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Rules, Rules, Rules

By launchpoker, Jul 25, 2008
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  Rules are different from one place to another. If you're an American football player and through some bizarre, unlikely set of circumstances find yourself traded to the Toronto Argonauts, then you will have to get used to a bigger field, fewer plays per series, and much slower players. If your team is so keen to never see your face again that they send you to a proper English football club like Manchester United, then you're going to have to adjust to a game with no pads, lots of running, and an obnoxious red card flashed in your direction when you deliver the sort of crippling, full body tackle that is commonplace in the NFL. Finally, if you end up plying your trade in the Australian football league you will be playing a game that only someone with a Keg of Foster's beer in them can grasp. The point here is that depending upon where you are standing in the world, a game with the same name can have very different rules.



  Poker pros Marcel Luske and Michelle Lau established the Federation Internationale de Poker Association (FIDPA) and the International Poker Rules (IP Rules) so that somebody who is used to playing poker in Las Vegas will be playing with the exact same rules if he travels to London, Moscow, or Prague. In the words of Marcel Luske, "As poker has exploded, the beauty of having one set of rules that everyone can learn and follow is such a big step for the game and as a sport."



  Lau was a little more descriptive when she described their purpose. According to Michelle, "A standardized set of rules are desperately needed, as a professional poker player traveling around the world to play in tournaments, there is absolutely no way to know the different rules in every country or even from venue to venue. By allowing tournament directors to make and disclose any necessary modifications prior to a tournament, we can now know the rules, simply note the changes and be able to ensure the rulings are made are fairly."



  This is probably something that all players can get on board with. Of course the devil is always in the details and there will probably be some vigorous debate over just what rules get implemented. We shall see.