Sunglasses at the Table

There has been a lot of talk about sunglasses over the last week or two since a lot of the people playing High Stakes Poker brought up the topic. I will be the first one to tell you that I think sun glasses are good for the game and if banned, just might push poker back in the dead age of the 1980�s.

The first and main reason sunglasses are good for poker is because it gives new players confidence to hop into games they normally wouldn't play. Being stared down by Phil Ivey is tough even with glasses. If they told me I couldn't wear glasses, I simply wouldn't play with him. If you check out most major tournaments, most of the weaker players will be wearing sun glasses. If you ban sun glasses, I bet half of those poker players simply would not play because it would make the game unenjoyable. If you take half of the weak players out of major tournaments, especially in the hurting American poker tournaments, you would be left with a bunch of pros paying the rake.

In addition to boosting confidence, sunglasses help players reduce their tells. Some players like to think poker is a game about staring down people, getting a read on them, then going with it. Some people think poker is about math and using logic to figure out what is going on. The math guys tend to prefer sunglasses because they don't rely on tells, as they don't find them as useful as common sense. The feel guys want to cry about sunglasses because they know it cuts down on their edge. I like to think of myself as a mix of both players. Having common sense though, I choose to wear sunglasses in every major tournament I play.

If you give me a weapon that will cut my opponents edge in half, I will use it. It really is as simple as that. Most online players that have moved to live poker wear sunglasses because they realize not wearing the glasses can only be -EV. I like making +EV decisions, so I wear them. Not giving off tells to the guys that have no clue how math applies to poker makes me happy. Simply because the feel players realize their edge is diminishing is not a reason to give them what they want. Maybe they will be forced to become better players.

Sunglasses also help you observe a player without them knowing it. When you are playing poker, you should rarely be looking at the person who is thinking about making a big call on the river, which is where most people look. You actually need to be looking at the guy that made the big bet. One sure sign of a good player is they will be looking at the bettor. If you are a weaker player, or even a good one, you don't want to let the bettor know you are trying to pick up tells. You don�t want them to know you are constantly gathering info about their tells. If you are forced to start right at them though, they will realize this, and then do things to throw you off.

A lot of players, especially older players, complain about sunglasses hurting their eyes because they are so dark. Thankfully in the world we live in today, sunglasses don�t have to be dark. You can pick up a great pair of basically 100% see through glasses from www.BlueSharkOptics.com. They are pretty inexpensive and work very well.

Another major gripe I have with banning glasses is where do you draw the line? Next year are you going to be banning iPods? Maybe the next year, you won't be able to order drinks at the table because they get spilt from time to time. Maybe you will be forced to wear a suit and a tie to make the game feel more formal and reputable. Taking away the players� right to do something is rarely a good thing as the powers that make the rules rarely know when to stop.

The idea of cheating with sunglasses has also been brought up. Honestly, if someone is dumb enough to use invisible ink to mark cards that can only be seen while wearing sunglasses in a casino, there the penalty is jail time, they have pretty big issues. If you think someone is cheating with their glasses, ask them to try them on and see if you see marks on the cards. As far as I know, I have only been cheated in a poker game once, and that was in a private home game. Cheating simply does not go on in high stake poker games because the penalty for getting caught is much too high.

The last thought about sunglasses is that they are bad for tv. I think this simply isn�t true. Weak players play in televised events because they have a chance to do well. If weak players stop making final tables because they have huge eye tells, that will diminish the concept that anyone can win a major tournament. If you want the general public to watch and play poker tournaments, you have to let the general public make the final table.

That�s all the things I can come up with off the top of my head. If you guys have comments or suggestions, feel free to let me know.