New Rule At Hollywood Park on Missed Blinds

[Alan Mendelson]

There is a new rule at the live poker games at Hollywood Park Casino here in LA. If you leave the table for more than one big blind the dealer will remove the big blind amount from your stack and add it to the pot. And this will continue for each big big blind you miss. If you do not have enough chips to pay the Big Blinds you will lose your seat.

It seems they are doing this to prevent players from taking a seat at a table, then walk around while their player Cards are scanned for comps and promotions.

[Rob.Singer]

Them advantage players are smart rascals....Too bad they can't pull their cards when they're not sitting down

[Alan Mendelson]

Actually, part of the problem is that the casino employees scan the cards of players who are not in their seats. Players leave their cards at their seat, and the "scanners" scan them anyway. The casino's rule is that players must be active in the game to have their cards scanned -- but the casino never enforced that rule.

By the way, the "big blind" that is removed from the absent player does go into the pot -- it is not taken by the casino. So frankly, it actually benefits the other players who are active in the game. At the same time, it is cutting down on one of the "tricks" of the "advantage players" at Hollywood.

Imagine if video poker players were rated based on the time in their seats at the machine, and not on the number of hands played? Video poker players would play very slowly, if at all. Well, that's the equivalent of those players at Hollywood Park who walked around and left their cards on the table to be scanned.