At my local casino there is a mid stakes Omaha8/Stud8 game that runs regularly. I usually play hold Em but occasionally sit in th OE game while I'm waiting. The other day I sat down and one of the regulars with whom I'm pretty friendly tells me they took out the qualifier. I find this strange so I ask if he's serious and ask if the qualifier is out of both games. He says yes. Neither the dealer nor any other player says otherwise. My local casino, to their credit, is very flexible about the games played in their high limit section. So I say okay, shrug, and ante.

Long story short, I make a flush and nine low in the first hand. Another player makes a full house. I start taking my bets back and am informed that I was scooped. I say that we're playing without a qualifier and my 9 low gets half the pot. The regular, who is not involved in the hand, goes white and tells me he was just kidding. The games are in fact being played with an 8 or better qualifier.

What's the ruling?

Other guy won, he gets the pot.

And you learn a valuable lesson about not trusting poker players.

yeah, I think the best bet would of been to confirm with the dealer.

They Told Me the Wrong Game: Ruling

Not Dealer. Not Floor.

But, don't worry, the check is in the mail.

Yes, the other guy won and gets the pot, but there's more to it then just learning a valuable lesson. OP should confront the player who was "just kidding around" and tell him that he may not have lost those extra bets with his flush(cause I'm sure he wouldn't be folding a flush anyway whether it was a qualifier or not) and that he should make good for those extra bets lost. Keep in mind, these OE/mix games are typically filled with players who play all the time together so it wouldn't be that uncommon for "jokes" to occur and for that player to make good when his joke goes sour. Seriously, what was behind his purpose?

I play high low pretty much exclusively and my game usually goes just on the weekends, so other than the player making good on the $, I would call the Floor and do my best to get him an entire weekend off because players routinely make these kind of mistakes in high low games so he should've known that his "joke" could very well cause you to have the exact result you just had.

I did. Dealer and all players at the table certainly heard me. Obviously I should have confirmed with the dealer but didn't think it was necessary given that reg is a friend.

Would you guys think differently if I were someone who was new to poker? I've played in many mixed games where one player explains the rules of a game to someone who has never played before. Am I free to tell someone who has never played 2-7 that aces are low?

I hope the regular who told you this offered to pay you half the pot.


I heard a story about a player who sat down in an Omaha 8 game and asked the dealer what the 8 meant.

Dealer thought the player was just being a PITA so he answered that it meant 8's are wild.

Well it turns out the player really didn't know what it meant and played a hand wth 8s in it thinking they were wild .....

I heard the dealer got in trouble but I don't what if anything was done for the player.

More commonly I see confusion about games caused by the shorthand that we tend to use.

Around here most poker room staff will refer to a game as $1-$2 as short hand for $1-$2 no limit holdem. And that makes sense to them because around here there are no $1-$2 limit games, and holdem is prevalent.

And if they have a $3-$6 limit game they will tend to refer to it just as $3-$6 because the hell ever heard of a $3-$6 No limit game.

But I will see every now and then a player sit in one of these games and become really confused. Because they thought $1-$2 was a limit game or $3-$6 was a no limit game.

I refer to our O8 game simply as Omaha because we never have an Omaha High game. We tend to take for granted that other people understand our conventions and most do ... but its not always unreasonable when someone doesn't.

I also think it should be pointed out that in the bigger mix games we will play hi/low stud no qualifier so it's not a stretch to believe what he's being told.
Also about twice a month I always ask to play hi low Omaha wjth no qualifier but nobody ever wants to.

I think a fair ruling is reg can pay OP half the pot or be banned for life from casino.

For those that are unaware, OnTheRail15 is a relatively new and inexperienced player.

It's not like you can Google his screen name and find his real name or anything like that.

A snowball's chance of that ever happening.

Plus, if OP is right and the dealer heard the conversation, what would you suggest a suitable punishment for him for not speaking up?

My gut is saying the dealer should be held at least partially responsible for allowing the misinformation to stand. However, I really have no facts to back it up other than my assumption the dealer should be responsible for running a fair game and speaking up against misinformation. No one seems to be bringing this up, so am I just plain wrong?

It probably should have set off alarms when they said no qualifier in omaha8, no one would ever play that.

I sympathize though, I was playing a mixed game that for some reason had two sets of plaques, one next to the dealer and one in front of the five seat. One plaque said badeucy, which was correct, and the other said badacey. I looked up and saw badacey, kept and ace in my hand and ended up getting scooped as a result.

No, if you know the rules and you know what game/s you're playing(and hopefully you do) you should never intentionally give another player the wrong information. What does that have to do with the fact that someone may be new to poker?

The fact that my Acme Sarcasm Detector just exploded is a clue.

So his post is a troll?

Are Well all we have to blame the dealer is that the OP says "he must have heard me."

now maybe the dealer did hear this .... then I would agree the dealer would be obligated to speak up.

But the OP also says this was a conversation between he and another player. You can't just assume that the dealer or other players are paying any attention to these two players talking to each other.

Were there game plaques? what did they say?

The fact that I am kinda a big deal doesn't mean I knew what game we were playing.

You'd be surprised. Players in these high low/mix games often act jerky but if something like that happens and someone else gets burned because do it, they're actually quite likely to make good on it. Keep in mind that OP and the guy who was kidding around were friends so there's a greater chance of him paying OP half back. And barring from any of that taking place, the next best thing would be a temp ban. A permanent ban(as JL suggested) is a bit much and is likely to never happen, but something has to be done either way.

I never heard of you. Even Google's top response was "Who?"

As a general rule, the plaques that are in front of the players are 99.9% likely to be the game that you're actually playing, whereas, the plaque that sits next to the dealer is very likely to be wrong, because sometimes, the dealers sit down, they collect the time, they start dealing etc., and they sometimes forget to switch the plaque over to the next game. However, the only ones who ever touch the plaques on the table and to make sure the right game is being played, are the players, and we never forget to switch plaques.

The statement was about a ruling -- are you actually saying that a Floor would insist that the "friend" cover half the loss?

I can see a "friend" covering part of the loss on his own, but the House getting involved?


Temp ban for what? Joking? Lying? 72% of the cardroom would be on temp bans.

Weirdly, I've dealt in places that offered those games.

Jebus, everybody has different names for those combinations and rules for qualifiers. Verify whenever something like that comes up.

A Floor isnt going to cover the loss(never said that); I said the player should.


I could live with the majority, 72% in my favor is okay.

Thats the problem. To those of us here its clear. But to someone else it means something else.

Which is why we should be more precise

I've had players and dealers look at me funny when I say fixed limit. "Ohh, you mean limit? What's a fixed limit? Hahaha!"

Except for the fact that I've played it there and that hi/low stud no qualifier is spread/played somewhat often.

The mix games here are often somewhat unconventional with different twists on different days Because people actually like to have fun gambling.

Here's some examples, we played pot limit Omaha with no look backs, if you look at your hand post flop your hand is dead. We've played must open limp the button and we've played lots of other weird stuff. Basically if I say down in the game and was told it's no qualifier, asked really and was told yes there would be no reason to think this is anything but true. People saying you should confirm with other players and the dealer are being results oriented, especially if the player that told me is someone I'm friendly with.