[Small Fry]

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"And there is no need to establish a house rule, unless one plans to deviate from the established rule."

I'm sorry I didn't realize that there was a uniform accepted set of poker rules. Kindly tell me where I can get a copy.

I am a professional poker dealer. I have dealt in 6 different Las Vegas Casinos (including the WSOP). Whenever i start a new dealing job I must ask what the house rules are. There are many things which different rooms handle differently. does an exposed card to the button constitituet a misdeal?n some places it does, some places it doesn't. Which is the "established" rule as you would say and which is the deviant house rule? How is a betting line enforced? I doubt I have bene in any two casinos which enforce them the same way?

The bottom line is that there are some rules which are pretty much universally accepted in poker --- the ranks of hands is one. Then there are many rules upon which there is no single accepted standard and that is whymany posters refer to house rules.

You ask what other sport or games has house rules? Well one that comes to mind immediately is baseball. Question for you. How many innings in a baseball game? Nine you say? Well what if that game is a little league game in an age group that plays 7 inning games? But even within Major League baseball we have house rules . We see that in domed stadiums a ball which hits the roof is out of play, in others it is in play.

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I'm not saying house rules don't exist and that guys shouldn't make up house rules. And as you have pointed out a lot of casinos do have their own house rules.

For a rule book how about "Robert's Rules of Poker". Notice it's not named Robert's Suggestions of Poker.(There's others too) I'm surprised that as a professional dealer you have not heard of these. My main point is that this rule books exists and it covers almost everything imaginable so if you don't have a specific house rule the defacto response should not be to make something up, but to consult the rule book. Let's look at your example of an exposed card to the button. (I assume you mean on the deal and caused by the dealer) If you have no known established "house" rule what do you do? Just make something up? How about looking at Robert's rules (or better yet being familiar with the rules enough to know) and finding out the answer is no it's not a misdeal. No need to create a rule when one already exists. Now, if you want to disagree with the rule and create your own "house" rule then by all means go for it. I'm sure this is how some new fun games get created. It is what the casinos have done. And that is why players are always advised to find out the house rules as they differ from place to place and from the standard set by Robert's Rules.