blonde poker forum

Interesting story.

Should he be allowed to play?

http://www.kget.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=b7c61f67-4255-4239-abf2-b80756c6996e

(hope this link is ok)

He should be allowed to play.  It seems wrong they let a monkey play and not him.  If they are concerned he may be picking up audible(sp?) clues from his helpers voice then they could get round this by using an electronic device. He has no advantage over the other players even though technically there are two players playing for one.

Are there any online sites that cater for blind people?  such as audio assistance

Kinda saw this coming TBH.  Bites, without a doubt...but had a feeling he wouldn't get to play.

I wouldnt be keen on playing a 'blind' person at a game of poker. I am not disrespecting disabled people, i think they are the bravest people in the world. But i think i think a blind person playing poker is taking it a bit too far

should let him play with braille cards

In this day and age there must be technogy out there which would allow this guy to play. I think it is outragous.

I saw the monkey being interviewed on US news a few months back, his advisers say he has improved a lot.  He seemed calm until he saw the poor hand he was dealt during the news feature,  his frustration got the better of him and he threw his chips in the air. I kind of understand his thought processes,  I tend to throw my computer mouse when I get dealt crap as well.


I don't think it is two players.  As long as she doesn't touch him during the game, he can gain no information from her.  They could also use a device to mask her voice tone to prevent sharing any information over how to play a hand. 

I hope he does play.  Poker is a dream, the WSOP is a dream and to take it away from him is plain wrong.

Exactly what i was thinking , he has a right to play .

do they have them?

I'm sure you can get braille cards.

There are also cards that can be read by a scanner, I don't think it would be that hard to link a scanner to an earpiece to tell a blind player their hole cards.

As long as the dealer announced the game carefully then it would be perfectly possible for a blind player to play without slowing down the action.

yes but i wouldnt be happy with them being used at the wsop due to the fact each card is marked (braille)

i think it would be possible now to get an electronic card reader to read his cards for him although i havent seen one thats maybe cause i havent been looking

Purleeeze...this is PC gone mad...

WSOP...9,000 peeps allow changes to accomodate 1 guy. So next we'll have the deaf guy who can't hear the action..what do we do give him a screen?..Then there's the flight phobic.. can't get to Vegas..no probs - we'll set up a video link.

It only affects one table and there is a simple and cheap solution...

and if you can you should

Good grief. The world gets more selfish with every passing day.

Is it too much to bear a little inconvenience so that a severely disadvantaged geezer can live the dream? He can't "see" tells or stuff like that, & yet folks want to deny him his moment? Jeez. Try seeing it from his perspective. He can't.

Bicycle produce Brialle cards, I am quite sure of this.

And the Dealer can announce the cards on the board.

1 pack of Braille cards for the table he is playing and a Dealer doing there job, simple.

He should play.

So, if a Casino is DDA compliant, all they have to do install Wheel-chair access ?

I'm financially challenged and I demand not be discriminated against!!

Don't get it MckyP plays blind drunk every night

Is that from buying all those lovely jumpers  ;D    ;hide;

The old jokes are the.......... old ones  ;)

It was Rob's jumpers that blinded the poor fella in the first place...

One drawback would be a pot he played would take alot longer? Reading the flop betting etc. Not that i'm against it, but if you were at his table you may see fewer hands per hours by some margin. *Shrug* Seems a minor inconvenience tho to let him play.

I have to disagree, I would imagine it not taking longer than anyone else.

...As old as your jumpers   ?? ;whistle;

i have played with braille cards in a friendly game of cards

i personally would not be happy playing with braille cards at the WSOP

the main draw back is that to be able to read the cards they would need to be lifted off the table

where a blind person wouldnt be able to fully insure his cards were not being seen by the rest of the table or the rail

braille cards are not an option

the only answer would be an elctronic reader IMHO

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see why braille cards would be a problem - presumably the sighted players can't make out the braille markings..? Obviously having cards 'marked' in this way would potentially be a problem in a self-deal game, but when the dealer isn't playing I'd have thought that noone would be able to tell what anyone else's cards were just by the braille markings? No?

I agree, he should be allowed to play. And it's, er, shortsighted of the organisers, on behalf of the poker world in general, not to see the PR advantages of finding a way for him to play, and the disadvantages of excluding him. But I guess maybe it's all too big already for them to be bothered about that sort of thing.

Whatever the options, you simply can't have someone sitting there whispering in his ear.

Maybe not, but there must be a solution. Where there's a will.....

I'm sure that a bit of creative thinking, if anyone really cared, could solve the problem.

I imagine they'll find a way, it's good publicity.

"I imagine they'll find a way, it's good publicity."

Wanna bet?

I have played poker against a Blind player in the past and yes Braille cards were used. However, the big disadvantage he had was that he had to remember the flop cards once announced. Although I guess he could ask for a reminder of what the cards were, I remember one hand in particular in which he thought he had a potential straight, but had in fact forgotten the cards on the flop and could not hit a straight.

i can read braillie and i know alot of sighted people that can

not saying i could read a braille book (not sure i could carry one) but i can read basic letters and keywords

one person per hand for me and if braile cards were being used I would learn braille- think of the advantage you would have being able to spot the others cards. l think its going a bit ott to expect 8000 people to be made to change for one person. We have all seen the special olypics with the blind runners etc- if one of those blind runners was quick enough do you think he would be allowed to race in the real olympics? Of course he wouldnt so why should poker be any different (especially as we have a specific rule which says one person to a hand).

Actually ariston we've got that fecker with the spring legs now running on the Athletics circuit and a poss for the Full bodied Olympics. Pretty ridiculous I'd say because I'm not sure where you'd draw the line...I'll have me legs off and have a Porsche grafted on..Gold medal sorted.
Personally I don't think he has a leg to stand on.

I've never played with braille cards, so maybe I'm wrong here, but how can sighted people read what cards people have?  Surely the braille is on the front of the cards, the bit that's face down?  You could only read the braille with your eyes if you could read the print on the face of the card.  :dontask:

Anyway, there's an easy technological solution.  A small device that is a computer with a hand-held scanner and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software, and is effectively an electronic braille reader that's the size of a PDA:

(http://wiredblogs.typepad.com/gadgets/blind.gif)

They also have a reader to 'scan' their cards, and the dealer has one to scan the board cards.  This wirelessly transmits to the reader so the player can 'read' the board whenever they want.  It's not going to hold the play up by more than a few seconds.  It doesn't even need to be a braille device, they could just wear an earphone and it could convert the braille/text to voice automatically.  The scanners are very good these days, and are suitable for reading newspapers - so they would very easily deal with a pack of cards that have large characters on them in a standard format.

Very simple, very easy to move from one table to the next. 

The most difficult element is the betting and counting of chips.  But again, I'm sure there's an easy solution for that too.

Where there's a will there's a way - obviously the will isn't there.

would he be on the blinds every hand???????

Can we just stop this nonsense...we've got Braille cards..feckin PDAs..scanners...jesus just let the fecker play online with a IT competent labrador.

What if the person sat next to him can hear the card reader talking to him? I know you can hear the people that sit there with ipods and walkmans most of the time this may not be any different.

They have them on too loud.

It's just them same as someone revealing their cards to you when they have a look.

He may be slightly hard of hearing though and need it turned up that little bit more.  Perhaps we should have slightly larger tables to accomodate for it?  Surely we can't descriminate against the hard of hearing too.

He could use the braille reader instead if he's hard of hearing.

ah good point

what if his fingers w................... :D

Toes...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Pistorius

Not forgetting of course you'll need different size chips for each denomination...

"...saying that his artificial limbs, called "Cheetahs," do not give him an unfair advantage; " 

Why they called cheetahs then?

I admire him.  Regardless of whether or not the blades give him an advantage, he is an inspiration to many others in the same position.   I know that those watching the 2008 Olympics who have no real interest in athletics will support him over another athlete purely because of what he has had to overcome.  He gives hope to countless others like himself.  I am a strong supporter of Britain and all things British, however during the 2008 Olympics, I will be supporting South Africa in the 400m.

I certainly won't.  It opens up all sorts of methods of cheating.  I'm sure another runner who has a problem with his achilles won't be happy to see someone with an artificial leg (or part of his leg) run when they can't.  If someone injures their calf, are they allowed to use bionic parts to 'fix' the problem? 

The difficulty is where do you draw the line. 

Why?

I happen to know you are a man of great humanity, and would (have, probably) walk a mile in tight boots if it would help someone disadvantaged.

So we can't allow our game to be slowed a tad for a fellow player who's had a shocking beat in life - he's blind?

lol best 2 posts by far!

If its because of the one player per hand rule then i can see their point but i think it would be fair to make an exception in this case.

I don't think 9k players should be made to bend over to help out another player.

Bit of a problem if the others can't tell what the cards are ?

Sandy

 rotflmfao    ;tightend;

A geezer with artificial legs in athletics is sheer PC, Guardianista, liberalistic madness.

The majority sometimes does have to rule.

tony you are right but imagine if you have got into the main event for the first time ever and you have 2 people playing each hand next to you (ok one person whispering to the other what his cards are then getting the correct ammount of chips and betting etc). This would mean you have far less hands per hour and it would cause a lot of disruption for a lot of people. Sure hes been dealt a bad beat by being blind but if he did happen to go deep how many people would he be inconveniencing? Its a 10k event and meant to be the biggest in the world so lets not let the PC brigade take over. It would personally make no difference to me as I never get past level 2 anyway in the ME but I think overall its a bad idea to break the one person per hand rule for anyone, no matter how you word it.

You have to remember that this is America, the bloke can now sue the wsop for not letting him play and he will get more than first place anyway.

The one person per hand rule wouldn't need to be broken.  There are very simple and available technological solutions that solve the problem.

 
His "translator"wouldn't bother me in the slightest.....good luck to the guy.
 Enough players dwell up for an eternity over the smallest decision.

At the finish  ;whistle;

please do not mix up the special olypmics with the para olympics

Well, we can't have folks who've lumped up $10k to play a game inconvenienced, now can we?

And it's got nowt to do with being PC Russ. I just feel that with a little thought & effort, the guy could be accommodated. But this is poker, and I guess I'm being a little optimistic.

This guy did actually play yesterday with a friend whispering him his hole cards and giving a running commentary on what the other players were doing.

Not the best solution in my opinion.