It’s come to my attention recently that a number of Southern California and Vegas poker rooms are having electronic poker tables installed in a effort to eliminate the cost of dealers and increase the number of hands played per hour. A fairly large discussion on the forum over at www.onlinepoker.com has tackled the question of whether or not the move to electronic tables are good or bad for poker, and I was actually surprised to see more than half of the members say that they’re all for the new digital tables.
Maybe I’m old school, but the reason I liked poker to begin with was the human element, the interaction between players, the dealers, etc. This factor is diminished greatly in tournament poker where you aren’t sitting with the same dealer or players usually for more than an hour at a time, but for regular cash games at your local cardroom where everyone knows each other, it’s that camaraderie amongst players that I feel will be tossed out with these electronic tables.
Now don’t get me wrong, I definitely see the upside, especially for tournaments. The ability to see more hands before the blinds/antes go up is always a good thing, and tournament poker is typically much more competition and less friendly than a cash game, so I can absolutely see the advantages there, not to mention that many cardrooms use tournaments as a training ground for new dealers, which can really slow up a table. But what about a $5-$10 NL cash game? Do you really want to sit huddled around a little LED screen and betting with digital chips?
Now how about the ways that these tables will affect player strategy? A number of tells and behavioral patterns will be removed from the game, such as the way players hold their cards, stack their chips, etc. Will we be learning a completely new set of tells? Will we know if someone is bluffing based on which finger they use to bet with on their screen?
In my opinion, there are really only two reasons to use electronic tables in a live poker setting:
1. To increase the number of hands played in a tournament, and
2. To give new players a less intimidating setting to get their poker feet wet. Otherwise, you might as well just play online. To me, playing with real cards, real chips and with a real dealer is the reason you play in a live cardroom versus online. If we remove all of that from the game, then why even leave our chairs at home?
I have a Vegas trip scheduled a month from now and I do plan on sitting down at one of these new tables. Maybe the experience will change my mind, maybe not. Stay tuned for my report. Until then, cya!
