Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, Welcome back to the Poker Go Podcast. My
name is Donny Peters and it's been a minute since
this show has come into your speakers, but we are back.
The post WSOP hiatus is all over. We're gonna start
getting back into the swing of things now. It's still
a little bit quiet on the Poker Go and the
PGT front. So what we're going to try and do
over the next little bit something that I've been meaning
to do a little bit more of on this show,
and that's got some longer interviews on the podcast. Of course,
you know, during the w soop we're able to grab
people for some quick sound bites here and there. On
some breaks, we're able to get winners. Of course after
they you know, win bracelets, win a boatload of money,
all that sort of stuff. But hopefully hear you know,
we can start diving into some longer stuff with some
specific people that I kind of want to have some
conversations with. You know, the summer chaos is now behind us.
Things have calmed down a little bit, so that's going
to be the goal, hopefully over these next couple shows,
maybe even to carry us through the whole year. So
hopefully you know now that I put that out there,
I can actually deliver on it and not fail on
that goal. First up, I was able to speak recently
with Matt Savage. He's a good friend, listener of the podcast,
he's an industry colleague. He's seen just about everything there
is to see in poker. If you're on poker social media,
you likely know Matt at Savage Poker. He's constantly talking
about ruling tournament stuff, this and that. He's the founder
of the Tournament Directors Association, also known as the TDA,
and that's really what I wanted to speak to him about.
So the TDA, it has a sum at every two years,
but as I told him, I always get the sense
of the TDA summ that it comes. People talk about
it for a couple of days, for a week, you know,
it's on social media, there's some chatter, but then it
just goes away. Nothing really happens. There's not a ton
of conversation about it. You know, a couple of years ago,
by the some what's gonna happen again, There's some conversation
about it, and then it goes away again, and this
cycle just kind of repeats. So hopefully this conversation that
I'm going to have with Matt sheds some further light
on what's happening within the TDA, how some hot topics
and poker such as solvers, play clocks, face coverings, you know,
big blind anti first or big blind first or anti first,
stuff like that. You know how, that's all being discussed
by different tournament staff members tournament officials around the world.
Before we jump into that discussion, though, I do need
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crypto is easy. Now that we got that out of
the way, paid some bills of course, you know, got
to take care of the housekeeping items. Let's get into
that conversation that I had with Matt Savage. All right,
it's my pleasure to bring in Matt Savage, WPT executive
tour director, Poker TDA founder, and I will add all
around just kind of tournament director extraordinary. If there's been
a ruling out there, this guy has probably seen it.
He's probably ruled it. He might have even wrote writ
the rule book on it. Okay, So Matt Savage, Welcome
to the show.
Speaker 2: How are you, thanks, Tony? Good to see. Yeah, been
this busy summer, even though I didn't end up playing
as much as I want to, but a lot of
stuff going on. We had the TDA Summit right there
in the Poker Ghost studio, so I want to thank
you by thanking you and Tim and Maury of course
for hosting us there. It was amazing a couple of days. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean that's gonna be the general topic that we're
talking about today, a kind of all things TDA. As
I reached out to you, you know, I always feel
like the TDA comes and goes every couple of years.
It gets kind of some play on social media, largely
from you, you know, champion the conversation and whatnot, and
then it kind of goes away, you know, like and
it's like, what what happened? What's the result? What are
what can things that players can expect or even you know,
industry people like myself, What can we expect to come
out of this? So we're gonna hit on kind of
everything TDA related, you know, what people can expect. Maybe
there's nothing to expect. I don't know, you know, I
would like to know all that sort of stuff. So
hopefully we can ask some good questions here and get
some some good answers. It's also pretty timely, you know,
coming off the summer, that's when everything is focused on,
of course the World Series of Poker, but poker in
general is just very focused and the conversation is much louder.
We have obviously the whole laptop gate thing coming out
of the World Series of Poker. You know that was
post TDA summit, so you know, all that sort of stuff.
I guess before we get into you know, some of
the questions that I have and some of the topics
I want to hit on, can you just go over
like what the TDA is, when did it get started,
how did it get started? And then big picture, what's
the goal from the TDA.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ternam director Association started in two thousand and one,
and basically it was a result of me playing tournaments
and around the Bay Area where I lived, and all
the rules were different wherever I went. So I had
this fanciful idea that I was going to come down
to the World Series of Poker. First time I ever
walked into the World Series Poker was in two thousand
and one, and went up to the tournament director, Bob
Thompson and his son Robert, and said, Hey, I would
really like to try and get some poker rules standardized,
like for tournaments, because we had Roberts rules out there,
but we didn't have anything for tournaments, and like I said,
they were different everywhere we went. So I said, let's
try and get this done, and basically I was told
that's been tried you for, it's never going to happen. Well, luckily,
Linda Johnson had this World Poker Industry conference that was
going on at the time, and so I asked her.
She was already a friend of mine, and I talked
to her into adding an extra day where we just
met with with tournament directors and carter managers from around
the country. And that year we had twenty five and
the idea really started from there. Basically, the goal of
the TDA is to always standardize the rules in the
interests of the players. So the players when they go
from casino to casino, property to property know what to
expect when they walk in there and they see that
they're using TDA rules, they know what to expect and
it makes a better playing environment for all of those
players and better for tournament directors, so they have a
source and a resource to go to and discuss the rules.
Speaker 1: Now, the TDA founded by yourself, it isn't just you.
There's a board, right Who's on the board, you know,
so people can know kind of who they're getting involved with.
Speaker 2: The original board members from myself, Linda Johnson, Jan Fisher,
and David Lamb and it's now grown. We just added
Toby Stone from Poker Stars is here, but we have
both Neil Johnson and Lloyd found tell Us from the
Asian Poker Tour. We have devinir Campos from the Brazilian
series of Poker. Paul Campbell from Aria and Poker Goo
is also on the board, and Kenny Hollard, as a
player and a tournament director from Europe is also there
as well, and it's a conglomeration of all of those people. Also,
Linda and Jan are still a part of that, and
of course Mike Bishop, who is our TDA administrator, who
does a lot of the work to making sure that
the website gets updated and all those rules get done
and updated along with our TDA certification. And so maybe
you know the main goal of the TDA this make
standardization for all players and tournament.
Speaker 1: Directors just quickly on the website pokertda dot com for
anyone that wants to go out there and check in
on things, see the rules and whatnot. Pokertda dot com
is where all of that can be found. Does the
board change often? Do new people get added often?
Speaker 2: Or how does that work? We've added We used to
have Johnny Grooms and tab dou Chateau from Bogata and
Johnny was at MGM and Bauravage back in the day.
They've both stepped down because they've stepped into other areas
they're not really focused on poker anymore. So, Yeah, the
board hasn't only changed in the fact that we've had
people step down and then we've added people to it.
Now we have a lot of interest and a lot
of people that really want to step up and be
on the board, but I think at some point you
had to have too many. And we'll make those decisions
over time on whether we need to replace people or
have people step up and be a part of it.
But my goal was always to get a global so,
you know, having somebody in South America, having somebody in Asia,
having somebody in Europe, and you know, you know the
United States in Canada is something that I always thought
was important to the TDA. We've kind of achieved that
at this point, so you know, covering all corners of
the globe is super important.
Speaker 1: And a lot of those different Global board members also
just members in general. They come to the TDA summit, right,
I mean, there's people from all over that come to
this thing. It's not just.
Speaker 2: People from Vegas. Might have been our biggest ever. We
had one hundred and seventy not only tournament directors, but
carter managers and property managers and players and dealers, and
we had a pretty wide array. We even had some
poker media there as well. So I'm you know, that
always is what I want. I want it to be
for everybody, you know, I want the dealers to be
able to understand and follow the TDA rules and the
players and I definitely want their input. Years past, we
used to get people saying that it's made up of
only tournament directors, but to be honest, most of the
people that are tournament directors and most people that attend
also play poker tournaments. So that's something that I always
tried to get rid of because it wasn't true. But
poker players are always invited to come out there, and
I know it's a busy time of year during the summer,
but I know that everybody's going to be in town
as well. So there are those players that do come
to the summit and add their input, but most of
that has done in advance, where players are sending me
feedback and sending me information, sending me rules that they
think need to be changed or could be possibly changed,
and that's how I get a lot of our stuff
for the TDA.
Speaker 1: So the TDA was held for the eleventh time this
past summer at the Poker Studio. As you mentioned, it
takes place every couple of years, well every two years really,
but there was, of course the COVID year that threw
things off a little bit. First thing I guess is
does it need to be more often than every two years,
just with how fast everything seems to move these days.
Speaker 2: Well, here's what happened last year. Last year, I actually
had an event in Korea and I stopped by Japan
because people in Asia had asked me, and Japan had
asked me, why don't you ever have a TDA summit
in Asia. So a guy over there put it together
and it's sold out in fifteen minutes. We had one
hundred tournament directors, dealers and people from the industry in
Japan last year. In my opinion, what I think we
need to do is just have more of an international
one every year and then have the main TDA summit
in Vegas every two years. So I'm all about that.
We have some people that are in Taiwan now that
are looking to maybe do another one, even sooner than
the middle of next year, and I think we'll do that. So,
you know, with poker being a real global game and
it's really exciting to see that so many people care
and are so passionate about the rules of poker, I
think that we should do more of those, and I
think that we will in the near future. I would
love to do it in Latin America. Of course Europe
as well would be a big hot spot. Even maybe India,
South Africa or an Africa would be a great one
as well. You know, there's just so many people that
care about the game, and you know, we get reached
out to by everybody and you'll get pulled in a
bunch of different directions. But I would like to make
something more standards. So I do like that idea that
you have.
Speaker 1: All Right, So, coming out of this year's summits, what
are the big changes? Are the big topics that are
looking to be addressed, things that players can maybe expect
to be kind of coming down the pipeline.
Speaker 2: Well, it's funny that we had this conversation over the
last couple of years about the big blind ante and
what should go first? Should it go big blind anti
first or anti first. It's to me such a trivial
part of one rule that has made poker infinitely better,
and it basically started right there at the Poker Ghost studio.
So thank you to the high Rollers and Paul Campbell
for that. But you know, I was really instrumental in
popularizing that. But one of the things I felt really
strongly about was that the Anti should come first, and
ANTI is supposed to go first. It always has and
I still feel that to this day. But the fact
that the World Series was doing it different than the WPT,
the Asian Poker Tour was doing different than Poker Stars, really,
to me is something that it's such a small part
of a great addition to the poker industry that I
wanted to get it all the same, and I pushed
for it two years ago right there at the Poker
Studio as well, and couldn't get it past the line.
This time, I really really pushed and pushed and pushed,
and I knew that it was never going to be
Anti first because the WSP wasn't doing that way, and
you know some other big places Poker Stars had gone
to Big Blind first. So I really wanted to focus
on making it the same for everybody, and that was
one that we got over the line, and I'm happy
that we did that, and a lot of people were
holding out to the bitter end, but in the end
we all put that vote up and it got done.
Another one that has kind of become even a bigger
deal since then was the use of solvers was the
use of graphs at the table and the use of
cell phones, and a big, big conversation sprung out of
that as to what we're going to do. I always
say that we're going to have this conversation every two years.
It's going to come up again in two years, and
just so happens that it comes up more and more
often these days. There are some scandals out there in
poker that have not fully broken, about people using devices
on the table to look at what the whole cards
are when they're coming off the deck and seeing these
things are going to break. And these are the things
that the TDA is super focused on because you know,
if one of those things happens and it becomes a
pattern or it becomes more common, it really could ruin
our game. And we all love this game. We don't
want that to happen. So cell phones on the table
was one of the things we really talked about about
getting those removed. I know that not everybody in the
room could agree, and that's the way that TDA works.
If we don't get everybody to agree one way or another,
it doesn't become a TDA rule. But for me and
my focus, I really believe that, you know, cell phones
are going to have to be turned off when you're
not in a hand and you can't look at them
and see if you're looking at a graph or a
chart before the next hand begins. So that's one of
those things I would really like to see happen. It
hasn't happened yet, so I am really focused on using
what the rule that the Wind has already. They have
one in place where where solvers and charts are not
allowed in the entire tournament area. And the discussion came
up from David lappin what is the tournament area? Is
it behind the rail, is it out of the room?
Is it behind you know, when you're going to the restroom?
Is it Where is the tournament area? And that was
just another discussion. I thought it was a little bit silly,
but yeah, I think that using what the wind wind
does is something I would like to bring to the
WPT and of course to the TDA as well. It
just didn't get settled this year, but it was a
big discussion.
Speaker 1: Let me just quickly hit on the tournament area thing,
because the Wind's a good example of this. So when
the WPT World Championship takes place, it's in the ballroom
area largely, and that is like a completely separate area,
and you could almost assign that entire area of the
property to quote unquote tournament area. But I play at
the win A lot and the normal stuff is right
outside the poker room in an area that is sometimes
slot machine, sometimes poker tables. You can literally be a
poker table, and then five feet away is just a
regular walkway where like kids can walk on. So it's like,
that's not a gaming floor, it's just a walkway. So like,
can I literally just be five feet away from that
table on my phone? Looking at a chart, you would
think no, right, But if the rule is quote unquote
tournament area, that's where it can get gray, and then
people can be like, well, I'm not in the tournament area.
Yes you are, No, you're not, and then you can
just kind of go back and forth. So it's it's tricky.
I'm not sure there is a solution yet for any
of this sort of stuff. It's hard. I know that
we had the whole Jonathan Tomiow, Dominic Nische, Joe mckeean
situation from the wsp Man event FALM table, and that's
what everyone's pointing to. But I will also say that
isn't the first time that this has happened to the WSIP.
There was some photos out there, some videos out there
from earlier in the summer. Walking through the fields myself,
I saw people on their stuff all the time. I mean,
it's it's it's very tricky. Part of it for me
is it's a question of manpower, Like there's just not
enough tournament staff, especially if the wz AP as an example,
or even the WPT at the wind or any other massive,
massive tournament where there's like one hundred tables in play
and there's five tournament directors. I mean, how are you
gonna police everything? And then and then it's does everyone
know what they're looking for? What if they don't know
what they're looking for? What if they disguise things? What
if you say to a player, What if you walk
up to a player, Matt, you walk up to me
and you say, hey, I noticed you might be on
a chart, and I see your phone. I say no, Like,
what are you going to take my phone from me? No,
you're not, Like, I'm not gonna let you. And I
put in my pocket and I'm gonna say no. Liken,
Then what do you do? Do you just suspend me
or give me a penalty based on an assumption that
I might have been on something? What if I was
looking at my stock chart that looked similar. You know,
It's like it gets very tricky and very gray. I
do think that there does need to be heavy enforcement
on it. It's just like when does that enforcement get
levied because it can be very tricky and not everything
can be understood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and here's what I say. I mean, honestly, having
the rule in place itself is a discouragement for people
to use it. So you know, people are going to say, hey,
that's against the rules. I shouldn't be doing that, Right,
So if I tell you you can't do it, and
then you choose to do it after you're told that
you can't, that is a discouragement enough to maybe where
you catch somebody doing those types of things. But again,
I think it's something that we were just trying to
get out of the area itself. And again there are
those even tournament directors out there, good friends of mine,
that will say it doesn't help people as much as
people think it's not that big of a deal. One
guy even told me we should pass out charts to
everybody that plays in the tournament and just get it
out there in the open. I'm opposed to that. I
think it's bad. Obviously, there's a lot of discussions about
the opsticts how it looks. Is it cheating, is it
not cheating. I mean, I'm not on the side of
it was cheating. I'm not on the side it was.
You know, I was definitely on the side that it's
optically bad. There are people that play in tournaments all
the time that feel like they are less informed, less
likely to win, less likely to be able to compete
because these things exist. So that type of thing I
really want to get away from the area. And I
understand that there's a lot of coaches out there, there's
a lot of people that are in the industry. There's
a lot of people that are trying to learn how
to play poker better, which I am all for. I'm
all for all of those things. I'm just saying that,
you know, for that recreational player that doesn't feel comfortable
in an event because some people are using these things,
that's the person I want to protect. It's always a
person I'm trying to protect in these things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, I play a
fair bent bit of poker myself. I study a lot
when I can on my time, my downtime. I use
these tools when I can. If I see someone at
the table using them, I particularly don't care. It kind
of makes me understand what type of player I'm playing
against them. I say, Oh, your guy who looks at charts, Okay,
I know how you're going to play. Then you're going
to be a slave to the chart, Like that's what
you're gonna do. So I know you're going to probably
do things pretty correct in theory, so that I can
just combat that. But I can also see the side
of if you're someone who's just a complete recreational you're
not really in tune with you know, modern poker theory
and study and that sort of stuff. You just basically
play to play. You see somebody using these things, you're
thinking they're trying to get an advantage of you on you,
and it can certainly scare you away. And also just
the the general fear that like people are putting out
there on social media, Like if you're kind of just
an onlooker from afar, you see all this sort of
stuff and that can also scare people, you know, optically speaking,
that can really scare people away. And I think that's
that's a bad thing. You brought up the coaching aspect
as well. I mean it's almost like if I were
to like go to a final table, let's say it's
at the Dabissity, just because that's where all this stuff
seemed to happen, that got a lot of conversation.
Speaker 2: I win championship, Win.
Speaker 1: Win championship. I would almost rather have like a Sean
deeb on my rail who I can just walk over
and he can just literally say, Okay, this guy's doing this, this
is how you're going to combat it good Versus me
trying to go over to a laptop, look at a chart,
figure out what's happening in real time, go back to
my seat, and then put that into motion because I've
done the start chart study and it's it's hard to
like just get it quickly and put it into motion immediately.
Versus if I go over there and Sean says, no,
you need to start limping. Okay, I'll just start limping
like And I'm using Shawn as an example because he's
been a coach on Final table rails before, but like that,
so then it's then it comes down to you know,
where do you draw the line? Can you just never
talk to a coach? Can you never go over to
a rail? Are we going down the Poker Stars PCA
route from years ago? We're sequestering people at a final table?
How does like when does it stop? Where does it stop?
It's it's just a whole different can of worms that's
being opened up.
Speaker 2: And I put that up on Twitter recently in a
poll and basically I would love to see it where
there's no coaching allowed at these stream final tables. And
you know what does that mean during play? Not on
breaks some breaks, code, do whatever you want, go, get
coached up, do whatever you think is right. But to
have all these things out there and in the open
and at the win Championship. By the way, Ryan Beauregard
last year did not allow laptops in the final table area,
and I think it was a better experience. You know,
we don't see people running to the tables. Of course,
at that Championship final table, we had six basically pros
there right, so their their charts and their knowledge is
all up there, so they're not going up there, But
are they getting information from people on the breaks? Likely
they don't have their phones at the table, so that's
one way to combat that. But at the same time,
we didn't allow those laptops in the audience, and I
just like I said, I think it makes for a
better experience. You want to go there as a player
and have people come and sweat you and be a
fan and be a part of the excitement of that
final table where you can win life changing money. But
at the same time, do you need to have somebody
there coaching you after every hand or in between hands.
I prefer that happen on the break.
Speaker 1: Now the TDA some it took place before the WSPM
and event final table happens, WSM event file table happens,
Jonathan Tomio wins. All this stuff blows up in a way.
It's kind of sucks that it's taken the spotlight away
from Tomayow and his accomplishment because everyone's pointing to this
one incident. But how has like the has there been
a lot of outreach from fellow tournament directors since that
PEMAM final table. I know the summit had happened already,
and you obviously talk about this sort of thing. But
now it's right back in everyone's face on the biggest
age in poker. So you know, what's the conversation like now?
Is it constantly texting emailing about this sort of thing?
What's going on?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have a group chat with all the people
that are on the TDA board and we discussed it,
you know, not at length, i'd say, but we did
discuss it, and people that were around didn't really realize
that it was going on at the time. What was
happening at the time time, And like I, like you said,
Tomorow deserve to win. Obviously he got lucky in a
lot of spots.
Speaker 1: Or somebody elaid you be lucky to win a poker tournament.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, a lot of great plays as well.
So did he deserve to win? Absolutely? Did he cheat?
I don't think so. But you know, I think that
if people were more aware of what was happening, he
probably would have stopped. And would those guys have been
in the audience stopped had somebody told them to do so, Yes,
they would have. You know, Dominic has said that he's
backed off his original stance. Joe McKeon, it was just
so great to see him come out of his shell.
I've never seen him so I animated in my life,
so I was always good to see as well. But
you know, like I said, those guys, you know he
deserved to win. Was he getting coached? Yeah? But like
I said, I would just like to see that stuff
outside of the actual play of hands. And I think
that was the issue for a lot of people, especially
the recreational players that have reached out to me, you know,
through text, through social media and all. They just didn't
like the look of it. And you know, that's one
of the things that's important to the game of poke
or is that we make things look optically good so
that nobody feels like they're at such a disadvantage that
they don't want to enter these big events.
Speaker 1: Changing topics to something that's kind of also works with
the optics of the game, or even the playing of
the game. Clocks, play clock, shot, clocks, whatever you want
to call them. It does seem like we're moving in
the right direction. You know, a lot of some bigger
stuff does now institute clocks? Are we as far as
we can go? Should we go further? Meaning like should
they be implemented more more places? You know, it's easy
to do them in the Poka Goro studio or at
a Triton stop, or in some of the WPT events
when the field's condensed to be a little bit smaller
and it's more manageable. You know, are we going to
ever see it in like a WPT World Championship or
a WSP main event, when there's thousands and thousands of
players in a field, Like, at what point should we
institute clocks? How important are they in the longevity of
the game going forward.
Speaker 2: I think they're very important. I think that you know,
you have certain players have been, you know, using these
types of not having clocks as an advantage to you know,
whatever situations on the bubble, it generally happens. But I
think that, you know, we are moving in that direction.
Our lead sponsor for the TDA Summit was Poker at Lists.
They have a clock actually that goes right on the
table on the keypad. I know that now Venetian has
Poker Atlas and the Wind has Poker Outles. I think
you're going to start seeing more clocks and more tournaments
from the beginning. You know, we've also discussed this for
WPT events. We now use them in all of our products,
and we've reduced the amount of time pre to fifteen seconds.
And originally it was a big whoa, what are you
guys doing? You're doing this wrong. It should be fifteen seconds.
But after people play with it for a little while,
they say, you know what, this actually works. And one
of the things that people talk about is if you
have fifteen seconds, should you be able to use that
full fifteen seconds all the time? When it was thirty seconds?
I said absolutely not fifteen seconds. I think that when
those keysits suations come up, or when you're laddering and
you use your full fifteen seconds, I have no problem
with it. Giving a lesser amount of time extension chips,
I think is also important. You don't want people being
you know, collecting them and then using them all at
one time, where it might be a situation where that
shouldn't be good. But I am one that also feels
like that's okay. If you're going to give those time insensitiorships,
it should be allowed. But to come back to your
first point, I think we're going to see more of that,
and I think it's a better thing for the game.
You know, you know a lot of amateur and recreational
players don't like the amount of time that it takes.
And to be honest, when we gave out those time
extensionships early on on the World Over Tour, most of
those recreational players said, I'll never use these. I never
take too long. And you know, it's the more professionals
and the people that are more focused on you know,
those ladders, the ICM jumps and all those things that
are using them to their advantage. And you know, I
while I would like to see the clocks you used to,
you know, maybe enhance some of the play on the
on the tournaments, I don't think they should be used
as you know, a detractor to try and make things
super slow and unenjoyable for everybody that's playing game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I like them. You know, it does
take a little bit of getting used to, but I
think everyone can get used to it pretty easily, you know,
just like everyone got used to the big blind anti
for example. You know, like, yeah, that wasn't the norm,
but eventually everyone got used to it and that's just
the norm now. I think clocks will at least hopefully
get to be the norm in everything and people will
just understand that that's how they work, and it's it's
always been funny to me. A lot of these guys,
the players, you know, the high rollers and whatnot, who
want to use as many time extensions as possible, their
max time, all that sort of stuff, are used to
playing online eight, ten, twelve tables, you know, snap decisions,
and it's like, guys, this is one live tournament, Like
can we just can we act? Like come on? You know,
I think you can figure this out. You've probably seen
it before hundreds of times, so let's just move things along.
Speaker 2: We've adjusted it on the WPT to now they're accumulating,
so it kind of restricts some of those situations where
you're in the bubble. If you use all of your
time sensions on the bubble, you're not going to have
them if you make it to the final table. So
we've done that, and you know, one great example I
like to use is the fact that Calvin Anderson, who
won our Prime Championship last year, there were ten thousand entries,
use zero, right, so you don't need to use those
to win a tournament. And I think even at the
final table he was rushing decisions because he didn't want
to use them. He wanted to have them all at
the end, and the fact that he had all twenty
when he got to the end, I thought it was
quite an accomplishment but also a fun example of you don't
need to use those things and use too much time
to win a tournament.
Speaker 1: Another big topic seems to always become very pertinent every summer,
you know, just there's more poker being played, there's a
lot more poker being streamed, specifically face coverings. I mean,
what is this? Is this the cats out of the
bed with the whole COVID stuff? I get it? Is
it ever going to go into the bag? What can
we do to possibly put some of it back in
the bag? Like, how does that all shake out from
a TDA perspective?
Speaker 2: Well, here's the thing. I think that masks, you know,
people wearing masks are here to stay. But I do
believe that if somebody's wearing a mask, they probably should
be wearing medical grade one, you know. But the fact
that people are wearing them and taking them off their
face and then putting them on when they're in a hand,
I do not agree that that is kosher. I don't
think it's cool. I don't think people should be doing that.
But one of the topics that we brought up is
something that they do in Jacksonville. Best bet they actually
have a sign that says you can wear a mask, Sure,
you can wear sunglasses. Okay, you cannot wear a mask,
sunglasses and a hoodie. You can't wear three things, so
you wear two of three. So that discussion came up.
We couldn't come to an agreement on that, but I
think we'll probably be bringing that up again. So you know,
for me, the sunglasses and the technology that's coming along
with the sunglasses or something we're gonna be talking about again.
People wearing headphones at the table. Is that something that
we may have to remove and if we have to
remove headphones at some point, or we're going to have
to remove hoodies as well, so people can't obscure their
ears and see what's in their ears. So it's it's
something that I think again will be a discussion in
two years. Where are we at with that right now?
I don't think that ninety nine point nine percent of
anybody has anything the ferries when they're wearing headphones or
using phones at the table, or using sunglasses at the table,
or any of those things. But I do think there
needs to become a point where we have to stop it.
It's annoying to a lot of people like me when
you're playing in somebody that's wearing sunglasses, hoodies, a mask,
a gate or Kevin coming up a scarf, all of
those things and there's nothing you could see on them,
on their face, on their eyes that you know makes it.
You know, part of the game is getting tells from people.
So people totally trying to obscure themselves I don't think
should be allowed. There are people that are on the
fencing it about that and feel like anything should go
and anything should be allowed, but I think that number
is somewhere around twenty percent or less. So the fact
that that's there, like I said, I think if they
have rules in place, like again, I'll use a WIN
as example, where you cannot have your face obscured at
the table. Completely obscured at the table is something that
we're going to be leaning towards doing on the WPT
anytime that I can have something to say over that,
and you know it, you know, when somebody's doing something
that doesn't look right or or has this kind of
covering that shouldn't be allowed. So I'm happy to support
all of those things, and I think that we will
do more and more of that in the future.
Speaker 1: What's one rule, just in general, can be anything that
you would like to see implemented as soon as possible.
Speaker 2: That's a good one. Ah, that's a good one. I
really would like to see. I mean it goes back
to the games speeding up. I would like to see
those clocks and institute at the very beginning of tournaments.
I think that's something that we can do. And I
think that you have done in a lot of your
and Sarah at Poker Goo that.
Speaker 1: Was easy into fifteen tables.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I did have my list of
pet peeves and people throwing the racks on the floor
I think will be another one.
Speaker 1: Listen, I put my racks where they're supposed to go.
Every single time. Every time I move a table, I
will find where the racks are. I will walk over
there put them down, or I will if I don't
have time because I have a hand immediately, I'll just
put it right behind me on the back of my
chair and then I'll fold my hand or whatever I'll
go up. I'll walk over and do that because I've
been on the floor plenty in my reporting days and
I've stepped on those racks and it sucks. It absolutely sucks.
You are asking to break an ankle. I'm telling you
it is not fun.
Speaker 2: Okay, people think I'm joking about that, but it's true.
And you know, we created a video about it. But
I'm telling you. I was just at a tournament a
few weeks ago and player literally took his two racks
and threw them in the middle of the aisle, exactly
the place where the waitress is going to be walking
by in like thirty seconds. And I literally walked up
to the and said, what in the hell are you doing?
And the guy literally like what do you mean.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you can just hand them, you can just
say here, can you take this? And the deal will
be like yeah, sure and put it in the rack
or something like that's the worst case.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That goes back to training in a lot of ways.
And I think it's improved. I think this is something
that's improved, and I think that I've had something to
do with that. And I still get a lot of
people trolling me all the time, sending me videos of
racks on the floor and all that stuff, and it's
fun for them and they but I think in the
end people are going to learn that it's something that
it's something for you know, the staff, the people, the
media that's on the floor, the cocktail waitresses are there serving,
you know. It's just you know, a behavior you would
want to see, and people throwing him under the middle
of the table. Somebody has to go down there and
get that rack for more your stinky, nasty feet. We're
all single all day and it's just not right. So
I think that's a you know, kind of a funny one,
but at the same time it's important.
Speaker 1: What's the most common ruling that you see carried out incorrectly.
Speaker 2: The moving of players to a table when they're a
new player. People don't understand who gets a hand, who
doesn't get a hand, when somebody has to take the
big blind, and when somebody can come in in the middle,
or when can somebody take the button. This one still
comes up all the time, and I like to say,
there's three different ways to understand this. If you are
a new player, or you are a player that's coming
from a balanced table, Okay, you can take the button,
the small blind or the big blind. If you are
somebody that's getting moved to balance a table, meaning you're
on a nine handed table moving to a six handed table,
you must always take the single big blind if it's available.
If not, you need to take the worst position. And
the worst position is never the small blind. So that's
the most common one that I get all the time.
The other one is the single chip. Is it a
raise or is it not a raise? Blinds are three
or six and twelve hundred and the first player throws
out two one K chips. Many people feels like that
should be a raise, but it's a simple ruling and
that you remove the one of the chips from the pot.
It's not enough to cover the bet and therefore it
is not a raise. And so that's the example of
that I like to use all the time. You know,
those chip rules and things come up all the time,
But I think the biggest one is when can you
take a hand and when can you not take it?
Speaker 1: How is it being addressed for dealer errors? You know,
oftentimes you'll see I think the one that always sticks
out to me the most is a couple of years
ago when the WSP was still at the Rio Dario
Sammartino deep in the WSP Main Events. The dealer said
it was I think eleven million or fifteen million or something.
It was actually eighteen million. He had to call anyway,
because he said verbally call, you know. He didn't just
like put chips out.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: The dealer had told him one thing, so he was
under the asumption. You know, So how is how is
that stuff being handled or what sort of fail safes
are you know, being explored to combat that sort of thing,
Because I mean, listen, mistakes are going to happen. There's
going to happen.
Speaker 2: Thanks for happening all the time. And I think that
this one that's a common one and I really want
and on the TDA we have a rule or a
suggested procedure that the dealers announce that's and raises and
the amounts. And not every tournament series does that. Not
everybody does that, but I would really like to see
that happen. So when that does happen, depending on the
skill level of the dealer, these mistakes are going to
happen more and more. So that is a common one.
And the ruling is always or generally, if you make
a verbal statement of call. You have to call whatever
the amount is. But we do have certain situations and
we always go back to TDA number rule rule number one,
which is, you know, in the fairness and what is
best for the game, we can make decisions that may
not affect that mean, maybe the player had his handful.
Let's used Daniel's example for where he, you know, limped
for five thousand, and Arthur raised to thirteen thousand and two,
Plaeople folded, and then Arthur folded his hand in that
spot right there. The dealer is supposed to stop and say, hey,
Daniel still has a hand. You need to protect these
cards from that player that's obviously folding in a spot
where he shouldn't. So now what did Daniel say. He said,
you know that we you know that's a terrible rule.
It was a terrible ruling by that floormant, who was,
by the way, one of the best four people in
the industry. Jordan Cutter shout out. So that's partially a
dealer air, it's partially a player air. But in the
end we give that player back the eight thousand that
he raised, and then Daniel wins the anties, the blinds
and the five thousand from Arthur. So is Daniel getting
penalized in that spot? He says absolutely, I'm getting penalized.
And he said we shouldn't, you know, protect people, even
if it's I think he says Aunt Betty back in Iowa,
and I say, you should protect those people. And there
are certain things where a dealer might scoop up a
hand of a player that's moved all in. It's happened multiple,
multiple times, and again dealer errors are going to happen.
We don't want to, you know, really remount the dealer
and think that it's something that is never going to
be happen in the game. So we want to do
what's best for all players and try and protect the
players from dealer mistakes as best we can. And I
think we do that a lot on the TDA, and
I think it's important.
Speaker 1: This brings up a question I've kind of always had
because you mentioned the archer march Rose and Dane on
the Grand New hamm or Arthur you know, flings his hand,
it hits the muck or whatever. Why is the muck
still there and able to be hit? Because if you
were to like protect it some sort of way or
like put it in a case I don't know exactly,
but like, if you could never hit the muck, then
you could always give a hand back, right, So like,
why isn't that something that's happened.
Speaker 2: And this has happened in the World Series two, just
say that, you know, people are winging their cards in
the muck on the river when they're all in, heads up,
when they're supposed to be showing those cards. There's a
video I think from pilker dot org where they actually
showed helmet on the river all in and he MUCKs
his cards. You shouldn't be allowed to do that. The
dealers should be able to protect that. But again, in
that situation, I'm not going to hold that against a
dealer because he's winging it into the muck. I would
really like to see a better enforcement of that for dealers.
And yeah, I don't hate your idea. There are dealers,
and you really don't want a dealer to have his
hand on top of the muck because that could lead
to some nefarious things over time. But yes, protecting the
muck as best as possible maybe a case I like it.
I like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I'm just thinking, like, why is sometimes
you have the dealers like the muck is basically like
out there right next to the flop. It's like so
easy to hit, you know, like you can try sometimes
I fold and I try and hit the muck, just
you know, to have fun or whatever. Like in a way,
I'm kind of like I should never if we want
hands to be retrievable, you know, like in this situation
where it happened with Daniel and Archer, it would have
been easy to just been like, hey, Archer, here's your handback. Okay,
he still has cards over here, so let's continue the
action and then go from there.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and that's the you know, the thing is
that a lot of times when you're in seed number one,
you're at a disadvantage and people don't ever really think
about it where your cards are so close to that
mott it should be protected better. And I agree, it's
one of those things that you know, the dealers really
need to be trained and be running the game. And
you know, it's not always easy, especially in the summer
when there are you know, thousands of dealers in Las Vegas.
It's tough, tough, tough, tough to get the top dealers
to deal these events. And you know, training, training, training, man,
It's it's something that's it's got to be better. Enforcement
of these rules also has to be better in all situations.
Speaker 1: My favorite seat are one and nine. Just so you're wondering,
So I I like the fact that you get you.
I feel like you get a little bit more space
if you're in the one on your right side or
if you're in the nine on your left side, because
the dealers a little bit further. Sometimes players like just
get right next to you. Sometimes you got to play
ten handed, so I like just that little extra couple
of inches. I'm used to it now where I'm very
careful with my cards. I protect them right away, all
that sort of stuff. So yeah, I like those seats.
You know, I don't have any sort of issue because
I've I've been used to sitting there so many times
that I know how to look at the other players.
Some players, Oh, I can't see the guy in the
nine seer. Orever, we'll just lean forward a little bit,
like it's not that hard.
Speaker 2: I like those that But once that dealer snatches your
cards from the one seed one day, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, it's happened. It happened this summer, not that I
was in the one seed. I think I was in
like the six seat, and the dealer snatched my cards.
And I'm a big proponent that you know when that happened.
I think I was the small blind too, and the
dealer like it must have hit the small blind chip
and then the dealer just grabbed the cards and there
had been some folds and maybe a raise, so there
was a bunch of action, and the dealer was like
overly apologetic. I was like, listen, it's fine, it's one hand.
It's not that big of a deal. I have no
idea what the hand was, so just I was like,
just count the cards to make sure that you didn't
like just miss me completely, and if you have enough cards,
then yes, just carry out with the hants. Not that
big of a deal. But yeah, like I'm I believe
that you should have some sympathy because these dealers are
working long hours, dealing hundreds and hundreds of hands. Mistakes
are going to happen, just like when you're a player.
I'm sure you've made a mistake, misclicking and betting the
wrong amount, acting out of turn, whatever it may be,
and the dealer doesn't blast you for it. No, that's
not how it is. So like, just be you know,
a little bit sympathetic with things. If it happens over
and over again, I get it, you know at that point.
But also like at that point, I would I would
advise players to just get up, find a foreman, say like, hey, listen,
you know this dealer is you know, having issues with this,
this and this. We had a dealer who like literally
couldn't count the pot this summer, like in any hand.
And eventually we were just like, listen, every hand takes
seven minutes. It's just it's not fair to us. So
can you just you know, get someone else in here?
And the TV was like, yes, that's fine, great, I'll
find some one, got someone in, switched it out. There
was no like exchange of words because everyone understood the situation.
And that's how I think things should be going about,
as opposed to this yelling at the dealer because that's
not going to solve anything at all.
Speaker 2: They were all like you, Donnie. I wish they were
all like you. I'm just saying, you know, that's kind
of how literally I built my career. Early on, when
I was started running these big tournaments at the World
Series I basically made an announcement at the start of
the World Series Dealer a beast is going to stop,
and it's going to stop now. And we you know,
there at the Commerce when I was there up in
northern California, we just didn't let the dealer abuse happen
and people got removed and people got eliminated from tournaments
in the past for doing things like that. Throwing cards
to the dealer, which you don't see anymore, used to
be a thing and used to be a common thing,
and I'm glad that that's out of the game entirely. Good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, another question here, were ever going to see the
Big Blind ante or at least a variation of it
in mixed games like in the STUD games for example,
Why is everyone ante?
Speaker 2: There's been a lot of people asking about it, and
you know, we go back four years on the TDA
Summit when we change a lot of the STUD rules.
I know you play a lot of those games, and
people were very, very resistance to changing some of the
age old rules, like in Stud the double bet on
four Street. I still get people from the old school
that like it and they used it to their advantage.
They use it as a way to say I understand
this game and you don't. You're a new player to
this game. Got more questions from dealers, from new players,
from everybody, why is he allowed to double bet on
four Street? And those are the things that are so
ingrained in the mixed game lore that it's very tough
to change. Should there be big blind anti in mixed games?
I think so, I think it would work just fine,
but so many people are resistant to that and think
that it's just such an integral part of the game,
putting up your auntie every time, And it would make
it so much easier for the dealers as well, if
that was one thing, and you would never have to
ask who didn't Danty, You'd never have to go to
the campra. One of the things we found out of
it big blind Anti. It made it so much better.
So yeah, it's something that could change at some point,
but just not yet.
Speaker 1: I mean to the mixed game community that there was
a lot of resistance for big blind Anty in Big
bet right, and eventually people just were like, yeah, this
is way better, Like people came around, is basically what
I'm getting at. But like, sometimes if I do happen
to go play a mixed game, and I play a
stud game, you always get it like once a rotation,
somebody didn't anty who didn't anty? Well, like can we
stop this, guys, like come on exactly?
Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean the other one is people will say,
but mixed games are so much better for short stacking
and coming back from a short stack, and if you
do that, you just ruin the game for everybody. But
it happens, It can happen, and I've seen it. I
think it would work. I'll try again. I'll try again
the next summit.
Speaker 1: All right, So what can people expect from the TDA
going forward. I'm guessing the next TDA summit will be
twenty twenty six, correct, Yeah, but I have.
Speaker 2: Met We'll have one in between here and there somewhere
else in the world. And again, like I'm really excited
about doing that. But yeah, but I think our rules
are just about done and coming out we had some
red lines and very few actual changes, but a lot
of stressing, onenforcement and all those things. So I think
we'll have some of that. And I think that what
I really want to happen is I want to get
our website fixed. I want to get our training certification upgraded,
and I would love to have a level two of certification.
And so many people around the world take that certification
test and it's only ten dollars, but what it does
is it shows the people that you work for and
the people that you're working for that you are taking
your learning of the rules seriously and that is an
important part of your job and what you're doing. So
I would love to see some improvement on that. And
definitely just anybody out there that has any questions or
wants to be a part of the TDA, please reach
out to me. I'm pretty accessible on all things social
and would be happy to plug you in with somebody
in your area of the world to make that happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah. At Savage Poker on Twitter slash x. I know, Matt,
you're always fielding a whole bunch of stuff questions is
this right? Is that right? What would you have ruled?
What would you have not have ruled? I hit you
with some of those via text, you know, quite often
on some stuff. So I think you're doing God's work
out there for responding to all that sort of stuff
because you don't need to.
Speaker 2: So happy to do it. I just again, I want
the game to grow, and I think that's something that
I've always focused on in growing the game globally, and
I think that having a standard set of rules is
super important for doing that. And I do appreciate all
your support there from poker Real great.
Speaker 1: When are we going to get a WPT schedule for December?
Come on, man, it's.
Speaker 2: Kind of I'm telling you, I've getten what I had
like six questions about that today. The schedule's coming out soon.
Ryan Beauregard and the WPT team are working furiously on
what's going to come up, and it's going to be great.
No matter what, it's gonna be great. I expect to
have more events this year than we've had in your past,
and I hope and I am really working on Ryan
very hard and Ray over at the win to have
more mixing fames.
Speaker 1: Very cool, very cool. Well, we'll stay tuned for that.
Thank you very much for joining me here and for
everyone who wants to check out the t DA at
Poker TDA on Twitter, slash xx, or just pokertda dot
com on the web. Matt Savage appreciate you joining as always.
Speaker 2: And very much very happy Tim's not here. Happy you
all right?
Speaker 1: Well, hopefully i'll talk to you soon, and hopefully i'll
see you soon.
Speaker 2: All right, sounds good, Don, Thank you, Jenny,