AGLC Gaming Integrity vs Irregularity
Location: Cash Casino Red Deer
Time: 5am Saturday
Game: 1/2 nl Texas Hold'em Poker
The poker room consists of 1 active table with 5 players, there are 2 dealers in the room and 1 supervisor.
The hand in question involves a tourist and a reg. Both players are all in heads up on the turn. The river comes and the reg reveals a straight. The tourist discards his hand face down to the centre of the table. *His cards do not touch any other discards and are seperate from the muck. *The pot has yet to be awarded to any player. Almost immediately, the tourist realizes he has made a mistake and reaches in to retrieve his hand and exposes the cards face up in front of him. He has in fact filled up on the river to make a boat and he announces rightful ownership to the pot. The dealer declares the hand dead and pushes the pot to the reg as the tourist protests, still holding his cards in front of him. House is called and also declares the hand dead, citing the initial intent to muck. The dealer threatens to call security if the tourist does not relinquish his cards and stop disputing the call.
The tourist concedes and proceeds to contact AGLC Gaming Irregularities referencing the Casino Terms and Conditions and Operating Guidelines (CTCOG) section 10.3.15 m) v).
If you play poker in Alberta Casinos or better yet if you work in an Alberta Casino and you are not familiar with this document, well, you should be.
http://aglc.ab.ca/pdf/handbooks/casino_terms_and_conditions.pdf
For this case we will focus on the rules governing the aforementioned situation:
Section 10.3 is rules of poker, subsection 15 deals with irregularities, and paragraph m) details showdown with subpara v) detailing provisions governing showdown:
m) Showdown:
i) if at any time before the hand is called only one(1) player remains in the game, he wins the pot and does not have to expose his cards;
ii) a player may discard a hand without showing it;
iii) a player must show his hand at the showdown if requested to do so by the dealer or management. If the player refuses he must leave the game;
iv) the player with the winning hand must show all cards before the pot is awarded;
v) the following provisions govern showdown:
-a hand with too many or too few cards for that game is dead;
-cards speak. The winning hand must show ALL cards prior to the pot being awarded. Cards read for themselves. A hand is ranked according to the actual cards it contains;
-a hand that is prematurely discarded by a player and touches the discarded cards is dead;
-a verbal concession is not binding;
-a player who leaves the table conceding the pot must discard his hand;
-a hand discarded face-up is a live hand if it has not become irretrievably mixed with the discards;
-a hand discarded face-down may be retrieved provided:
1. the player retrieves it, or requests the dealer to turn it face-up;
2. the hand has not touched any discards; and
3. another player has not been induced to discard his hand.
-a hand discarded face-down that is not retrievable is dead even if it has been shown before being discarded;
-a hand discarded by the dealer with the player's approval is dead;
-if the dealer discards the winning hand without the player's approval, the player is entitled to the pot if it is claimed before being taken in by another player; and
-a player who remains silent has not given approval for the dealer to discard his hand. The player must positively approve the dealer's action.
2 Days later an AGLC Gaming Irregularities Investigator contacts the tourist and declares that after reviewal, since the hand crossed the "muck line"??? it would be considered the same as touching the discards and so he would side with the house and that it was a house rule. When asked where these seperate rules were made available to the player (which would be an AGLC requirement) the question was sidestepped and the AGLC investigator went on to assure that the Cash Casino was "very good" and "better than some other casinos"... He clearly did not know or had not checked. Throughout the communications with AGLC it was made evident that many of their representatives were not familiar with the game of poker to a level one would expect from professionals in the industry; demonstrated through a lack of comprehension for basic poker terminology and game dynamics.
As for my experience at Cash Casino Red Deer, the overall calibre of players, dealers and housemen was quite weak. I observed 1 solid dealer during my stay. In fact there were many irregularities troughout the evening and they were consistently sluffed off or even unnoticed and dealers were frequently getting confused with chopped pots and maintaining orders of action and the like. Quite unprofessional. The poker room itself was probably the shabbiest I have ever come across, something resembling a church basement bingo hall.
But lets get back to the issue at hand. Sure, the tourist was a donk for throwing the winning hand in the first place - but was the hand truly dead? According to the AGLC decreed rules of Poker- No, this was by-the-book a live hand and retrievable. According to a Cash Casino houseman and the AGLC rep backing him - Dead hand.
My question is - Why are there highly specified rules of play defined by the governing regulatory body [AGLC] when they are not adhered to by the licensees or even respected by the overseeing agents?
The very existence of this discrepancy spotlights AGLC "gaming integrity" as nothing more than a buzz word slogan and much less an actual commitment to the players that pay their bills.
I understand that there are many intricacies to casino games and especially to do with Poker but if this is your industry, well, you'd better damn well know 'em!
^-^
Time: 5am Saturday
Game: 1/2 nl Texas Hold'em Poker
The poker room consists of 1 active table with 5 players, there are 2 dealers in the room and 1 supervisor.
The hand in question involves a tourist and a reg. Both players are all in heads up on the turn. The river comes and the reg reveals a straight. The tourist discards his hand face down to the centre of the table. *His cards do not touch any other discards and are seperate from the muck. *The pot has yet to be awarded to any player. Almost immediately, the tourist realizes he has made a mistake and reaches in to retrieve his hand and exposes the cards face up in front of him. He has in fact filled up on the river to make a boat and he announces rightful ownership to the pot. The dealer declares the hand dead and pushes the pot to the reg as the tourist protests, still holding his cards in front of him. House is called and also declares the hand dead, citing the initial intent to muck. The dealer threatens to call security if the tourist does not relinquish his cards and stop disputing the call.
The tourist concedes and proceeds to contact AGLC Gaming Irregularities referencing the Casino Terms and Conditions and Operating Guidelines (CTCOG) section 10.3.15 m) v).
If you play poker in Alberta Casinos or better yet if you work in an Alberta Casino and you are not familiar with this document, well, you should be.
http://aglc.ab.ca/pdf/handbooks/casino_terms_and_conditions.pdf
For this case we will focus on the rules governing the aforementioned situation:
Section 10.3 is rules of poker, subsection 15 deals with irregularities, and paragraph m) details showdown with subpara v) detailing provisions governing showdown:
m) Showdown:
i) if at any time before the hand is called only one(1) player remains in the game, he wins the pot and does not have to expose his cards;
ii) a player may discard a hand without showing it;
iii) a player must show his hand at the showdown if requested to do so by the dealer or management. If the player refuses he must leave the game;
iv) the player with the winning hand must show all cards before the pot is awarded;
v) the following provisions govern showdown:
-a hand with too many or too few cards for that game is dead;
-cards speak. The winning hand must show ALL cards prior to the pot being awarded. Cards read for themselves. A hand is ranked according to the actual cards it contains;
-a hand that is prematurely discarded by a player and touches the discarded cards is dead;
-a verbal concession is not binding;
-a player who leaves the table conceding the pot must discard his hand;
-a hand discarded face-up is a live hand if it has not become irretrievably mixed with the discards;
-a hand discarded face-down may be retrieved provided:
1. the player retrieves it, or requests the dealer to turn it face-up;
2. the hand has not touched any discards; and
3. another player has not been induced to discard his hand.
-a hand discarded face-down that is not retrievable is dead even if it has been shown before being discarded;
-a hand discarded by the dealer with the player's approval is dead;
-if the dealer discards the winning hand without the player's approval, the player is entitled to the pot if it is claimed before being taken in by another player; and
-a player who remains silent has not given approval for the dealer to discard his hand. The player must positively approve the dealer's action.
2 Days later an AGLC Gaming Irregularities Investigator contacts the tourist and declares that after reviewal, since the hand crossed the "muck line"??? it would be considered the same as touching the discards and so he would side with the house and that it was a house rule. When asked where these seperate rules were made available to the player (which would be an AGLC requirement) the question was sidestepped and the AGLC investigator went on to assure that the Cash Casino was "very good" and "better than some other casinos"... He clearly did not know or had not checked. Throughout the communications with AGLC it was made evident that many of their representatives were not familiar with the game of poker to a level one would expect from professionals in the industry; demonstrated through a lack of comprehension for basic poker terminology and game dynamics.
As for my experience at Cash Casino Red Deer, the overall calibre of players, dealers and housemen was quite weak. I observed 1 solid dealer during my stay. In fact there were many irregularities troughout the evening and they were consistently sluffed off or even unnoticed and dealers were frequently getting confused with chopped pots and maintaining orders of action and the like. Quite unprofessional. The poker room itself was probably the shabbiest I have ever come across, something resembling a church basement bingo hall.
But lets get back to the issue at hand. Sure, the tourist was a donk for throwing the winning hand in the first place - but was the hand truly dead? According to the AGLC decreed rules of Poker- No, this was by-the-book a live hand and retrievable. According to a Cash Casino houseman and the AGLC rep backing him - Dead hand.
My question is - Why are there highly specified rules of play defined by the governing regulatory body [AGLC] when they are not adhered to by the licensees or even respected by the overseeing agents?
The very existence of this discrepancy spotlights AGLC "gaming integrity" as nothing more than a buzz word slogan and much less an actual commitment to the players that pay their bills.
I understand that there are many intricacies to casino games and especially to do with Poker but if this is your industry, well, you'd better damn well know 'em!
^-^
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