Daniel Negreanu is WRONG!

[Any2ForU]

[ QUOTE ]
Matt-

Daniel is the best talker in the game today and changing this rule would benefit him more than anyone else. Should we change rules to benefit certain players?

[/ QUOTE ]

I can't believe Matt just said that! Is that not exactly what he and the other directors have done?!? After all, it wasn't a rule originally, it was added later with, I believe, the intent to aid the people who do not have these skills at the expense of those who have refined that ability. [Whether that was the intent or not, that certainly is the core effect of the rule]

If you ask me it truly comes down to whether you believe the psychological aspect of poker should be a preserved component of the game, or whether it should be regulated out of the competition (as it appears is progressively happening) in a quest to speed things up, accommodate weaker players (i.e. change the rules to benefit certain players), or alleviate the tasks of floor people (why in the hell are rules being implemented to alleviate the tasks of those who are paid to administer the game anyway? -- I don't believe that should ever really be an argument. Should we change the rules to have hockey played on foot so that referees don't have to learn to skate?!?)

Furthermore, I think it's presumptuous to assume that one person who lacks the psychological abilities of others is weaker. They could very well be a superior player in other aspects, such as the mathematical or strategic components of the game. In the spirit of the Stanley Cup I will stick with a hockey analogy. Is a good left wing better than a big defensemen because he can skate faster? If you took away the value in the defensive position in hockey, or vice versa, the game as a whole would suffer.

I don't want to expand the focus too much, but I remember Jack McClelland talking about wanting to get rid of all banter during a hand that has anything to do with poker whatsoever. I believe he said it was ok to talk about basketball, or something, but the hand or game that's being played should be off limits. This is completely absurd to me and really sheds light on the administrators preferences, which seem to be something other than preserving the complexities of the game that have made it as appealing to the masses as it is today. If you ask me the game is as popular as it is today because people of all skill levels can find varying rewarding attributes in the same game. Why take certain components away at this point???

I hope more players take a stand for preserving the complexities of the game. Whether it's self serving, or not, it's still in the best interest of the game overall imho.

[fees]

Edited by entertainme: For bump with no redeeming content.

[LearnedfromTV]

[ QUOTE ]
I agree with Matt. Cards should not be shown in a tournament. Players should also not state what cards they hold, while playing in a tournament. In a tournament, even if the hand is heads up, each player is still playing against the rest of the field.

[/ QUOTE ]

[DinkinFlicka]

Show one, show all is a horrible rule but I don't want to discuss that.

If regards to 1 player left to act facing an all in bet, he should be able to flip his cards up to see what his opponent does. If the players at the table can't respect what is going on between the two players in the hand, penalize them. You want a game of integrity and skill, so just enforce the integrity and let the players take care of the skill.

Daniel wants to incorporate a poker skill into a poker tournament. What a concept.

Matt doesn't want to incorporate it because problems can arise. Exactly what problems? Let's lay them out and discuss them. What is the big deal really? Lazy? Money? What is stopping you from making the game skillful and represenative of actual poker? Why don't you find someone else who can if you can't, because it's what the players want according to your slyly worded little poll.

You want to use pros like Daniel to advertise/promote your events and poker in general, but if he has an idea all of a sudden it's just going to cause cheating that you can't catch? In reality, you can't catch good cheaters with or without this rule.

You have these tournaments that just turn into push fests towards the end anyways. Show 12 hands on TV in an hour, all the hands are all in preflop coin flips and advertise it as poker. It's a fashion show, you show some moron yelling "chark" while we stare at AK vs TT preflop percentages and you try to tell us this is poker.

You know what would be poker is seeing Daniel use his skills. You glorify these pros then hinder them. We want to see what he can do, and he wants to do all that he can do. It's good for poker to have skills evolve, to use psychology to win. You promote players as the best in the world or whatever then handcuff them. Well we want to see why Sklansky is scared to sit down at the big game, we want to see what the best players are capable of, let them do their thing.

If you want to keep that from people because you are scared of collusion, you are really just kidding yourself about collusion and poker in general. If it's an issue of taking up time, put a clock on each hand. Problem solved. If some weird circumstance comes up, do your job and make a ruling. How hard is it? It's been done in past tournaments, you have precedence to go on if you can't think.

Let a player have his weapons at the table, maybe he sucks at it and makes horrible reads after showing, it's still good for that player, poker, and TV. This is a side of poker that interests people deeply in a lot of cases. The math is the math, but mastering the pyschology is the real challenge.

You can do something about it, otherwise it just adds to the list of reasons tournaments are primed for crappy poker.

[yaaam1484]

[ QUOTE ]
Let's suppose Daniel was involved with a friend of his and shows him the best hand before that person calls, should that be allowed Daniel?

[/ QUOTE ]
Get real Matt Savage. If he had a close friend on his table and didnt want to bust him, they'd make signs like picking on their nose or something.

[lamboruns]

This is not just tourney poker "trying to level the playing field" is a society issue thats been a problem for awhile. Lets try to hinder the good players while making it easier on the poor players. Same as in schools where they dumb down the curriculum. You might think it helps the dumb kids and hurts the smart ones when in reality it hurts everyone.

[JohnnyGroomsTD]

One point of exposing cards when the action is on you. It allows others not playing in the hand concrete infomation on the contents of your hand, and can aid them helping you make a decision. For example, a spectator or audience member who sees the cards could help a player make a decision.

IMO, Daniel's argument has a lot of merit, but to minimize the risk of collusion, cheating, and violation of the OPTAH rule.

I think I have to side with Matt on this one. Daniel and I have spoken about this, and we have agreed to disagee.

FWIW
JG

[bagclip2007]

not reading anything but the OP, i only dont like this because, say you flop the nut straight, move in and the guy is thinking, and ur like what do u have man a flush draw? and hes like ya, he has u covered, so u can expose ur cards and be like man cmon i got the nuts dont try and draw out on me, i think that this would change the game wayyyyyyyyyy to much and make it worse

[jogsxyz]

Daniel is usually talking when it's his turn to act. Jamie
is talking when it's the other player's turn to act. In golf
and pool it's considered poor sportsmanship to speak during
the other guy's shot. Maybe in poker only the player who
is acting should be allowed to initiate a conversation.
No one else should be allowed to break his concentration.

[aaronbeen]

It seems like the reasons for not allowing players to reveal cards could all be applied to not allowing players to talk about a hand at all. Showing KK ~ saying "I have KK" = saying "I don't have KK and by the way I get a penalty for telling the truth about my hand."

I think so many rules like this are selectively enforced and so many players receive different treatment that the most important thing should be having a consistent set of rules. How about "no discussion of the action during multiway pots or on the bubble, any other time anything goes."