Is everything in Welch's article on Poker Caddying ethical?

You can read the article here:

http://www.twoplustwo.com/magazine/i...oker-caddy.php

I've let the author, Carlos Welch, know about this thread. He may be busy at the WSOP. So, give him some time before he responds.

I'm actually very interested in this topic and hoped a discussion would start specifically on the following topics:

Keep your Eyes Open

Keep your Ears Open

Research their Opponents

Analyze the Bubble Dynamics

Watch the Live Stream

i think any discussion about the "ethics" of poker is rather interesting, since it's a game where you just try to take other people's money. I would say if your playing fairly against your opponents (as in, you don't know what's in the deck or in other players hands), then it's ethical. The other consideration would be how far you can go in manipulating the other players or the odds (i.e., collusion, using poker software on the internet). I recently saw an old episode of Perry Mason where the card room host and one of the players at the table manipulated the gambling addict into betting his wife's trust money on a losing hand. I acknowledge that Perry Mason has little to do with reality, but that kind of thing and the **** that went on at UB is disgusting to me, along with slot machines in general.

I suppose having a poker caddy gives you an unfair advantage over people who don't have one, but in the high stakes poker environment you're talking about people tend to know what they're doing, so i wouldn't have any qualms with it. I suppose to even the odds, you could be an aid to a random stranger if it appeals to you.

Seems to me that some of what is mentioned in the article shades the old one player to a hand rule, especially if done in real time as in when he says that in final tables he can let his player know what his opponent's hole cards were after 30 minutes. But maybe not, which is why I asked.

Sharing some of this information during a hand (texting to say, "Look out, the 3 seat just blinked hard after looking at his cards) would pretty clearly violate the one player to a hand rule. But to text in between hands to say, "Keep an eye on the 3 seat as he looks at his cards, I noticed him blink hard last hand and he ended up winning the pot with a 3-bet" is perfectly fine IMO. Certainly it doesn't violate any tournament rules, and I don't see why it would otherwise be unethical.

If players are sequestered during a live stream, then finding a way to pass information to them would be unethical. Otherwise, it's fair game IMO.

What exactly do people think is unethical here?

Not unethical lol.

Hi, my name is Carlos Welch. I am the author of the article.

The one that seems the most iffy to me is Keep Your Ears Open. I just had the AMAZINGLY wonderful experience of poker caddying for Chris Kusha who finished 27th in this year's Main Event. (Kara Scott even complimented me for doing so, Woohoo!)

We were discussing a hand on the sideline when the villain, Valentin Vornicu, walked up and over heard us. My first instinct was to be pissed at him, but then I thought about my article and I had to chuckle at myself. It was our duty to make sure our discussion wasn't overheard.

That said, based on my own reaction, I can understand why people may feel weird about this one. The others, including watching the live stream on the rail of WSOP final tables, all seem incredibly standard to me.

In general, I would assume most things are ok as long as everyone has access to them. As long as every player is allowed to have rail birds, then poker caddying seems ethical to me. If you don't have any poker friends to rail you, go make some. I didn't have any my first year in Vegas and it was miserable. Then I signed up with TPE and made tons of friends there. If you're not being social in poker, then you probably are at a disadvantage in this regard.

Thanks for the discussion guys, and for reading the magazine.

Whether it violates the rules is irrelevant to the fact that it's douchbaggery all the way around.

At the WSOP final tables that are being live streamed, you see forms of this all the time. Most of the players have guys on the rail watching the live stream and feeding information to the players. It's a reality of the game in this day and age. It would seem that Carlos has simply perfected the job better than most.

I'm the Bagger Vance of this poker ****!

I pretty sure Will Smith lost a bet to do that role. I do hope you were being sarcastic.

Two plus two is a interesting magazine i'm actually very interesting in this magazine.its very useful. great article. thank u

Yeah, I was just rickrolling ya. I'm not actually Bagger Vance.

If your actually friends with the player, I understand helping them out with rides and stuff.
But I can also see the well known pros taking advantage of this and only "Using" someone because they want you to go get them a sandwich.

Sorry, what is TPE?

Tournament Poker Edge. an online MTT training community.