What kind of watches are allowed at the poker room (live cash)?

There is neither a rational reason nor (as far as I know) any written rules that you can’t use a watch for RNG reasons. And even if there were a rule around it, it wouldn’t differentiate between analog and digital.

That isn’t to say that there won’t be people weirded out by it, and there have been stories of the floor taking the side of people being weirded out by it. But I don’t think we can help you with that.

With the state of phone and smart device usage at the table, I think I’d lose my goddamn mind if someone got in trouble for glancing at their Shark watch or whatever while turning a blind eye to people (for all we know) getting actual RTA or communicating with others at the table on their little black brick that holds all the world’s knowledge. Even if I weren’t directly affected by the ruling, I’d be seething about it.

What advantage is gained if the watch is a RNG?

So phones, tablets, even laptops are allowed at the table but you think the computing power of a watch is the concern?

Better safe than sorry. I wasn't sure.

Sounds like a simple digital watch at the table would be perfectly fine.

I just ordered one.

My RNG question was legit. Why would anyone care if you had a RNG at the table? Which btw any smart phone can easily handle.

So, if someone wanted to use an RNG at the live table?

I think looking at your phone in a hand if you were in a tough spot might look very suspicious. Players might be wondering what you're doing on your phone. Or if you were going to pull out your phone when you're in a "situation", it might be a looking like you're distracted. i.e. "Hey, stop looking at your phone, play your hand"

If you glance down at your watch, this is much more subtle and less intimidating, since it's obvious you're not looking at something up online. It's also a subtle way of timing your play to make sure you're not taking longer than a minute to act in a certain spot, or if you wanted to randomize a play, you might use the second hand on your watch (instead of using something else like your chips or your phone).

I was getting a couple of coaching sessions from a guy who played hi stakes in Macau a couple of years ago, and he told me if I was in a live game I could shuffle my chips if I wanted to randomize. But he also told me I might want to be subtle about that. I wasn't really sure why he suggested that I be subtle about it, if it's against the rules or because he didn't want them to know his strategy. I'm also realizing now that Macau does not allow use of devices at the table in a hand. You would need to stand up at the table in between hands if remember correctly to go on your cell phone.

Caring about RNG at the table is irrational, but my best explanation is that they think you're consulting your watch to make a decision, which feels RTA-adjacent in some way. It's just kind of being scared of what you don't understand.

Sorry for my ignorance, are there cardrooms where it's not against the rules to use your phone during a hand?

Don't get me wrong, enforcement is a problem in any room I've played in, but I thought it was a blanket rule that it was forbidden.

Are there card rooms where it's against the rules to wear a watch?

Not as far as I know, but the use of smart devices (including smart watches) during hands should be strictly prohibited and the prohibition should be consistently enforced.

Banning like Rolexes would be ridiculous lol

I would say most rooms either do not have a rule against using your smartphone during a hand, or don't enforce it if they do. It is certainly not my experience that most do have a rule against it.

Rolexes are definitely fine.

Checking a standard digital watch during a hand should also be fine as far as I know, nobody has objected to using that.

Smart watches during a hand I agree is questionable, and phones - (usually players at the table are watching YouTube videos, browsing any random thing, or playing video games or online poker during hands when they are distracted). It's banned in some places, such as Macau during hands.

TDA rule 5 states that people may not talk on a phone at the table, nor use it for a competitive advantage. Players with live hands may not interact with or use any electronic or communication devices.

If someone is watching a movie, I'll agree most rooms will let it slide. I believe someone who was typing in something into their phone with a live hand would get stopped pretty quickly.

I see its enforcement in the New England casino rooms from time to time. Someone really has to be pecking away though.

It might be interesting to be mindful the next time we are watching the nosebleed guys play if they have on watches or not. I know a lot of them are into randomizing their plays.

Don't get me wrong, it's not enforced at all.

But every room I've played in has a rule against using your phone during a hand. From there, it's just a matter of whether you're doing it blatantly enough for the person who lives off of tips from the players to risk of coming off as a Karen and/or make someone feel singled out because undoubtedly they've witnessed someone else use a phone without being reprimanded.

Don't even get me started on tournaments. It doesn't matter whether you're in a hand or not, it's way too easy to pull up a push/fold chart between hands to check how you should play the next one.

Well I doubt young guns wear any watch other than smart watch these days.

If you do intend to use a watch to randomize your decisions, you need to be very careful. Maybe it is a myth, but you probably should check out the stories of Andy Beal checking his watch when he was playing the corp.

I literally have an RNG complication on my Apple Watch that will give me a number 1-100 if I turn up my wrist and look at it and I can't for the life of me figure out why OP thinks that wouldn't be allowed?

Using apps on your smartwatch to help make a poker decision?

You might be the first person in the thread to assert that it's ok to do that.

What other apps are you using or ok with others using, when you're at the tables playing live during a poker hand, if any?

This.

Again, what advantage is gained from using a RNG at the table? Whether the RNG is a smart watch, analog watch, or a coin you flip. There are inherently numerous ways to generate a binary random number. The tool used really doesn’t matter.

My concern about referring to an app on your smart watch before every poker decision are two-fold, one on principle and the other is more practical:

1) I think there should be a blanket ban on any and all app-enabled devices during a hand. So I take issue with using an RNG app for the same reason that I think you shouldn't be allowed to text during a hand--not because I think you and your wife are colluding in the hand by discussing what you should pick up for dinner on the way home, but because you could be texting someone other than your wife about something other than dinner.

This concern, of course, doesn't exist with an analog or even standard digital watch.

2) You don't just have to convince us--ostensible poker pros--that RNG isn't RTA. You may have to convince some salty septuagenarian who's pissed at you for making a whacky play only after looking at your watch screen, and then you are in fact conceding that the app on your watch did give you some piece of information that did indeed inform your decision. And you have to do this bearing in mind that you're explaining things to someone who perhaps doesn't play online because they don't trust the shuffler RNG and/or don't run it twice with certain hands because they think it changes their odds, and whatever other number of bull-headed irrational beliefs about probabilities that no one has ever been able to convince them otherwise of. (And aside from the being salty about losing a hand thing, all of this can describe the floor as well, who have no obligation to understand probablistic or game theoretical principles to enforce the basic rules of a cardroom.)

I use RNG at live tables and hope it's never banned and think it would be incredibly stupid if it did. But if it did, it would mark approximately the five millionth stupid rule that I disagree with that's been implemented across casinos, sports, schools, politics, you name it in my lifetime.

This concern shouldn't be dependent on whether you're getting your random number from a clock or an app, but again, we're operating outside the realm of rationality here. I do think the odds of someone getting laughed out of the poker room for trying to claim you cheated by looking at the seconds hand on a watch are increased enormously, and the likelihood of anyone arguing Rolexes should be banned from the poker room or no one should be allowed to see what time it is during a hand are effectively null.

Also, if you're just using the seconds hand of your watch, you don't have to concede all that I said you'd have to concede above about how you were using an app that informed your poker decision. (Or run the risk of getting caught in a lie if anyone does in fact see that random numbers sporadically appear on your watch face.) Just a simple half truth that you were just checking what time it is will suffice. Or a 3/4 truth: I went to check what time it was and saw it was Bluff o' Clock!

A binary randomization? Maybe.

But there are surprisingly few practical ways in a poker room of consistently generating a truly or even apparently random output in a split second (and I've considered quite a few of them). And all of them are more convoluted than using the seconds hand on your own personal wrist watch. You are welcome to come as deep into this rabbit hole that's as cavernous as it is stupid if you'd like, or what I recommend: just trust me, bro.

I'm not really using the RNG function when I play, so I might not be the best person to ask. I have watched others do it.

I do see video makers "rolling" to modulate their frequencies, and I've seen RNG apps used, so I would assume that using the app is more efficient than looking at your watch. It provides an efficiency and consistency advantage.

Note:

I was more interested in using the watch to monitor time for my decisions in game, because I found I was rushing my decisions in some very big pots that I should have been giving myself more time to act.

It would be easier if I could use a stopwatch or use the apps on my phone possibly to keep up with time also.

Looking at the watch isn't as efficient as having a timer set up on my phone with a larger screen.

Never zero?

I could set it to include 0 but then it would be 101 numbers.......