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Another British Poker Travesty
I recently played a tournament in London where the house gave us the rare courtesy of providing dealers. Imagine my surprise when I saw what happened as this hand played out:
Two fairly inexperienced players were involved in a small confrontation on the river. The flop had come 10-x-x, and there was a bet and a call. The turn was a J, and both players checked. On the river a small card came and the first player bet again. The second player thought for a while and finally called. Player 1 showed a K-10, and Player 2 looked dejected and pushed his cards facedown towards the muck. Now, the dealer grabbed hold of Player 2's cards and showed his Q-10s to the whole table! I had to double-check to make sure I'd seen everything properly. The dealer explained that in the UK, it was standard practice to do this in tournaments, and that both players had to show their cards at showdown regardless of whether they are the caller or the bettor.
Firstly, I'm not convinced that this rule is standard practice in UK venues. For a start, there isn't a set of rules that has been commonly adopted throughout anywhere in the world, let alone in the UK where most poker tournaments are run by incompetent staff who care more about getting the punters into the venue and fleecing them at table games than they do about running a decent competition. I therefore think its highly likely that the dealer in question either didn't know a lot about poker or was trained by somebody equally ignorant.
Lets assume however that this rule is standard practice in some cardrooms. Well, that is a terrible shame, and I think that it should be eradicated as quickly as possible. 'Why?' I hear you cry, 'Surely the rule is designed to prevent collusion in tournaments, and that must be a good thing?'. Well, this particular rule will do nothing at all to prevent collusion in tournaments. The most common collusion practice is 'stack-balancing', in which the colluder with the most chips dumps some to his partner to ensure that he lasts longer in the tournament (remember, the goal of collusion is for both players to finish in the money). Since this rule only applies to a showdown, all the dumper has to do is fold before the river, and nobody will ever know his cards. Another form of collusion is 'best hand play', in which the two colluders signal their cards to each other and only play the best of the two. This rule doesn't have any effect on best hand play because only one hand of the two sees a showdown. A third collusion technique is 'soft playing', in which two players purposely don't get into confrontations with each other - so one player might check the nuts in last position on the river after his partner checks. Most of the time however, soft-playing won't be as obvious as this, and the hand that is checked won't be anywhere near as strong. In other words, its very hard to prove softplaying is happening even if all the cards are shown.
So, we've established that the rule can only help to detect extreme incidents of softplay on the river. How common is softplaying anyway? I personally think that people are much more paranoid about collusion than is warranted. From my experience working with online poker rooms, I'd say that less than 0.1% of poker players are colluders. This might be slightly higher in live tournaments, since players tend to attend these events with their friends and not by themselves, but the figure is probably still extremely low. In fact, you'd be much better off worrying about people cheating in other ways, as I discuss in a previous article.
To sum things up, this is a rule which might only be useful in preventing cheating once every few years in the whole of the UK. However, damage is being caused every single time a mucked hand is shown by the dealer. For a start, it discourages extremely marginal calls, which is to the detriment of decent players - the last thing you want to do is encourage a player who is too loose to tighten up. Players like me make a huge amount of profit by value betting against players like this, and we don't want them to suddenly start folding. Secondly, the rule humiliates the player who has his losing hand shown. He might be subject to ridicule by other players, which would make him less likely to play again, or he might realise how badly he has been playing and improve his game. Lastly, the rule provides players at the table with information to which I believe they aren't entitled.
In poker, at a showdown, if one player calls another but loses, he can muck his cards and the dealer shouldn't usually show them to anyone. This applies to both cash games and tournaments. In most cardrooms, there is a rule in place whereby a player involved in the hand can ask to be shown the cards, but this is a privilege which is generally revoked if abused.
Its considered to be hugely unethical to ask to see an opponent's mucked hand. Why on earth should it be done automatically?
PS. There are several other things that some dealers in the UK do which annoy me. Actually, not every dealer does these things, and just as some dealers pitch the cards and other don't, some do these things and others don't. To be blunt, some dealers in the UK have been trained badly and have kept to these bad habits.
1. Prompting players for action
While I appreciate that in smaller buy-in tournaments with lots of inexperienced players it might be necessary to remind a player that it's his turn, I think its incredibly patronising to do so as a matter of routine. I don't need to be reminded that its my big blind, but only recently I played in a £3000 tournament with a dealer who told me before she'd even finished moving the previous pot to its winner!2. Announcing the cards or the size of the pot
There's just no excuse for this. While somebody with little knowledge of poker might think that they are being helpful by announcing the cards or the pot size, they are actually giving away information that they shouldn't. A professional player can learn a lot by watching his opponent's reaction to the flop, and by announcing it you prevent him from acquiring this information. By announcing the size of the pot, especially in pot limit games, you prevent players from making a lot of bet-sizing mistakes (like underraising, or minimum betting - all of which provide information), and you also convey the fact that the size of the pot is important - educating the poor players to the detriment of others.By the way, those of you looking for an extremely over the top example of this can watch The Cincinnati Kid, in which the dealers are always announcing every card. You'll see how ridiculous it can be.
3. Dealing the flop one card at a time
This is just a minor irritation, but its a nice touch that is the sign of a good dealer. The flop is named after the sound made when three cards are spread face up in the middle of the table simultaneously. A lot of dealers seem to believe that the flop is supposed to be dealt one card at a time, which is just plain ignorance.
Alex Scott April 2006
