Inside Poker-Tourney Ethics

[GotaFancy?]

Originally Posted by slapdash

though my personal preference would be to allow what you did.

"Star letter" in this months Inside Poker looks like it's from Reeshah. Am quite surprised that Alun comes down saying he thinks it's unethical and "it does cross the line"

[Dodger]

Yes, but that comes across as a rather personal / editorial comment rather than one stating a ''matter of fact'' breaking of the rules.

[slapdash]

Originally Posted by Dodger

Yes, but that comes across as a rather personal / editorial comment rather than one stating a ''matter of fact'' breaking of the rules.

I haven't yet seen what Alun said, but my main problem is that there just aren't any rules regarding this situation, and it's rather unpleasant to have something that some people think is a perfectly fine strategy and others think is "cheating", without some clear rules to clarify the situation. Without having seen what Alun said, it's a bit hard to comment on it, but I doubt very much it would convince me that what Reeshah did was "against the rules", just because there are no rules. I imagine he was just giving his opinion on what the rules should be, and I have no problem with that (although I probably disagree).

It seems obvious to me that there's no ethical equivalence between chip-dumping (in the normal sense) and what Reeshah did. The reason that chip-dumping is wrong is that you should be playing to win, and not to help another contestant win. But clearly Reeshah didn't do this to help the other contestant, he did it to improve his own (or his own team's) chances.

The reason I disagree that what Reeshah did should be against the rules is that it's pretty much unenforcable, and rules that are unenforcable just benefit those who break them. OK, I'd have nothing much against a rule that said you couldn't fold to a sit-out if you could check: it's a completely black and white ruling if somebody breaks that rule. But if you said more generally that you couldn't play to keep a sit-out in even if it was to your benefit, then in borderline situations the ethical players would obey the rule and the cheats would bend it (yes, if there were a rule in place, I agree that it would be cheating, because it would be deliberately breaking one of the rules), and that gives the cheats an advantage over the honest players.

[GotaFancy?]

This was Aluns reply

Whilst I can't blame you, it does cross the line for me. You were effectively colluding with those players even if they (and you?) didn't realise it. It's one thing to check it down when trying to knock out a short stack or taking it in turns to rob the sit outs of their blinds, but in this case I can see why they were upset. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it though, as you acted in good faith.

I wont copy out Reeshahs entire email, suffice to say I think it was a fair, reasonable and complete summary of the important events.