Legal Cash games.

Goodluck2me

After putting some thought into the whole illegality of cash games and also the fact that people here are always complainign about shortstackers, i came up with an interesting (imo?) idea that should make for a legal way around cash games.

Abotu a month or so ago, when GJP came out with the full stack cash tables where everyone had to buy in for 100BB, i got to thinking what a great idea it would be as everyone at the table get and has to play deep stack poker, but then i thought well if someone loses a big hand they dont necessarily have to reload and so it wouldnt exactly be deep stack utopia. By putting two and two together i came up with the idea that once you lose a hand be it a Small blind or half your stack you have to auto-reload to 100BB for every hand, and if that wasnt enough i though that the winner of the pot should have to have the balance put into his account. so folded to player A he raises to 3BB, SB folds and BB folds. Player A has 1.5 BB put into his account so starts the next hand with 100BB and Players B and C have to auto-topup to 100BB to continue.

Where this gets interesting, is the reason that cash games are illegal in ireland is that the Lotteries Act 35BC says that every player must have an equal stake in the game in question and that noone can have more than another. Well if you were to treat each hand as a new game, which technically is correct as anyone is free to leave at the completion of each hand then by choice they are continuing for the next one, sometimes they will be a blind sometimes they will be a button, and if they miss out they are simply paying to rejoin the game.
It could also be argued that this could be done on a round by round basis whereby if the rules were tweaked slightly to say that anyone who wishes to leave a game may only do so when the button passes player X, then every time the button passes X, the "new game" begins and everyone must top-up/go south as the case may be, this might be easier than a hand-by-hand basis.
Thoughts?

RoundTower

yeah I think if the Lotteries act really applies to poker games you could make a loophole like this.

Ace2007

you have far too much free time... are you thinking of setting up ur own casino when u qualify next year? with ur intelligence and valor's bank roll, yous could become millionaires....

Mellor

very similar to a new tourney structure that claims to eliminate the luck element. think the site is called duplicate poker
Say six tables of six. Every table is dealt the same cards for every seat. After every hand the stacks are reset and the +/- figure recorded, at the end of X number of rounds, the player from all the seat 1s with the highest + figure is the seat 1 winner, so on for seats 2 etc
I have never played it but seems like its full of holes to me, large openings for collusion
heres a link to a live game they had http://www.pokerpages.com/poker-news/news/first-duplicate-poker-event-held--is-it-a-skill-game-29536.htm

To joes point, (back on topic), It seems like a decent idea, 100 BBs each, but there is clearly an edge to be gained by reloading everytime you drop below 100bbs, by forcing all players to do so removes the edge of players that do it anyway,

RoundTower

Mellor wrote:

but there is clearly an edge to be gained by reloading everytime you drop below 100bbs, by forcing all players to do so removes the edge of players that do it anyway,

lol?

MickL

RoundTower wrote:

lol?

this also takes away an element of skill from the game people play hands so differently with regards of there stack sizes and i think if everybody is 100 BB deep the game will just ecome so boring!! it will be like the start of a deepstack tourney for the whole game

TommyGunne

MickL wrote:

this also takes away an element of skill from the game people play hands so differently with regards of there stack sizes and i think if everybody is 100 BB deep the game will just ecome so boring!! it will be like the start of a deepstack tourney for the whole game

Is that not the only good bit of a tourney????

Mellor

RoundTower wrote:

lol?

Actually, I need to pay more attention.
The positives of having everyone at the same stack outweight the negitives. For some reason I was only considering the cons, don't ask why. Having the bad players at the table on an equal stack is obviously increases the EV for the better players.

MickL

Personally i find it a tad boring it just raise fold fold fold etc!! where as 5 levels have passed and some real poker is been played

Ace2007

MickL wrote:

Personally i find it a tad boring it just raise fold fold fold etc!! where as 5 levels have passed and some real poker is been played

have you ever made it to level 5 - or are you taking this view from your dealing days??

MickL

funny man from a person that makes intelligent re-raises with 10-9 Preflop

anywho im talking from a bit of both lol

Ace2007

MickL wrote:

that makes intelligent re-raises with 10-9 Preflop

when?

Goodluck2me

Ace2007 wrote:

when?

what about playing a stack of 8800 blinds at 150-300 CALLING 4500 of your stack in with 9To and then stacking off on a 9high flop.... :rolleyes:

Goodluck2me

RoundTower wrote:

yeah I think if the Lotteries act really applies to poker games you could make a loophole like this.

you dont think it does?

RoundTower

I think it's a grey area (of course) and certainly not what the authors had in mind.

Ace2007

goodluck2me wrote:

what about playing a stack of 8800 blinds at 150-300 CALLING 4500 of your stack in with 9To and then stacking off on a 9high flop.... :rolleyes:

ok - u can't blame me for "stacking off on a 9high flop" cause theres no point in me calling if i don't do that when it happens, but that was ages ago.... we've both improved our game since then....

Goodluck2me

RoundTower wrote:

I think it's a grey area (of course) and certainly not what the authors had in mind.

yeah i realise its grey, but it appears to be what is being used to prevent outside organisers running them, thats where i thought it would be useful, casinos should obv continue the status quo obv.

RoundTower

"outside organisers" should also continue the status quo which is that it is really really easy to call yourselves a private members club. As far as I am aware in the few places where they are being prevented from running tournaments, it is unofficial Garda intimidation or blackmail and not the letter of the law that is used.

DeVore

GL2M, you are labouring under a false pretense unfortunately.

The illegality of cash games doesnt come from the unequal amount of chips in front of the players, it comes from two possible sources:

1. That not all players have the same ODDS of winning in the game (cf: Blackjack and roulette). Remember the law considers the house simply another player at the table.

2. That management fee for the organisation of the game may be taken but only one fee in any 24 hours. This is why tournies are considered safe.

One possible solution to all of this is to charge a nightly cover fee for cash and be done with it. You pay once at the end of the night to make it legal.

All of this is irrelevant, the JPC Northern Ireland Champs was completely legal, thats why the cops didnt once threaten to arrest them. They threatened the hotel management that if they allowed the game to proceed they would query their hotels license renewall with the judge. Hence, no game.

DeV.

mrflash

Why do you think you have to buy chips for a cash game. I mean do you not think it would be easier and less expensive for casinos to just let people play with hard cash. Thats the loophole covered.

As regards your idea, its ridiculous. I don't see a problem with putting a higher buyin to the cash game, like a minimum buyin of 100 bb's or something. but everyone with equal stacks, and all the fussing about which would take place. It sounds like something george bush would advocate.

The other problem is that you have loads of guys who play very little poker and come into a casino and sit down at a cash game hoping to get lucky with 50 yoyo's. In general this money is added to the stack of a better player. These guys are not going to fork out 200 for a 1/2 cash game, so there would be a lot of dead money being lost.
But i don't see a problem with having a game running with a bigger buyin for those who do not have the ability or/nor desire to play against shortstacks.

DeVore

Casino's use chips because if you were sitting there with a bunch of money in front of you , you might realise how much money you are playing with

DeV.

Shortstack

DeVore wrote:

1. That not all players have the same ODDS of winning in the game (cf: Blackjack and roulette). Remember the law considers the house simply another player at the table.

This will never be used as an argument against poker as by nature it implies that a level of skill means you have an edge.

If you take skill away then the odds are equal, over a long enough time period every player will get dealt the same amount of each hand.

DeVore

Yes, I made that point because the OP seemed to think that the issue was one of equal STACKS as opposed to equal chance (excluding skill).

The second point is the real objection (legally) to cash games because there is a rake every hand or a charge every hour. Only one such charge is allowed per 24 hours.

DeV.

Goodluck2me

DeVore wrote:

Yes, I made that point because the OP seemed to think that the issue was one of equal STACKS as opposed to equal chance (excluding skill).

The second point is the real objection (legally) to cash games because there is a rake every hand or a charge every hour. Only one such charge is allowed per 24 hours.

DeV.

i was under this assumption, as i was told of one particular organiser told the Gardaí that when he ran his cash games that if a player lost his money he bought into another "game" somewhere else and this was deemed to be ok, i wasnt fully aware of the implications laid out, by others more knowledgable in the field, in this thread.
I think it would be worthwhile for non-casino based organisers to get together and discuss the do`s and dont`s, can`s and cannot`s, with regard to this as surely the Gardaí cannot be allowed to hold them under random indirectly as per the JPC game.

hotspur

DeVore wrote:

Yes, I made that point because the OP seemed to think that the issue was one of equal STACKS as opposed to equal chance (excluding skill).

The second point is the real objection (legally) to cash games because there is a rake every hand or a charge every hour. Only one such charge is allowed per 24 hours.
DeV.

Yes the op is incorrect in his reading of why cash games are not legal. But the above objection isn't strictly the reason why they are illegal either. They are illegal gaming as the operator is deriving a profit other than as winnings.

The point about only one payment per day to the operator does not exempt from the clause requiring that the operator make no profit. This is a fiction spun by tourny operators to claim freezeouts might be legal. You would have to have only 1 payment per day, it be the same for everyone *and* lie through your teeth that you are not making a profit from it.

Mellor

mrflash wrote:

Why do you think you have to buy chips for a cash game. I mean do you not think it would be easier and less expensive for casinos to just let people play with hard cash. Thats the loophole covered.

• Chips are used as they are much easier to handle at a table. ie counting, moving etc
• They are also used to disassociate the the player from his money
• Casinos have been using chips or similar long before the laws against this kind of gambling were written, so that had nothing to do with their introduction
• And finally, using chips does not create a loophole that allows legal cash games

Goodluck2me

like the saying goes, the guy who invented poker was clever the guy who invented chips was a genius.