can get on the list to move to a table, if you have a friend there, why wouldn't you if you want to play with them. I also think it should be common sense to realize that if anyone thought you were doing something you shouldn't with said friend, they would report you to management and you would be steered around sitting with each other.
And I think you are forgetting that the article was about a certain couple, where a very large amount of money was at stake. And in my initial comment here, I referenced 'high limit' so please take not that high limit is not the real world but it is the 'dictating world' when it comes to poker.
Do I think there are complaints in every room about cheating and certain players under 'watchful eye?' Most certainly.
This will be my last comment here. Not because of you, your site, or the topic, but because I simply don't have the time to return and post. I'm writing a post on my blog that references your post now, it should be up shortly.
Linda, I'm not trying to pick a fight. I understand that the thrust of the article was about a particular situation. But I maintain that this one sentence--"In most brick and mortar poker rooms, friends, spouses, and lovers are discouraged from playing at the same table"--is almost certainly false.
Interesting. Gotta give you persistence, Rake. You are pretty anal in the eye dotting and tee crossing. But, when you are so perfect...
This seems to be a tomato tomato argument. You do do those well. Why I am not sure; but we all have our flaws.
I do know Hack but not in person. She dealt and suited in poker rooms. Linda dealt in the best rooms and at the highest stakes. If they are comfortable with the article, suck it up and grab the camera for a few more casino shots. We all love those so.
FWIW, my boyfriend and I are friends (or friendly with) floor staff and poker room managers in several LV casinos. Although we don't do it often, we occasionally sit at the same table. We have never been asked by management to move to different tables. In fact, we are often asked if we want to be seated at the same table. These aren't small rooms either . . .
Post a Comment