Dealer button heads up

[queen9]

I understand what you are saying, but a very reliable td told me that the first hand heads up is the only time in heads up where there may not always be a small blind paid.

perhaps garth could shed some light on this one for us... I will check the casino rules for tourney play and see if there is any difference between that and npl.

[krunchie]

I understand what you are saying, but a very reliable td told me that the first hand heads up is the only time in heads up where there may not always be a small blind paid.

perhaps garth could shed some light on this one for us... I will check the casino rules for tourney play and see if there is any difference between that and npl.

unfortunatley as we havent been able to impliment big pete's "the umpire will always be 100% correct" rule. this is always going to be the case.

Any rule has a certain amount of grey area that alows diffent people to juge the same incident different ways.

No 1 person is going to be 100% correct there will usually always be a certain amount of personal bias in any decsion.


Just to add fuel to the fire the following is an extract from the npl rule book section 6, clause 28

28. The dealer button remains in position until the appropriate blinds are taken. Players must post all blinds every round. Because of this, last action may be given to the same player for two consecutive hands by the use of a “dead button”.

it you read this literally it means that a big and small blind must be posted.
So common sense sugests the player that was next in line to be big blind the hand before is now big blind and the other player is small blind, no matter what they paid the hand before.

[BigPete33]

If the umpire doesn't get it right then the umpire shouldn't be umpiring

There's no interpretation ever required for that ruling.

[Garth Kay]

1.) Dealer button follows natural progression
UNLESS
one of the players will post BB two hands in a row.
2.) In that case the DB is moved so that player is not posting 2 BB's in a row.
3.) In NPL heads up there are never any dead positions, a small and big blind must be posted.
4.) Some online sites and casinos will play a dead small blind of the first hand of heads up play as the dealer button follows natural progression.

Ridiculous concept and I have no idea how they could get it so wrong.

[queen9]

welcome back Garth ... you've been missed in here ... and thanks for the info on the dealer button. the only issue I have now is that krunchie says there are grey areas for each rule interpretation. so now we have an issue whereby different venues, different td's, different regions, may apply the same rule - differently.... and it has happened ... and it has affected my placing for the night and my points - so I have 2 questions which I hope you don't mind answering ....

1) if we are playing to make games at the casino, are we not better to use a similar rule in line with what the casino practices?

2) is there a way to promote consistency between the td's to use the rule/s as per the way NPL expects or requires that rule to be used?

We have had times when the td has over ruled a decision made by his staff and it has caused problems on the table. If there is one set of rules, then they should be interpreted one way only, whatever way the NPL sees fit. I agree with Pete, if the td doesn't get it right, then he shouldn't be there .... it impacts on the players and the game and almost caused a fight one night.

I have given copies of the NPL rules to some players (downloaded from the website) - just so they can understand more about the decisions made by the td's and why - so that when they come over to resolve a dispute or enforce a rule, the player knows why. It may help if this was a common practice with new players, to elimate any issues, and even if they don't read them, at least an attempt was made to provide them.

[Garth Kay]

welcome back Garth ... you've been missed in here ... and thanks for the info on the dealer button. the only issue I have now is that krunchie says there are grey areas for each rule interpretation. so now we have an issue whereby different venues, different td's, different regions, may apply the same rule - differently.... and it has happened ... and it has affected my placing for the night and my points - so I have 2 questions which I hope you don't mind answering ....

1) if we are playing to make games at the casino, are we not better to use a similar rule in line with what the casino practices?

2) is there a way to promote consistency between the td's to use the rule/s as per the way NPL expects or requires that rule to be used?

We have had times when the td has over ruled a decision made by his staff and it has caused problems on the table. If there is one set of rules, then they should be interpreted one way only, whatever way the NPL sees fit. I agree with Pete, if the td doesn't get it right, then he shouldn't be there .... it impacts on the players and the game and almost caused a fight one night.

I have given copies of the NPL rules to some players (downloaded from the website) - just so they can understand more about the decisions made by the td's and why - so that when they come over to resolve a dispute or enforce a rule, the player knows why. It may help if this was a common practice with new players, to elimate any issues, and even if they don't read them, at least an attempt was made to provide them.

Hi Rosemary,

Happy New Year! Hope you had a wonderful time.

1.) All of our rules are inline with the majority of casino rules. It is quite often the casinos who have it wrong. LOL, yes I am arrogant. Often we have integrated the best concepts of tournament procedures and rules from all over to provide the best playing experience.

2.) No there is not, rules can be intepreted in all different manners, the decision TD's make can be affected by all many varied manner of information and I could write a scenario here and receive almost twenty different variations on the ruling. As long as the fairest reasons are made in conjunction with the rulebook I am happy with that. In most scenarios even the best TD's in the world come up with different and varied rulings, check out the Hendon Mob web page where they throw a scenario at a selection of TD's from throughout the world and see how differently they all respond.

That is because the fairest decision must be made with the least amount of negative impact for innocent parties. Poker is a game of grey areas, different perceptions and misleading information which is often interpreted differently by us all.

There are your basic rules which should be enforced correctly throughout the competition, such as acting out of turn, revealing contents of whole cards before the completion of betting, exposing burn cards or community cards, etc... but in terms of the majority of scenarios and the impact that substantial action has at an NPL level each ruling over individual and one off occurences will vary from TD to TD.

[maccatak11]

http://www.thehendonmob.com/tournament_ ... ction.html


Some areas are black and white, some there are elements of grey. As long as TD's know which are which (i believe that most do) and that they explain the reasons behind decisions in order to educate players then i think there shouldn't be any problems.

[mr_niceguy_1979]

1.) Dealer button follows natural progression
UNLESS
one of the players will post BB two hands in a row.
2.) In that case the DB is moved so that player is not posting 2 BB's in a row.
3.) In NPL heads up there are never any dead positions, a small and big blind must be posted.

This topic came at a good time, I was always confused with what happened when it gets to heads up and we tried to work it out on Saturday night. So is what was said earlier true about the SB always being dealer?