Sunglasses Are for Cheaters Says Negreanu
Poker pro Daniel Negreanu has strong views and uses his poker blog to articulate them. In his latest blog he has attacked the practice of wearing sunglasses at the tables. He begins the blog with a cryptic statement, “If everyone in an event was told they were prohibited from wearing sunglasses it’s as fair as allowing anyone to wear them.” But he soon gets down to brass tacks and explains why he feels wearing sunglasses is cheating.
According to Negreanu sunglasses make it easier to see marked cards. Negreanu does not explain what he means. But this could be a possible explanation. While players handle their cards a player who is a cheater type could scratch the ace of spades on the design side with his nail in such a manner that it would not be apparent to the naked eye. But the scratch would be clearly seen through sunglasses making it easy for the player to locate the ace of spades during the dealing. If Negreanu knows that there are people who are engaging in this unfair practice, he should be talking names.
The second reason the Negreanu states is that one of the skills in poker is to read your opponents. For doing this well you need to look into your opponents eyes. If the opponents wear sunglasses then the skilled players like Negreanu can no longer read them. Hence Negreanu feels that sunglasses prevent the exercise of a legitimate poker skill. What Negreanu imputes in his blog is that he does not wear sunglasses (nor do the majority of the world’s top players). Therefore all his opponents are welcome to look into his eyes and read him. But all players are not good at reading. Therefore they are at a disadvantage if no one wears sunglasses.
Negreanu argues that banning sunglasses creates a level playing field. However allowing all players to wear sunglasses if they want to also creates a level playing field. Playing poker online is like playing with opponents who wear sunglasses. You cannot look into their eyes and read them. No one has complained about online poker not being fair to all. It is just that Negreanu’s concept of level field caters to his skills. So in his new television show The Big Game he is banning sunglasses.
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