Recently, TPirahna complained to and about me (in table chat and to Poker Stars) regarding my sitting out after game-creating at Pokerstars. His main complaint is that I was in violation of Pokerstars' T&Cs because I sat out before a full orbit was completed (not paying the Big Blind), in effect creating an unfair advantage.

This issue is, however, quite complex, and from a game creator's POV there are more things to consider in assessing this situation correctly than what a player joining after the initial HU play took place might think. In my view, Pokerstars' T&Cs are way too general to act as a guideline, so in the past, I did not comply with the general rule TPirahna stated because I think it is unfair to the player game-creating in some circumstances (see below to find out which). There may have been other instances where I did not follow some sit-out rules, simply because I did not think there was any coherent guideline or rule I could grasp and then follow accordingly.

I therefore asked a Pokerstars representative to fully explain in detail what Stars' rules really are in some common spots. The answers I got were very detailled, and much more precise than I expected, so I think that all the regulars - game creators and "joiners" alike - should know and follow these rules, as I will from this day on now that I know them in detail. For this reason, I want to publish our full correspondence here in this thread, as well as in some other popular poker forums so that most of the regs will be able to read this. I also want a Stars representative to confirm that what I am posting here is indeed Stars' official policy. Please feel free to share this info with as many regulars as possible.

Hello xxxx,

We have recently received a complaint about your behaviour in our ring games, indicating you deliberately avoid playing big blinds and thus creating an unfair advantage over your opponent.

Upon review, there were hands which I noticed in the review in which you played one hand from the small blind and then either sat out or left the table. I am convinced from your overall gameplay that your intent was not in any way malicious, however please note that if such play were to become a pattern of behaviour we would consider it to be unfair game manipulation and a breach of Rule 13 of our Cardroom Rules:

"In the event that PokerStars deems that a User has
engaged or attempted to engage in unfair play,
including without limitation, engaging in any of the
activities set forth above or any other game
manipulation, PokerStars shall be entitled to take
such action as it sees fit, as described in our
Terms of Service."

You can read our Cardroom Rules on our website in full:

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/policies/

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to which I answered:

Hi,

thank you for letting me know about this issue. I would like to comply with Pokerstars' rules of course. However, I do have a couple of questions about your exact rules, because I think the passage you are citing is not very clear about the exact table ethics that you would like to see. I am pretty sure that player Tpirahna complained about me, and he complained (to me) about a very particular spot. So I have two different sets of questions:

Since I game create a lot at 6max and 10max tables in Limit Holdem, it often happens that I post the big blind in the HU game, but after say 1 or 3 hands the table fills and the blinds are distributed anew. This means I have played 1 or 2 Big Blinds, and 0 or 1 Small blinds, which means I have payed more than my equal share in the HU situation. Then, in the new situation - with more players at the table - I sometimes opt to only play until the button (if I dont like to play with the players now sitting at the tables) and then sit out. So for the person that arrives AFTER the heads up has broken, it looks like I only play no blind hands, which I of course do not do since I started the game and have already payed MORE blinds then them (an amount of Big Blinds that is higher than the amount of Small Blinds). Now Tpirahna says I should play until the big blind in this spot and then sit out if I want to leave when I dont like the table, but I think that this is not logical / unfair to me. So what are the exact rules here for this situation? Is this the type of situation you are describing? I don't see how I would behave unfairly in this spot, except if I started the HU game with the button/SB, and therefore would have payed less than my equal share. So from my POV, having started or not started with the Button/SB would be the one thing that should make me stay and play until the Big Blind or not if I have to do it at all in this situation.

Here is another situation I dont quite understand. It often happens that a table breaks quickly when a certain player leaves, if there are only 3 or 4 players left (instead of formerly 5 or 6) the table then always breaks before the remaining 3 or 4 players have played from each position once. So in this situation, I - like everyone else at the table, including player TPirahna - only play until the Button or maybe only the small blind, because I know that all - I repeat all - the other players will leave before they have to post the big blind. Would I not behave the way I do, I would always pay more than my equal share. Is this the spot you are saying I am handling wrong or is this still about something else? If so, then 99% of all regular players are doing the same thing wrong, so I dont see what's wrong with me also doing it.

So, I therefore ask you to answer my two sets of questions thoroughly and as exactly as possible, and please also feel free - I urge you to do so - to send me hand histories (of multiple sequences of hands!) where I violated your rules so that I can understand what they are exactly and then behave accordingly.

Please do understand that from a game creator's point of view, this issue is quite complex and cannot be answered with a simple rule or a quote of TOCs; you do need a specific set of rules with multiple hand sequence examples for what is allowed and what is not; if you dont provide players with this, it is impossible to follow your rules, because they are simply not clear.

Thank you for taking the time; also, if you feel at all unsure about how to answer the specific spots I have described, please forward this to another representative who is intimately familiar with the proceedures of today's higher stakes limit holdem games.

Kind Regards

xxxx

Hello xxxx,

Thank you for your response.

Once again, in no way have I found your actions to be in breach of our rules.

It is difficult for us to provide explicit examples of what is and is not acceptable as what may not be considered a violation of our rules in one circumstance may be enough to warrant a warning in another when taking the context into consideration. For example, we do not treat someone with one instance of avoiding a blind the same way as we do someone who does it on a regular basis.

I) Let me be clear, there is nothing wrong with playing heads-up at a table that supports more than 2 players, and leaving when the table fills - so long as you pay your fair share of blinds in the process.

II) Logically, when starting tables and playing heads-up to begin, the table will fill in one of two ways (in relation to your position for the last hand dealt heads-up):

IIa) 1) You pay the last Big Blind heads-up before the tables are filled.

Examples:

You: Big Blind
Player 2: Small Blind
You: Big Blind
*Table fills*

or

You: Big Blind
*Table fills*

In the examples above, there is no problem in the way you have played as you paid the last Big Blind before the table fills each time.

IIb) 2) You do not pay the last Big Blind heads-up before the tables are filled.

Examples:

You: Small Blind
Player 2: Big Blind
You: Small Blind
*Table fills*

or

You: Small Blind
*Table fills*

In this example, there is a problem. You are now playing a 'free' orbit of hands (unless you pay the next Big Blind). If it is found that you are behaving in this way routinely, it will be considered a Card Room Rule 13 violation.

III) To provide you with another example, a situation can sometimes arise when a new table is starting 3-handed where you are dealt in to the hand as the Button. It is never acceptable to raise in this situation if your intention is to sit out the next Big Blind.

IV) When playing Heads-Up, every effort should be made to play an equal amount of hands from the Small Blind and Big Blind. It is particularly unacceptable to play only one hand from the Small Blind before sitting out.

V) To address your second point, in the event of a table breaking (For example, if a 5 handed game begins to break), all players may sit out at their next Big Blind at their leisure; there is nothing wrong with doing so and no one is breaking our rules by doing this.


Of course, we understand that it may happen from time to time that people will change their mind about playing at a table - and we understand that a player will not post a blind literally every time they sit at a new table. Instead, we use our best judgement to ensure that the games at PokerStars are played fairly and according to these rules.

I trust that this has been helpful to you, but please feel free to contact us again at any time if we can help you further.

Regards,

Pasquale
PokerStars Support Team

I posted this too in the German and Russian sections of Pokerstrategy.com:

http://ru.pokerstrategy.com/forum/th...hreadid=819867

http://de.pokerstrategy.com/forum/th...8#post13029418

This should help reaching most of the regs in higher stakes LHE games.

Balrog, thank you for posting.

It was me who reported you of course, you actually insisted I report you because you wanted to understand the rules better. I seem to be the person reporting the vast majority of these occurrences along with other rule violations unfortunately. I really don't enjoy doing it particularly when I'm multitabling and trying to take screen captures and send emails at the same time - it's extremely distracting. That said I think the overall state of the games has improved dramatically from this time last year and I'd like to think I played a part in it.

The rules as described above are how I have interpreted them with the exception of 11a. It was my understanding, misunderstanding I guess, that players were to be seated with the intention of playing and by that I thought they meant seated with the intention of playing at a full table. Evidently that's not the case though.

Nice work posting. I agree this should help people understand the rules better and there should be less infractions as a result. I think an email with this type of explanation should probably go out to all the high volume players playing mid/high stakes because there are many, myself included, who are/were unclear about all the rules.

thanks, this is much clearer than my correspondence was with them on this same issue.

Thx Piranha for doing your best to clean up the games. And ty very much OP for spending the time to get an exact definition. This problem is at all stakes and Pstars should be doing this for us.

It would take a staff member less then 1 hour to catch multiple players doing this type of action. So it's apparent that Stars is really not too concerned about this stuff as more tables are created and they get more rake. I'm surprised they responded to your email... my first and only complaint about a habitual angle shooter hasn't been responded to in nearly 2 months.

Np, I was really happy the response was so clear.

Note also that every time a table breaks, nowadays 100% of the regs that dont sitout in time are in breach of Stars' T&Cs in buttoning the other guy and then insta-leaving (c.f. Rule IV above). However, I have tried in vain to persuade anyone of not doing it and I have given up on it again (and am still breaking this rule myself from time to time to make up for the buttoning that happens to me in the same spot; I wish people didnt do it, but since they all do, you pretty much get forced to do it yourself).

@pirahna: I guess it really cant be too hard to figure out who plays >x number of hands per month and then copy and paste this info into an email and send it to them. This would lend the whole process some authority, maybe we should do some lobbying for the idea.

I can indeed confirm the response balrog posted is our policy.

In addition, we do have a team that combats blind abuse, and we do have automated tools to detect blind abuse to assist this team.

However, player reports are still very helpful and appreciated.

Nick, I emailed Stars exactly 2 months ago complaining about a player who was doing something that was unethical and slowing the game down considerably, yet I've received no response from Stars and this player is still doing the same thing, along with dozens more.

This team that you speak of should be able to clean up 95% of all LHE angleshooting issues in little time if motivated. For a box of cookies and a list of objectives on what you actually want accomplished I could provide a list of offenders in under a day that would make the game more fair and enjoyable for all honest players. Due to these game annoyances, I've now switched game type as I no longer enjoy playing LHE on Stars due to Stars' failure to deal with the situations that they are perfectly well aware of.

It is staggering that Stars continues to offer such a horrifically-unenjoyable environment to play LHE in. Well, their funeral.