And other challenging poker problems and their solutions...
THAT RARE DISCONNECT! In five years of playing online poker I’ve never had a disconnect take place during a game but I know from other players it can and does happen on rare occasions. Even computers and the internet are not yet infallible, although they’re likely to evolve to that happy state long before human beings manage it. So let’s look at what this means to your money as and when it occurs. Let’s assume the worst case scenario: You are holding a premium hand as the disconnect takes place. The major poker sites all have pretty much the same software in place for this kind of event. During a live hand the site will treat your inability to continue as an “all-in-disconnect”.
YOUR CHIPS WILL BE PROTECTED Effectively all the chips you have already invested in the pot up to the disconnect will be protected but obviously you will have lost the chance to bet anymore on your premium cards. The bottom line is, the pot is frozen and any stakes made by the other players following your unfortunate disconnect go into a side pot which you will not be involved in. You will have effectively been put all-in by the software. It may of course still turn out that you win the pot with your premium hand, but if the pot turns out to be small it means you won’t have extracted the kind of value for your powerful hand that continued participation might have brought you.
THE SOLUTION SEEMS FAIR I have given some thought to this issue and programming the software to automatically put you all-in seems to me the best solution a player could expect from any poker site as clearly a disconnect is something way outside of their control. At least by being put all-in your investment is protected and you continue a limited involvement in the game with a chance of a pay-off.
BEWARE SEAT CHANGERS When you’re playing a live game you notice if a sixteen stone Texan gets up and leaves the table to be replaced by a Jordan look-alike and adjust your game, and probably your posture, accordingly. This recognition of a personnel change is not so easy in an online game. It is completely against site rules for online players to share ID’s but it does happen. You may take quite a while building up your notes and profiling an opponent only to find he starts playing as though he’s just had a brain transplant. This will indicate he’s either a really cool player who has suddenly changed gears on you or it could be his sober mate just walked in and took over the tiller on his ID. It’s another of those rare events but you need to be alert and ready to spin your strategy round on a dime the moment you suspect it.
