Everywhere I go people ask me about rules and everywhere I play they ask me about fairness of the game. Everywhere I go I hear complaints about the existing rules and most of the time the complaint was based on the different rulings. I have played in many different places and almost every casino in the world has it own rules and it will take more than just a new set of rules to shows us how to play a fair game of poker. The problem is that all the casino’s just do what they want and they don’t want to cooperate with each other. And I think that it is pretty easy to narrow the gap that exists at the moment.

The Bellagio poker room is one the most famous en experienced poker room in the world and they were the first to set the step to play by the International Poker Rules.

Maybe you think that the rest is easy and the other casino’s can just follow the Bellagio poker room but it’s not as easy as we thought. Many of the existing poker rooms need’s to start from the beginning because the have no idea about any rules, let’s not mention the International Poker Rules. They don’t have a clue that it’s possible to have the same rules all over the globe.

The thing is that it’s easier (and maybe cheaper) for casino’s to just misdeal and re-shuffle than to learn a whole new set of rules. I don’t think that they will sit down and think about what’s better for their players. Time is money and it takes some time to implement a new set of rules in a poker room.

Big multinationals, like in Vegas and Macau, are more interested in their return on investment and they wouldn’t bother about a player that it is AT or IN his seat. As long as the game will carry on and they get the right numbers to make up for their investments.

As a player, I do care, and I hope to get the support from many other players. I hope other players will support me that we do like to play by the most fair rules and that the rules will be for the players instead of against the players. We all want to protect the integrity of the game of poker but we don’t want to work together to make a standard set of rules on an International level. That doesn’t sound right to me! It can not be correct that every party can organize a game and use rules that they think that are best in their OWN interest. And it can not be correct that they just go with the flow of what is in place instead of trying to get a basic set of rules that everybody can play by & adjust on the spot. At least they basically should always play by the same rules.

Another thing is that it’s hard to get to credibility we want about poker as a sport and let people take poker seriously if we, in most cases, don’t know what the rules are. If we want poker to be treated as a sport we should use one set of rules all over the world. Just like other sports.

If you enter a poker room and ask with what rules we are going to play with, most of the time the answer is something like TDAish. Now that’s funny because the word ‘ish’ tells us that they never follow the rules exactly and most of the time the ruling will be made by what the floor thinks it’s best at that particular moment.

As a player I would prefer that all poker rooms will use the International Poker Rules so we know BEFORE the event starts, what we can expect and that we can expect that the organization will fulfill their job as we agreed on and is written down in the book.

In a short period of time there will be a website where we can all find the International Poker Rules and it’s going to be really easy to use. It’s going to be better than any existing set of rules out there, including the rules from the WSOP. Although, that last part isn’t too difficult because those rules were made to make Harrahs a fortune!

It is in the best interest of the poker industry that we are going to play by a standard set of rules that will protect players as well protect the management, with fairness for those who pay the whole industry. WE… THE POKER PLAYERS.

So, it’s simple, we just want to know upfront what we can expect from a certain event and that is the minimum we can ask for. We are paying the organizations to host events and we need to know what to expect.

With thanks to the TDA, Robert’s Rules, the Bellagio management, many other Tournament Directors and all poker players worldwide we have managed to write down a set of international poker rules that are fair and easy to play by. We wrote it in simple language so that everybody, and I mean even beginning poker players, can understand the rules.

We have done our part and took a voluntarily step to make these rules and we expect the credit of using the best rules that are out there, in the best interest of the product, it sponsors and we, the players.

The website will be lounged soon :-)

The rules are written for all of you who have asked us questions about the rules during our years on the tour. We will make standard rules en hopefully we will play everywhere with better rules very soon.

Dreams are part of many people s future, so why give that up?

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Enjoy the music!

More Than Just a Game – Music Album

Marcel Luske

Team PokerStars Pro