The biennial Poker TDA Summit recently concluded in Las Vegas, and speeding up the game proved to be a central theme this year, with tighter "calling the clock" procedure and allowing tournament directors to call a clock among the rules and procedures adopted.
Final language will be approved and posted by Poker TDA’s board later this month, but here is a summary of the action taken:
NEW RULES
- Showdown and discarding irregularities, which covers situations such as Andras Koroknai vs. Gaelle Baumann at the 2012 World Series of Poker, and partial tabling problems.
- Button dealt too few cards
- Burns after substantial action has occurred, clarifying that in the event a hand is killed after substantial action because of having too many or too few cards, the burn is to protect the stub, card order is random and that one burn only should occur for each street.
- Incorrect bet amounts. When do they stand in pot-limit, limit and no-limit?
- Invalid bet declarations, such as declaring "call" or "raise" when it’s checked to the player, or "check" when there’s a bet to a player.
- Bet amount not established, such as situations where Player A declares "bet" but before he declares an amount, Player B declares "call."
NEW RECOMMENDED PROCEDURES
- Hand-for-Hand Play Procedures
- Tournament Stud Dealing Procedures
EDITS TO CURRENT RULES
- Clock time now variable, with a 30-second maximum clock. Also expanded tournament director discretion to call the clock on chronic time abusers.
Language regarding video-blogging, and use of betting apps and charts - Discrepancies between declared bets and pushed-out chips
- Clarifying how to rule on situations where there have been more than one undercall
- Rules and illustrations specified on adding new chip or chips to previously bet chips that have not been pulled in
- Clarify that checking the exclusive nuts when last to act on the river is not always an automatic soft-play violation
