In June a record 160+ TDs from 26 countries attended Poker TDA Summit VI at the fabulous Venetian Las Vegas. These dedicated professionals volunteered time, money, and energy to make their votes count on matters of vital importance to our industry. Thanks to their efforts, the 2013 TDA Rules are in final review and scheduled for release the week of August 5th.

If you attended TDA Summit VI, we would greatly appreciate your sending in any comments or reflections on the event, along with any photos (and description of same) to: TDAGroup@PokerTDA.com.

To join the on-going discussion on tournament rules and management, visit the Poker TDA Forum. Also, if you would like to earn TDA Certification, click here.

Summit VI was made possible by our gracious hosts at the Venetian Las Vegas. Thanks are due everyone at the Venetian, especially to Kathy Raymond (Director of Poker Operations) and Tommy LaRosa (Tournament Director). Kathy and Tommy made sure the event ran like clockwork and contributed much to the debate during the proceedings.

The generous support of Genesis Gaming and the Global Poker Index (GPI) was also key to the success of Summit VI. Check out all the features of Genesis Bravo Poker and Bravo Poker Live and learn how these cutting-edge systems can help you attract and retain customers! The Global Poker Index is rapidly becoming one of the world’s most important player ranking systems and poker information portals. Visit the GPI website to learn more! Complete video archives of the Summit are available here courtesy of professional poker videographer Rob Perelman.

Lastly, a standing ovation is due our three new extraordinary TDA Board members: Jack Effel, Tab Duchateau, and Neil Johnson. Jack, Neil, and Tab bring years of global tournament experience to enrich the Association. Their leadership at Summit VI confirms the trust that over 2000 TDA members had in unanimously nominating them to the Board!

On behalf of the entire Association, thank you for your attendance at TDA Summit VI. We look forward to hearing from you soon, and will notify you when the 2013 TDA Rules are released.

4,500-chip, four-color starting stack at Stratosphere.

The Stratosphere’s quaint 10-table poker room sits in the back of the casino, past a row of slot machines, craps tables, another row of slot machines, down the ramp past Roxy’s Diner, near the escalators to the Top of the World restaurant — just before the Double Down Pit and Back Alley Bar. On Thursday, there was a sole 1-2NL table of action about 30 minutes before the nightly tournament.

You’d hardly know that this room has supposedly become the new Sahara when it comes to Las Vegas’ most popular small buy-in dailies — with the 7pm event drawing consistent fields of 50 players or more.

I approached the podium and purchased a seat for the event. The buy-in is $45 for 4,500 in chips, plus a $20 add-on that gives you 4,000 more chips, which you can purchase any time within the first hour. (There’s also an option for unlimited re-entry within that time frame.)  With 20-minute levels, that add-on is necessary, especially considering there are no automatic shufflers in the tournament tables.

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Matt Savage

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OP-ED

My dedication to poker tournaments and the game itself is two decades old. Starting with my first foray into the role of tournament director in 1997 and through my founding of the Tournament Directors Association (TDA) with Linda Johnson, Jan Fisher, and Dave Lamb in 2001, I have worked tirelessly to standardize tournament rules and to make poker a better game for everyone involved.

This is the reason that we host the website www.PokerTDA.com, open the TDA to all interested parties, and make myself available on Twitter and other social media outlets. My passion for poker only grows when I share it with others.

The rule is not new, and does not ban table talk by any means … A recreational player may not understand, nor even care to know all the rules, but professionals who make a living at the game should.

During the 2011 World Series of Poker “nearly live” telecast from the Rio, I became aware of comments from Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) through my own Twitter feed (@SavagePoker). He said that the TDA created a “new” rule that banned table talk. This certainly is not the case and in hindsight, it was learned that he had received an incorrect ruling at the table that had nothing to do with TDA rules. Since social media has limited words with which to sufficiently explain the rule and its longtime existence, this clarification seems necessary.

The TDA board, in conjunction with tournament directors and card room managers, has donated thousands of hours to standardize rules in the best interest of the game.  When well-known poker players like Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth choose to say on national television that “the TDA has it wrong” and “does not care about what the players want,” it becomes personal.

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Matt Savage, host of the new Las Vegas Poker Series at the Hard Rock, served as tournament director in the 2007 movie Lucky You. Don’t hold that against him.

Storied tournament director Matt Savage is stepping back into Las Vegas poker events — for the first time since 2004 — bringing the Las Vegas Poker Series to my weekly donk-stomping grounds at the Hard Rock, August 13-22.

The LVPS will feature low buy-in events ($230-$550), most of which count toward CardPlayer Player of the Year standings … with the Savage-tested deep structures (as opposed to deep stacks) that just about all players except Allen Kessler vigorously applaud. Also a money leaderboard of some sort is in play, though I’m not yet sure if this is about crowning an overall champion or qualifying for a player-appreciation freeroll … more TK as the schedule and other PR info gets released.

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We all know there’s lots of chit-chat on blind structures, always, and there should be. They are important. In the early days of the poker boom, a lot of tourney directors didn’t really know what they were doing and surely didn’t understand the nuances of stack sizes deep into tournaments with bigger-than-expected fields. Then the Venetian came along with their Deep Stack concept, kinda-sorta revolutionizing the way smaller-stakes tournaments were played … at which point everyone started copying it and multiplying … and eventually trying to apply a bajillion starting chips concept to higher buy-in, big-time poker.

That’s when TDA honcho Matt Savage stepped up to say, wait a minute, let’s take a look beyond the first few levels, maybe these perceived Deep Stacks in a lot of instances aren’t all everyone says they’re supposed to be. Just about any educated “outsider” I’ve talked to who has taken a close look at the prevalent blind structures of the day contend that, indeed, while the non-bastardized Venetian Deep Stacks set-up is good, Savage’s not-so-deep-stacks structure as seen at the LAPC are indeed some of the best in the business — a model for other tourney directors to emulate.

After Day 1 of the WPT-Commerce main event, Daniel Negreanu agrees. Read more as he explains a bit why.

NOTE: I learned a good rule of thumb about antes from Negreanu, and where they fit in to breed action in “slower” events.

The rules for the 2010 World Series of Poker were released this afternoon, with the obligatory press release appearing on the next page. To alleviate the fears of Phil Hellmuth, there has NOT been a change to what logos a player can be sporting. There were some minor changes to reflect the latest rules published by the Poker TDA, as well as some changes for players who choose to register late (Rule #12) and clarification for those who registered but don’t show up (Rule #14). Also of note is there was a change to the rule regarding cell phones and electronic devices that “banned” the Iphone, Blackberry, Itouch, and similar devices has been removed for 2010 in light of the immense popularity of Twitter. One other new rule that someone pointed out on 2+2, part of rule 37 about player conduct (bolding is my emphasis):

B. All participants are entitled to expect civility and courtesy from one another at every Tournament table and throughout the Tournament area. Any individual who encounters behavior that is not civil or courteous — or is abusive in any way — is encouraged to immediately contact a Tournament official. This shall include, but is not limited to, any player whose personal hygiene has become disruptive to the other players seated at their table. The determination as to whether an individual’s personal hygiene is disruptive to other players shall be determined by the Tournament Staff which may, in its discretion, implement sanctions upon any such player who refuses to remedy the situation in a manner satisfactory to Rio.

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Here’s a list of the 59 poker rooms that, as of right now, have signed on to officially embrace the 2009 TDA rules:

Aces & 8`s Poker
Amelia Belle Casino – Amelia, LA
APT Poker Room – Galaxy Starworld Hotel & Casino, Macau
Asian Poker Tour – asianpt.com
Avenue Card Club, Hove, UK
Aviation Club – Paris, FR
Bay 101 – San Jose, CA
Bay Mills Resort & Casino – Brimley, Michigan
Beau Rivage – Biloxi, MS
Big Slick Poker Tour – Prince George, BC
Binion`s Horseshoe – Las Vegas, NV
BLACK LIONS POKER CLUB, BUFFALO NY
Borgata – Atlantic City, NJ
Caesars Palace LV
Canterbury Park – Shakopee, MN
Card Player Cruises – At Sea in the World
Casino Del Mar, La Concha Resort – San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Casino Oostende, Belgium
Cherokee – Tulsa, OK
Club 52 at Melbourne Greyhound Park – Melbourne, FL
Colorado Central Station – Blackhawk, Co
Commerce – Commerce, CA
Crystal Crown Casino, Sunny Beach, Bulgaria
Daytona Beach Kennel Club & Poker Room
Derby Lane Poker Room- St. Petersburg, FL
Diamond Jo Casino – Dubuque, IA
Eureka Resort and Spa – Mesquite, NV
Federação de Poker do ES (FePES) Vitória-ES, Brasil
Firelake Grand Casino – Shawnee, OK
Fortune Rooms, Northern Ireland
Foxwoods Resort and Casino – Ledyard, CT
Golden Gates/Blackhawk, Co
Golden Nugget – Las Vegas, NV
Grand Sierra – Reno, NV
Grey Eagle Casino – Calgary AB Canada
Hollywood Casino – Lawrenceburg, IN
Hollywood Park Casino – Inglewood, CA
Horseshoe – Tunica, MS
Horseshoe Casino – Bossier City, LA
International Club – London,UK
LUCKY CHANCES CASINO – San Francisco Bay Area
Mandalay Bay – Las Vegas, NV
Mirage Resort Casino – Las Vegas, NV
Northern Stars Poker Tour – Manitoba, Canada
Ocean`s 11 Casino San Diego County, Oceanside, CA
Orchard Farms Poker Room – USA
Peppermill – Reno, NV
Red Rock Resort Casino and Spa – Las Vegas, NV
Ringo`s Little Vegas – Spokane Valley, WA
Rio – Las Vegas, NV
Spirit Mountain Casino – Grand Ronde, OR
Tachi Palace Hotel & Casino – Lemoore, CA
The Casino at Portmaso – St. Julian Portomaso PTM01, Malta
The Poker Room @ Seabrook Greyhound Park – Seabrook, NH
The Silks Poker Room @ Tampa Bay Downs – Tampa, FL
Tri State Casino – Cross Lanes, WV
Venetian – Las Vegas, NV
VFW Post 194 – Salisbury, MD
Wynn Casino – Las Vegas, NV

Not everyone uses these — the WSOP has their own version filled with extra, enforceably questionable legalese — but these are the simple standards made available for card-room runners across the world by the Tournament Directors Association, recently updated at a conference held during the World Series, and thus far officially adopted by 57 59 poker rooms.

Click below for the rules (which TDA members can download here in all sorts of easily printable and mountable forms).

What’s changed?

The over 125 Poker TDA members that attended the 2009 Summit discussed and voted to accept the following:

Nineteen (19) 2007 Rules were changed; they are rule #’s 3, 4, 6, 8, 18, 21, 23, 25, 29, 30, 31, 34, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 43 and 44.

In addition, Four (4) new rules were adopted; they are rule #’s 7, 15, 28 and 33.

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For those who missed it live … here’s yesterday’s Poker Beat podcast to get you through “the grind”, the hump, the “dog days”, whatever you wanna call the Series in mid-June. In this episode, we discuss what a bracelet really means to a guy like Greg Mueller, just how good really is JC Tran, and, in this Year of apparent Multiples, what’s a guy like Roland deWolfe all about? Also … “Full Tilt’s” lawsuit (via Kolyma) vs. an Aruba-Aussie payment processor run by 25-year-old Crocodile D-bag … and “celebrity” tournament director Matt Savage joins us to discuss the TDA Summit — and specifically rule changes related to texting at the table.

on PokerRoad

The Poker Beat
Huff, Caldwell, Michalski, Nemeth, Wise, Stapleton + Savage
6/18/09

[audio:http://www.pokerroad.com/upload/radio/23/audio/TPB_06_18_09.mp3]

Sorry for the slowdown in getting podcasts to you. For those who can’t always handle semi-informed snarky banter for more than 2-4 minutes at a time and need more vulgarity and shticked-up grit, Tao of Pokerati (brought to you by Dream Team Poker) will also be back very soon.

Bring it!

One of the rules changed at today’s (yesterday’s) TDA Summit (for the TDA, not the WSOP) … as per a tweet from @SavagePoker:

New TDA Rule….. All Hold’em Final Tables that start 9 or 10 handed will go to final table at 10 handed. 6 handed tournaments at 7…

Hmm, not sure how I feel about that one, or how it would work at a place like The Lodge, where an extra-big field meant starting with some fold-up outer tables that were only 6-handed, compared to the 8-9-handed tables elsewhere in the room.

As we all know, there’s far more to the World Series than just bracelet events. One of the alt-poker activities going on today and tomorrow and yesterday (Tuesday and Wednesday) is the TDA Summit. That’s where tourney directors from card rooms around the country get together with Matt Savage, Linda Johnson, Jan Fisher, and the other honchos in tournament operations to discuss, debate, and vote on various technicalities of poker rules — as well as to discuss handling new and old situations that inevitably arise.

They also had a specialty non-bracelet tourney today — a $125 buy-in with 60something players (Warren Karp was the “known” name who made the final table) — and I happened to stumble upon the semi-funny sitch captured above … where at a table full of floormen, someone called floor. Ha ha.

Though you can imagine the pressure on the floorguy should he make the wrong ruling, it frankly wasn’t that hard of a decision … But there were a lot of people interested in how it would turn out, particularly because these players, while being trained in TDA rules, where in a tourney being run by WSOP staff, which has its own rules, which are slightly different from the TDA’s.

Click below for a breakdown of the situation, and see for yourself if you woulda made the same decision.

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Marcel Luske and Michelle Lau formally announced that their organization is up, running, and ready to introduce “The International Poker Rules” in the near future. According to the press release, the goal of FIDPA and the set of rules is to organize and promote tournament poker as a sport and “unite the industry on a global level.”

Hmmm. Where have I heard that before? Oh, never mind…

The IP Rules have been created in cooperation with the Tournament Directors Association, Bob Ciaffone’s Robert’s Rules of Poker, and Jack McClelland and Doug Dalton of Bellagio, among others. There are a total of 80 rules, procedures, and policies that will be announced at a later date.

Note to self: This sounds an awful lot like the World Poker Association (WPA)!

Click the “more” button to see the entire press release:

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