New TDA Rule

There has been a lot of talk recently about the new TDA rule about when a player must be seated in order to play in a hand at a poker table. Here is the rule.

29: At Your Seat
 A player must be at his seat when the first card is dealt on the initial deal or he will have a dead hand. A player not then at his seat is dealt in, he may not look at his cards, and the hand is immediately killed after the initial deal. His blinds and antes are posted and if dealt the bring-in card in a stud-type game he will post the bring-in*. A player must be at his seat to call time. "At your seat" means within reach of your chair. This rule is not intended to condone players being out of their seats while involved in a hand.


There has been much debate about this issue in the poker industry and it has been mostly negative. The 1st thing I would remind everyone is that the TDA rules are meant as a guide and any tournament director has the right to use whatever rules he chooses as long as it is clear to all their intentions. If you are running a tournament and don't like this new rule then just announce what you are going to use as your time frame to kill a hand if a player is not in his seat.

I personally like a couple of things about this rule for Bar Poker. It sets a clear time that you must be in your seat. How many times at a bar game has the dealer waited to deal the last card because they are waiting for a player to get to table. Happens all the time and in the long run of a tournament, that blinds go up fast, a few minutes can make a difference of several hands of play. The other thing that I like is that the player may not look at their cards. A player that looks at mucked cards almost always gives away if their hand was strong or weak by their reaction.

There were many changes and additions to the TDA rules, so you would like to see them all here is a link to their website.

http://www.pokertda.com/poker-tda-rules/

I am just happy that someone is trying to get a set of poker rules to try and keep the game uniform. I don't like that it is getting more specific about rules and it's getting harder to know all the exact rules, but at least it's not pages and pages long like the current WSOP rules.
Thanks TDA and keep up the great work for the game we love!

Card Dead

At a recent bar game late into the second hour a regular player began talking about how their cards had been bad all night. At this point in the night I had a fairly big stack and I had been pretty much card dead all night at least according to that players standards. So, why did I have a good size stack and that player was on life support? The answer is simple. Play the player not the cards. Any good player is able to take the nights when the cards are not running so good and turn it into at least a chance to cash, make the points or even win. It is one of the small negatives to league style bar poker that start with stacks around 10,000 in chips. A player that is getting less then ideal starting hands is able to fold his way to at least close to making the points and many times can make it depending on the other players. When I arrive at a new table, whether it is at the start of a tournament or just changing tables, I look around the table and see who I know and who I don't. Are their players that I can outplay or are they players that I can't make fold. What kind of starting hands do these players value. To some J-10 is just as good as A-K or a pocket pair. I am going to call a per flop raise with less of a hand to this player because I know what they could possibly be raising with and I also know with a flop that couldn't possibly have hit them that a bet or a reraise will probably make them fold. Then you have the player that thinks he is card dead. I am going to raise his big blind almost every time and he is going to fold most of the time. When he doesn't I am going to make a continuation bet and then if he doesn't fold I will watch my step he may have a hand. All of this can be done with any two cards in your hand. So, if someone tells me they are card dead and folding their way on I say good for me. I will be more then happy to take your chips. Poker is not always about the cards, it's about how you play what you got!

State Champions

First thing is disclaimer. This is not blog knocking the accomplishments of any Free Poker network player. I am happy for anyone that qualifies for any of their tournaments and I wish them the best of luck in their events and will be there following them if they post.

Recently, the FPN held their state tournaments including MN. When they get down to the number of players that they advance to nationals they proclaim them State Champions and give them a trophy. At the current MN event there were 254 players that were eligible to play. Now I am assuming that not all players were able to attend. They were giving away 20 National Tournament entries. These 20 are the new State Champions. That is approximately 10 percent of the field which is very close to the payout schedule of most tournaments. So, if you are using the FPN thought process at last years WSOP Main Event they had 666 Main Event champions. The last HPT event had 27 champions. Austin Monson is a MSPT champion and I am a champion of many poker events. The funny thing is I have never won an event, but I have cashed or "qualified" in many poker tournaments. So, why not call it what it is. You are only a State Champion if you are the last man, women or team standing. This concept makes the Vikings Super Bowl champs or the Wild Stanley Cup champs. The top 20 are National Qualifiers. then play down to an actual State Champion. I know that the FPN has done it before as Kari Davis from Willmar was a true State Champion a few events ago. I know that the whole discussion is kind of trivial but it bugs me to call someone a champion when they really are not.