Poker Rules in Minnesota Bars & Restaurants
"Learning the rules of a game is basically learning the game."
Peter Mansavage
Ways To Learn
Learn the rules of the game.
This website has always said that it's best to learn the rules of the game that you are going to be playing. One of the best ways to do this is to look at some of the documents pertaining to the way the game is conducted at different locations within the Twin Cities, Minnesota, area. For example, you can read the rules of how Texas Hold'em Poker Tournaments have been run in a bar in Prior Lake, Minnesota. These rules date back several years ago; however, are still current when compared to the way the current Tournaments are held throughout the area.
One of the most confusing and widely altered rules of the game involves what happens when the person whose turn it is to deal the next hand, or the person who is to be the next hand's big or small blind, gets eliminated in the preceding hand. Who deals the next hand? Who is Small Blind? Who is Big Blind? The rule tends to change from bar or restaurant to bar or restaurant, but luckily, there always tends to be someone at the table that knows how to implement the rule and who takes control of the game.
While on the topic of rules, this writer feels compelled to state his biggest irritation regarding the breaking of the rule about burning cards. Nothing burns me more than when a player, in what I perceive to be a cutesy move, burns three burn cards while placing all three cards of the what should have been the upcoming flop, plus the turn card and the river card, all at once on the table in front of him or her before even the first bet of the hole cards, and then proceeds to turn up the cards on the table at the designated times for the flop, turn and river. It's like the dealer has no knowledge of the historical purpose behind the act of burning cards; to prevent cheating just in case a player in the game had marked the card that is currently on the top of the deal during the deal.
If you would like a great excercise in learning the rules, compare and contrast the rules from the Prior Lake bar with the rules of Straight Flush Poker Tour as currently actively played in many of the locations listed on these minnesotapoker pages (previously and soon to be again, the freepoker pages). Send me the results of your research for fun.