September 26, 2005
Then, of course, you have the special Partypoker rules being imposed by the World Poker Tour. If the WPT had been around during the frontier days and tried to tell poker-playing cowboys what they could and could not wear, forbid them from making deals, and then made them show their hole cards and wear makeup for the cameras, you can be certain that Steve Lipscomb would soon be swinging from the nearest tree branch.
Poker's Unwritten Rules
- At last I was King of the Partypoker World. But the next night, after announcing a Max Shapiro, believe it or not I got into another violent argument, this time with still another dork who insisted that A-A-2-3 was really a Seymour Plotkin, and he had the papers to prove it.
- Big Denny's conception of "legit" would differ slightly from the dictionary definition, but I did not argue the point, and agreed to sound out this real-life cooler. "What have I got to lose? I'll be no worse off than I am now," was the expected enthusiastic response I got from Happy Harry when I relayed Big Denny's offer. Well, Big Denny put him to work. Sure enough, everything changed. Suddenly the rustics couldn't make their points to save their lives.
- The game was still great, but I knew that if these rocks were in a hand, I better have, or be drawing to the stone cold nuts. They say that god protects drunks and little children, in a few hands he was also protecting a couple of the new players, who were hitting their miracle Partypoker cards on the river.
- If you happen to be running bad at 3/6 it may screw you up mentally for your mid limit play, to some extent, and the dangerous part is that you may not even realize it. I prefer to just sit and relax while watching the Partypoker players in the games at the limit I am interested in, and try to gain some information that I can find helpful to use later. "Haste can really make waste."
What is the definitive rule on table talk? It seems the definitive rule and the ethical rule seem to be different. I believe that it is possible to draft a set of rules that would eliminate these ethical considerations that always seem to be causing difficulty. Poker is a game of trickery and deception perhaps as much as it is a game of mathematics and probability. If I am not in the Partypoker hand I would agree that it's exceedingly bad form to interfere in any way with the hands outcome.
Here is my critique of the situation. I don't know how much stock you put into "gut feelings", but I had a decision to make early in the session, a decision I would later regret. I was exactly even after playing Partypoker about 3 hours. I got back to even after taking a beating at the beginning of the game, and clawing my way back up. My gut feeling told me, or I should say it pretty much screamed at me in its subtle way to quit, go home, and get them another day. Of course I decided differently, and paid for it. Help!
I also think that ego is a big part of a dealers' game persona. I notice this many times when playing in a game with several dealers. There is a comradeship between them, but there is also a continual sparring match going on between them. This competition usually takes the form of friendly insults and digs, especially if they are the only ones left in the Partypoker hand.
