Re: [ba-poker] Ethical guidance needed

[Mark Rafn <dagon(deleted the rest)>]

On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 eaeven(deleted the rest) wrote:
[regarding multiple people playing-by-committee in a single login of an
online poker game]

> Well, first of all, my understanding of the "one player to a hand" rule is 
> that it does refer to cheating/maintaining the standard of play, not 
> preventing delay.

I know of no authority on the intent behind various poker rules.  Most 
rooms have a bunch of rules designed to reduce one or more of the 
following:
  1) unethical play ("cheating" in the moral sense, as opposed to the 
rulebreaking sense)
  2) appearance/ease of unethical play
  3) delays
  4) staff hassle
  5) casino effort at defining and explaining rules
And probably other reasons I haven't considered.  I've never seen any room 
that has a "whereas" clause for any of it's rules, so we're left to guess 
which reasons apply.

The "one player to a hand" seems most effective at 3 and 4.  There are 
two ways it helps with #2:
  A) some players (erroneously IMO) consider it cheating on it's own.  How 
it's different than discussing strategies and specific hands before the 
game, or reading books, I don't know.
  B) it's possible that someone not sitting at the table can more easily 
see cards that should be hidden.  If she then gives advice to a player, 
this is clearly cheating.

A is a category error, I believe, and B is irrelevant online.

> I don't think that there is any way to enforce otherwise...

Ahh, enforceability.  I'm in agreement that unenforceable rules are almost 
always a bad idea, but it does beg the original question, which was about 
morals, not rules.  Unless you believe that morals come from rules (vs. 
rules coming from morals or rules being independent of morals), it could 
be both immoral and not prohibited by online rules.

I'd claim it's not immoral, and probably is not prohibited (I haven't 
read any online rules lists in full detail, but it's not on the major 
bullet points in any I have looked at).

> Technically, I suppose this is still collusion though.

Not by any definition of collusion I know.  This is not an agreement or 
information sharing between multiple players at the same table/tourney. 
This is not misplaying to give an advantage to a partner.

This is no more collusion than discussing the game before playing.
--
Mark Rafn    dagon(deleted the rest)    <http://www.dagon.net/>
"Bob" Dobbs sold it.  I bought it.  That settles it.