Quote:
Originally Posted by Lattimer
They could both walk away for a food or smoke break and have the same discussion. There'd be no way to prevent it.
Granted, but I do see that being able to send secret messages to each other every hand would make it a lot easier to keep updates and adapt your strategy of cheating. Two folks standing up and and whispering to each other every hand would be more obvious to everybody. A smoke break discussion is along the lines of, "okay, overall, we should try to do this and this." A constant stream of texts can be, "he's done this and that in the past five hands, if he does something on the next hand and I give a signal, I want you to do this other thing."
Personally, I like the ban because as Rapini said, it forces me not to be distracted by my shiny toys all the time.
Also, it does slow down the game. People with phones or headphones insist that
other people slow it down, but not
them. Yes, I realize in their frame of reference, they're doing things immediately, but others have to wait for their frame of reference to catch up. Even an extra second or two of "sir, it's on YOU... okay, grab your cards and look at them now... no, you can't limp, it's a raise... that guy over there is who raised, you can tell because he's the first guy who has more chips in front of him, and I announced it at the time..." ... well, that adds up in a hurry.