Poker Forum

During the Event #54, "World Championship $5000 2-7 NL Lowball Draw w/Re-buy".

A senior poker player called me over to their table #7, he asked me a question: "What's the Cell Phone Rule". Barry Greenstain sit on his left seems paying very much attention on my answer. I said, after the 1st card has been dealt, the player on the phone will have a dead hand. Barry said if a player has step away from the seat his hand is not dead. I don't want to argue with players, the best thing is show the rule book to them. It's happened to be I just had the WSOP-2007 rule book in my hand since the Rule #81 had just enforced few minutes ago.(re: wsop-2007 Rule #81 has saved late registrants, but didn't save Phil Hellmuth much".

Cell Phone Rule: A player who wants to use a cellular phone must step away from the table. Any player on the cell phone or texting a messaging when the dealer delivers the first card from the deck will have a dead hand. No cell phone can be placed on a poker table. (WSOP-2007 Rule #82)

The senior poker player told me that he has just won $1000 us dollar from Barry Greenstain on this Cell Phone Rule.

Why Barry Greenstain lost such a bet. I looked TDA rule after I heard that. Here is the TDA Rule:

Cell Phone: A player who wants to use a cellular phone must step away from the table.
The TDA rules have been used in most of the major poker tournament includes World Series of Poker. WSOP has its own individual rules besides the TDA rules. Of course, WSOP rules will over ruling the TDA rules at WSOP.

Let's take look the WSOP-2006 and WSOP-2005's "Cell Phone Rule":

WSOP-2006: A player who wants to use a cellular phone must step away from the tournament area. Headphones will not be permitted once a player reaches the money per prize structures.

WSOP-2005: A player who wants to use a cellular phone must step away from the table. Headphones will not be permitted once a player reaches the money per prize structures.

Barry Greenstain must have heard WSOP-2007's cellular phone rules has been revised back to WSOP-2005, it's different than WSOP-2006, or it's same as TDA rules.

Among the poker players, Barry Greenstain is the most friendly poker pros. I like him, I would show the WSOP-2005 rules book to them if I knew he had $1000 side bet on it. By the way, Barry is a big George.