ASL Speakers Gather in Cleveland for Deaf-Only Poker Tournament

(Photo: Toledoblade.com)

Poker, for all its talk of a paycheque-eat-paycheque world, is at heart a social game. Two to ten people sat around a table shooting the shit (and occasionally each other) over the course of an evening.

So when Elliot Scheckter, poker room manager for the Hollywood Casino was approached by a local community of deaf people to set up a semi-private event catering for the hearing impaired in the area, he saw a great opportunity to make the Hollywood poker room a social hub for the local deaf and American Sign Language community.

Spreading the Word

Since the Hollywood picked it up, the deaf-only tournament has been spreading. The Deaf Poker Tour and World ASL Series of Poker (WASP) were set up to standardize the rules for deaf-only tournaments and to help casinos set up tournaments and train staff in the new rules (for instance not all verbal declarations are binding at deaf tables). WASP bought out the Deaf Poker Tour in February this year and is in the process of merging the two series.

People drive across the states for these events to see old friends and to make new ones. The WASP Tour’s Ohio Deaf Poker Championship in Cleveland, Ohio on the 16th September drew 59 players for its $100 Main Event from as far afield as Maryland and Arizona. There is even a Deaf Poker Tour in Italy now.

It may even be that ASL speakers have an advantage at the poker tables, with their greater awareness of body-language and expression.

“Deaf people are more observant of what’s going on around them,” said Gabe O’Hicks, the runner up in the Main Event. He went on to add that for him “playing against hearing people is easier.”

The Accommodating Game

In 2007 Hal Lubarsky became the first blind player to cash in the WSOP, when he was allowed to have a reader whisper his hole cards to him – admittedly after some pushback from the Harrah’s management over the one player to a hand rule. And the year before that William Rockwell gathered a cheering section playing with his feet after losing the use of his arms in a motorcycle accident.

Hearing impaired players face a particular challenge at the table, given the rules on verbal declarations and perhaps being more comfortable with ASL than English at the tables. Now with tournaments like this week’s Cleveland event the game is more accessible and, as a result, more fun.