The other day I’m playing in a game where it seems there was about six of the nine players yelling “chop” every time three or less players were in before the flop. The dealer let them chop and we saw very few hands played.

I questioned the players as to why they would chop and they said the house rake was too much it wasn’t worth playing. If you have that attitude why even come to the casino?

Naturally they didn’t come to make $$ but rather to socialize, waste time, and have fun. I on the other hand, come to play for a living so instead of causing trouble I switched to another table.

That brings me to my point. Poker USED to be a game of skill. Where you take advantage of others weaknesses and clean them out of their money. Ahh, the good old days. Since the old days things have changed drastically. In an effort to attract more and more business, casinos started passing rules to make the game more user friendly.

Floormen ignore the rulebook and make decisions on what they feel is best for the game. If it is a bunch of beginners, floormen refuse to enforce the rules with an excuse of “they are just learning”. If a player can’t see well, they ask you to give up your middle seat so that player can see better. In fact many of the rules have changed so that poker now favors luck instead of skill.

So the true question is, what is poker? To some it is a hobby where they can relax and have fun. To others it is their job and casinos should respect that and treat the game as a source of income for many.

All players wish they could quit their jobs and play poker professionally. Pros pay more to the casino than hobbyists. Poker is addicting so no matter what you do to a hobbyist, he will come back and play. He will not give up poker.

Based on that, casinos should go back to the old rules and become much more strict with those who violate them. No one should be allowed to help other players play, not even the dealer. If you enter a pot you should be forced to play and not allowed to chop. If you put money in a pot, it should stay in the pot, no more excuses like “I didn’t know what was going on”.

Again, poker should be a game of skill. If you don’t pay attention, if you don’t know the rules, if you make bad decisions, etc. the floorman should not be allowed to come over and reward you just because you are naive.

Everyone was naive at one point, but anyone who has played for more than 10 years learned the game by reading, practicing, and the most important of all, the school of hard knocks. If you have one of your hands declared dead, or lose a lot of money because you weren’t paying attention, you learn quickly and it won’t happen often. This is the same experience new players should be given so that poker returns to skill and not become a game of luck.

Last week in my post How To Cheat At A Satellite I spoke of how satellite players don’t care if seats are assigned randomly. Since they didn’t care, why not take advantage of them? After all, rules are made to protect the players and if the players don’t care, are you really cheating?

Partners in live games, online games, satellites and tournaments have been going on since poker was invented. Some use it to cheat and some just use it to hedge their bankroll.

For instance, in a live game, two professionals might share the same bankroll. If one loses a $1,000 and the other makes $1,400 then their bankroll went up by $400. Stock traders call this diversification. A lot of high-limit pros who play in the same game everyday, usually form this type of partnership.

Then there is the tournament player who forms partnerships with other tournament player. They give away 5% of their winnings to 10 other players. If they win, they keep 50% of the prize and split the other 50% ten ways with their partners. Likewise if they lose and one of their ten partner wins, they get 5% of those winning. How much you want to bet that in early stages of a tournament these types of partners will take it easy on each other and not knock them out?

I know one big player tournament player who sometimes sells 200% of himself. Lets say the buy-in is $10,000. He’ll get 10 people to put up $2,000 each. He raises $20,000. He buys-in for $10,000, then gets himself knocked out the first day and now has a $10,000 profit for a few hours play. he then goes to the live game with his other $10,000. If he runs it up, he’ll have the money to pay for himself to get in a tourney (which he does win occasionally which is how he can get so many sponsors). If he loses, he just gets more sponsors at the next tournament.

Then there is the partners at the satellite table. Most casinos use a computer to randomly generate a table and seat to play in a tournament. However, for a satellite, most players just choose their own seat. This allows two partners to take a seat at opposite ends of the table. They can use signals to tell each other when to squeeze the other players in the middle. Or maybe they choose seats side by side so they can pass signals under the table. Or the player with the good hand just checks while his partner bets and after everyone calls the original partner then raises and they steal all the chips in the pot so far.

When you let players in a satellite choose their own seats, there are so many variations to cheating that can be accomplished. So again I ask.. if players don’t care is it really cheating?

Casinos always ask you to play by the rules or they bar you. In tournaments they give you a time away from the table while they blind you off.

On the flip side.. one of the world’s largest card clubs refuses to play by the rules. I’ve seen them post signs limiting tourney entry to 900 then sign up 1400. I’ve seen them saying rebuys are good for the first two levels and then after tourney starts extend it to the first three. I’ve seen them advertise only 2 add-ons after rebuys are over and then sell 10 add-ons to a single player, the list goes on and on.

All of these screw over the honest players who play by the rules. naturally the casino claims it’s not cheating on their part because every ad has in small print “the casino can modify any rule at their discretion”.

The reason they do this is simple, pure greed on the behalf of the tournament staff. They want the prize pool to be bigger. Bigger prize pool means a bigger tip for them (this casino keeps 3% of the prize pool for a tip for their tournament staff).

I make a decision to play a tournament based on the posted rules for the tournament. If they want to change the rules BEFORE a tournament starts that’s one thing, but to change the rules AFTER the start of a tournament is unfair and unethical.

They’ve done it to me and everyone else who played in tournaments there on more than one occasion. Needless to say, I no longer play there. I wish others would also boycott them, sigh, but they don’t so the casino keeps all it’s business and the casino keeps on doing it.

• Unethical Casinos
• Unethical Casinos II

Once again I bring you another story of strange things poker players do. This weeks article has to do with chopping.

Chopping is when two players decide not to play a hand but to split the pot. It usually occurs when no one enters a pot and only the two blinds are in. They decide not to play and take their blind posts back. The reason for this is two fold. Most players are scared (or don’t have the skill) to play heads-up and secondly, the rake in the game is so high that if the two players don’t bet, the casino takes most of the pot.

It also is becoming more common to see a third player enter the pot and then they chop. Players are no longer willing to play three handed in smaller limit games. I don’t understand this. If you only wanted to get your money back, why come into the pot in the first place?

I’ve tried objecting to players chopping and was told the blinds can chop, but if a player enters, I can object to them chopping.

When a player enters the pot, it changes the whole game and it is not fair to the other players if those players now chop. For example, suppose I’m in last position with K-4. In any other position that is a bad hand. However, if no one else enters the pot it is a great hand for taking the blinds. Chances are, my hand is better than the blinds.

Now someone in an early position enters the pot, my hand doesn’t look so good anymore so I fold and then the three players decide to chop? The player that entered cost me the blinds and now he wants out with his money back? I object.

• Poker Players Are Strange
• Poker Players Are Strange II