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BGonline.org Forums
OT - Poker Ethics?
Posted By: Phil Simborg In Response To: OT - Poker Ethics? (Stick)
Date: Monday, 24 October 2011, at 3:02 a.m.
There are ethics, and there are rules. Ethics are always a gray area unless some official ruling body has covered a specific area of the ethics to, in effect make them rules. So if poker does not specifically say that you cannot lie, then it is not illegal and therefore not unethical. Lying is a part of every sport and game where it is not expressly prohibited (should a baseball player admit he didn't catch the ball on a fly?).
In backgammon, we do have some rules about lying. You cannot say "I will double you if you make that move," and then not double after he makes that move. While backgammon rules are poorly written, I am pretty confident that any good tournament director would force the player to double. In our chouette even if you make a verbal offer you cannot rescind it.
Was it nice to lie? I don't think so, but if I were playing a game where lying and deceiving your opponent is an essential, accepted practice, then YOU MUST lie occasionally to keep them guessing even when you are telling the truth.
In backgammon, even in this area we have gray areas that are not only not covered in the rules, they are not even clear in terms of what is thought to be good sportsmanship. In doubles, I can say, out loud, to my partner, that I don't think it is a double, even though I know it's not even a take, just to attempt to mislead my opponents. While some might think this is not ethical, most of us know it is done all the time and is not against the rules, so it is not necessarily unsportmanlike conduct. However, if I am not playing doubles, and I say under my breath that I think I might be too good to double, but what the heck, I guess I'll just go ahead and cash, but in reality I think it's a big take and I'm just saying this to trick my opponent into dropping, we have no clear standards that say whether or not this is unethical. It is probably legal to do this, as the rules don't specifically say you can't say things to mislead your opponent, but I think most of us will agree that if a far superior player does this to trick a lesser player, he has certainly not acted very kindly or gentlemanly and most of us would agree this is, at the very least, not nice. Personally, I think it should be illegal, but we run into all kinds of problems trying to prove the what the intent of the player was and what he was actually thinking when he made the misleading statements. So since enforcement is very difficult (along with trying to prove what someone actually did or did not say), it probably is best that we do not deal with this issue in the rules.
Bottom line, if the rules don't say you can't do something, unless it is something clearly in violation of the rules in some other way, anything goes. (The rules of backgammon do not say you can't bring a dead fish to the table, but the tournament director has the right to deem this, or anything else he chooses, as unsportsmanlike.)
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