Home game rules - slight rant

[Small Fry]

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Have you not heard of "Robert's Rules of Poker"?

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Yes i have heard of it. But they are not established rules. They are a single persons rulebook.hile many of the rules he uses are common poker rules there are many different rule books out there -- many which predate Robert's Rules.

Of course if you choose to use RObert's Rules for your game that is fine, but then again many of the rules he uses might be construed to be "house rules" and some may even be non-standard (I was going to pull some examples but when I tried to go to my link for Robert's Rules it looks like the website is down)

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I agree that there are different rule books and that some of the rules vary from book to book and that rules evolve over time also so you could have two versions of the same rule book yet they contain different rules on some subjects. But I don't see how you can state that they are not "established" .

As for the point for my OP. No real point to it. I think a few missed the warning in the beginning. Those of us that are aware of the rules will do our best to interpret them and apply them to situations. Our goal, or at least my goal, is to rule in a fair and consistent manner while taking into consideration all the important facts. Knowing, or being aware of the rules and their purpose, allows me to make a more informed decision. Those that are unaware of the rules will still make up stuff as the situation dictates hoping that they got it right. Some involved in these situations end up posting here looking for an answer. Which generally gets provided by somebody like Lottery Larry you knows / is aware of the rules. (I've yet to see him give some bad advice)

[Small Fry]

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Aren't home games more fun when they don't strictly follow the established rules already out there?

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You tell me. Lets say in your home game you basically follow the standard set by "Robert's Rules" What if you go play in a new home game that allows string bets? Or What if a players verbal declaration is not binding? What if the rule is that if you put out a bet to call, unaware of a raise before you, your forced to complete up to the raise amount? The thing is these are all the "house" rules which you are unaware of. They were made up as situations arose over the course of time in this home game. Since the host doesn't know the "standard" rules it is rather difficult for him to explain how the "house" rules differ from the "standard". He also doesn't print them out. The only real way for you to discover these rules is to have the situation arise, like a player stating call being allowed to raise, you objecting, and the host informing you that it's allowed.

But I think your point is more along the lines of keeping it friendly, rather than being a nit about it. I totally agree. But I think you also need to keep in mind there are many different styles of "Home" game ranging from just a handful of long time friends to what is really a home casino. At your "friendly" home game you might choose to be a little loose in your application of the rules while the home casino might be more strict. And that's the way it should be.

[Small Fry]

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So I think the rant is something along the lines of, c'mon, if you're going to play poker, understand that there are published rules and consult them already when disputes come up.

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Agreed somewhat, but we don't want to drive off new HP guests, either.

If and when we get an FAQ sticky with a link to RR, the rant would make more sense.

Besides, how many times have we answered the same question (of any type of question) on this forum? :P

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Not sure I was suppose to make sense as I'm mostly preaching to the choir. Most of the people who are going to read this have some concept of the rules. Maybe I'm just amazed at how many players choose to participate in an activity with little or no concept of the rules, behind the obvious basics of hand values. I probably shouldn't be amazed though as I've played in a monthly game for the past three years with the same guys and some of them still make the same mistakes over and over, no matter how many times they've been told.

I certainly don't want to discourge anyone from posting here. (What would you do with all your new found free time if this forum went away Larry....lol). I've found this forum to be a great source of information

I also don't expect somebody to pull out a rule book in the middle of a home game to try to locate a rule to resolve a dispute. But it is a good idea to have it handy as a resource and have some basic knowledge of whats inside. Maybe it's just me but I think part of running a good home game is knowing the rules (at least most of them)

I appreciite all the discussion and reponses here. And maybe this post will lead to an actual FAQ rules sticky

[pfapfap]

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.

[Small Fry]

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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.

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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.

[Lottery Larry]

"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."

You're still not getting it- since the rules AREN'T 100% standard, you make a rule book for YOUR game so that they are standardized FOR your game, so you can refer to it and others can also.

When a situation arises that requires people to quote a rule, the rule needs to be codified for future use.

THAT way, you don't get into the "It's 3 raises as a cap!" "No, it's four raises as a cap!" arguments about "rightness".

There is a reason that casino cardrooms have rules spelled out- shouldn't THEY not need them either, since the rules are "known" ?

[ShannonRyu]

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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.

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[pfapfap]

Fair enough, SmallFry, I can certainly see how your original intent and rambling got all sorts of warped. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] But hey, if the house says you're allowed to change your action after a declaration, that's a perfectly valid house rule...

I've played in a similar tournament, 70+ people, those running it were brought in when the original folks couldn't make it, so it was very haphazard. A friend was at another table and was very irritated that several of his big pocket pairs were part of "misdealds" that shouldn't have been declared as such. The blind structure was painfully fast, but thankfully they weren't paying attention to the clock, so we had much longer rounds than planned. I kept trying to get people to let me deal at my tables, since I was so much faster, but nobody was keen on that, and as I was massive chip leader, I didn't want to draw too much attention to myself. As one woman put it when I said we'd get in more hands, "but then we have to pay more blinds!" I finished third. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Small Fry]

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"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."

You're still not getting it- since the rules AREN'T 100% standard, you make a rule book for YOUR game so that they are standardized FOR your game, so you can refer to it and others can also.

When a situation arises that requires people to quote a rule, the rule needs to be codified for future use.

THAT way, you don't get into the "It's 3 raises as a cap!" "No, it's four raises as a cap!" arguments about "rightness".

There is a reason that casino cardrooms have rules spelled out- shouldn't THEY not need them either, since the rules are "known" ?

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Good points. I'm pretty sure I get it.

Your 3 raise vs. 4 raise is a great example of an area where there is definite ambiguity and the need to have your specific rule spelled out. But why do I need to create my own rule book when I can just pull out something like Robert's Rules and say here's the rules I follow. Do I follow the letter of the law. Hell no. I try to apply the rule to the situation in a fair and consistant manner thats in the best interest of the game. And the reality of the previous sentence is that there could be two problems which appear virtually identical, but due to mitigating circumstances, I make two different rulings.

Maybe my mistake is assuming most of the rules in something like Robert's Rules are universally accepted when thats not the case. If so I apologize for my ignorance.

And, assuming we're talking about hold'em I would say the 3 raises is the standard. 4 raises is an alteration. If we're talking about games with only two betting rounds then 4 raises is standard but some rules books say 6

[EasilyFound]

Much of this fixation on rules is generational. I've been playing poker for twenty years, starting in college. Back then, people didn't know Roberts Rules of Poker from Roberts Rules of Order. Nobody knew what a string bet was. If you ran out of chips in the middle of a hand playing limit poker, you simply reached into your pocket for more cash to keep playing. Or you went shy for the hand an squared up when the hand was complete. At least in the games that I played, the games were much more informal about rules.

Home game poker players today are much more rules based.