Re: Home game rules - slight rant
[ QUOTE ]
Is it lonely up there on your pedestal? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]
Seriously, I think this "amazement" at regular shmoes enjoying a friendly home game is due to your own insulation in a poker-rich environment. When friends and I pick up and head down to the local park to play some tennis, we don't know much beyond "keep the ball inside" and "one fault per serve". NOT knowing thorough rules or detailed discussions on relatively rare situations is, er, par for the course (to mix analogies). I'm sure most people have a vague idea that there are rules for card games (hence "according to Hoyle"), but it's no fault of anybody's for not being thoroughly versed in them, or even having a copy around. When it boils down, order of betting and hand rank are the only really important rules, and pretty much everybody knows them.
[/ QUOTE ]
I play with regular shmoes all the time. I thought I was a friendly shmoe but maybe I'm really one of those dreaded nits [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]
Maybe amazement was the wrong word. I'll state one more time I have no problems with anyone creating their own rules.
My main point, if I can recall it, which I think got lost somewhere, was the advice given by some about the need to "create" or have a "house" rule in place, when the reality is that there are several rule books already in place that address the issues. One does not need to reinvent the wheel.
How about an example: Lets say your in a game and Player X announces "I call" but then decides to raise and puts out a raise. You say to him "You can't do that you said you call". He says he can. There are a total of 8 of you in this game and nobody knows what the accepted rule is(which I hope we can agree is that verbal declarations are binding) so you all decide that player X can't raise since he said "I call" and he needs to take back the raise. Then you post it up here on HP looking to see if you guys came up with a fair decision and somebody like Lottery Larry says excellent decision, while somebody else responds with "better create a house rule about it". So you come up with your "new" house rule - verbal declarations are binding. Nothing new or house specific about it, you didn't create anything, and the whole issue could have been avoided if someone had known the accepted rule.
I'm not saying you must play by all the rules. I'm not saying you need to strictly follow any rules. I'm just saying there is no need to create your own rules when rules already exist unless you want to deviate from the accepted standard.
And I'm not blaming anyone for not knowing the rules. Some of the guys I play with could really care less about anything except is it their return to act and half the time probably can't remember if a flush beats a straight. I sure as hell am not going to ask for them to make a ruling if a problem comes up.
Have you ever played in a home game where very few, if any, had extensive knowledge of the rules. I have and what a joke it was. It was an 18 man 3 table tournament. There was very little attention paid to blind schedule so some rounds lasted 20 minutes other lasted 10 and others somewhere inbetween. There was no balnacing of tables and my table was down to 3 players while the other tables where at 5 and 4 before we consolidated to two tables (we could have easily fit 7 or 8 at a table or even squeezed in 9 and started with just two). Players betting / folding out of turn. They would constantly splash the pot and since there was no chip up the final stacks became huge with a chip of very little value still in play (we started with $20 in chips with values of $.10, $.25 and $1.00) Blinds got up to like $4/$8 or 6/12. Try sitting there while a player counts out a $8 blind in dimes and quarters. A misdeal was declared anytime anything out of the ordinary happened no matter where in the hand it occurred - preflop, flop, turn, etc. pretty much by anyone who wanted to call it. And there was a huge argument at the end of a game about a player being all in and losing and then saying he was not all in. As the new guy I very rarely spoke up as I was there to play not educate and I new it would be too much of an uphill battle. (until the end with the all in. I was the one involved in that argument) I'll never go back. It's just utter chaos.
|