Poker Etiquette
I was playing at the casino not too long ago and again in a home game that I occasionally frequent and I was blown away by a couple of things that I saw. No, not a horrific bad beat or some donkey chasing down a 4 outer to bust a guy on the river. No, it was worse than that. It was unbelievably horrible poker etiquette. I know this is a game where we're supposed to try and take everything from our opponents and when they go on tilt, our task can become that much easier. However, there is an etiquette involved when playing this game and I'm going to go over a few of the examples I saw when playing live plus some others in general.
Slow Rolling: This one is by far the worst of them all. Not to be confused with slow playing which is obviously OK. Slow rolling is when a hand gets shown down and you intentionally take your time in showing what you know is the winner. For example, if you're holding AA and the board is A A K 8 2, you know you have the best hand possible. So many times I've seen people with the nuts either wait for their opponent to show their cards or they go for the dramatic effect and slowly turn their cards over. When you have the best hand (and it's usually pretty obvious when you do) then just show it right away and collect the chips. There's no need to show up your opponent. He's probably going to be tilting anyway from losing a big pot without stupid antics like slowrolling involved. Anyone who does it intentionally should have to get junk punched from the person he did it to. The only time it's OK is when you're good friends with someone and you have that kind of relationship. I have a friend that I can get away with stuff like that. There was one funny episode of Poker After Dark where Antonio Esfandiari slow rolls Phil Laak and I say it's funny because those two are always trying to bust each other. To illustrate how these two love to go at each other, here is a video on a previous episode where Antonio calls Phil's all in... . And now, here is the slowroll.... Other than that though, just show your cards
Talking When You're Not In The Hand: This is pretty bad too. I was in a hand awhile back where the flop was J 8 6 rainbow. Myself and two players were in the hand, one was utg, one was immediately to his left and I was in the cutoff (one away from the BB). I was holding pocket 9's. The turn brought what I thought at the time was a sweet looking 9. UTG player bets $25. The next guy smooth calls and I make it $75. The UTG player moves all in. The second guy goes into the tank for quite awhile. He's talking out loud (which he shouldn't be doing when there's another player in the hand. Heads up it's OK) trying to sort out what he thinks the all in player could have. He shows his hand to the person behind him and he keeps saying "How can I throw this away?". I put him on a set of 8's or 6's, most likely 6's. Either way, I know I'm calling but I'm trying to make it look like I want him to decide so I can fold. I'm holding my cards in a way that makes it look like I'm getting ready to muck which I think really made calling harder for him. All of a sudden, the guy to my right starts talking. "Well, there's a straight out there with 10 7 but there's no flush. Maybe he slow played JJ..." I looked at him immediately and told him he needed to be quiet and he says he can say whatever he wants. The dealer immediately intervened and told him to not talk when he's not playing. The guy couldn't understand what the big deal was. It's not up to you to talk about a hand you're not involved in. Maybe you say something like "From the way he bet I think he's bluffing". Well, maybe the person in the hand didn't catch what you did and now he calls with a better hand, causing the first guy to lose some money. Or maybe you're wrong, causing the guy that calls more money because he takes what you said into account. Either way, you don't need to be effecting the outcome. By the way, the second guy did fold and he did have pocket 6's. I called and the UTG player showed 10 7 (which I just couldn't put him on because up to that point he had played pretty straightforward and 10 7 UTG is an awful hand. Luckily for me I rivered an 8 to make a full house. ;-)
Berating Other Players: We've probably all done it, or been pretty close to doing it. Some guy plays a hand like a complete donkey and wins a big pot and now you're steaming. It's so hard not to steam in some of these situations but the reality of it is, you should be glad this guy is making these kinds of plays. Eventually, he's going to lose those chips back and if you keep your focus, those chips have a good chance of coming back to you. Don't educate them either. Just tap the table with your knuckle and say nice hand. You want them to think they made a good play and therefore will do it again. It happens a lot in the online world because people are much tougher behind their monitors than they are in real life. What really amazes me though, is when I see the pros doing it. They should REALLY know better and nobody does this more than Phil Hellmuth. Sometimes it's a good show and other times it's really bad, like when he went nuts at last year's World Series against Dragomir. Now, I don't necessarily blame him for being angry at the ridiculous call preflop but he did step way over the line...Watch
Berating the Dealer: This one is just plain dumb. You suffer a bad beat and you start getting mad at the dealer like it's his fault. Like somehow, for some reason, he shuffled the cards in such a way as to make you lose. He's there to shuffle the cards (sometimes not even that as the actual poker tables now have built in shufflers), deal them, keep the pots straight and push the chips to the winner of the hand all while keeping the action moving in a timely manner. They aren't there to get you or to deal you bad cards. They're just trying to earn a leaving. When you take a bad beat, maybe analyze your own play or just chalk it up to bad luck instead of taking it out on those that have nothing to do with the outcome. Maybe the poker Gods got you for not tipping your dealer in the last pot you won. lol
Reacting To a Flop When You're Not In It: This is sort of similar to talking about a hand but just done in a different way. Say you've called a raise and the board comes J 7 7. Another guy at the table who is not in the hand visibly cringes, or shakes their head in disgust. You can be pretty certain that person folded one of the two remaining 7's. Giving information like that is just wrong. You need to respect the people that are in the pot by keeping your composure and not reacting at all. There was a pretty bad incident at the WSOP a few years ago involving Shawn 'Sheiky' Shakhan and Mike Matusow that illustrates this. By the way, notice how a lot of these examples involve pros? Even the pros can lose their heads once in awhile...Watch
Splashing the Pot: Basically, this means when you go to bet you toss your chips in or around the other chips that are already sitting in the pot. This can make it difficult on the dealer to establish what our bet is if you didn't declare an amount while betting and it just slows the game down. Just stack your chips in front of you, or if you have to do it where you slide your chips in, just make sure they're nowhere near the pot. My favorite example of how a guy splashed the pot like an idiot and got felted is here.
Another Example of Not Talking: This one undoubtedly goes in the talking when you're not in a hand category. There are times when a player will go all in, and the person who's deciding whether to call or not asks the all in player how much he/she has bet. They're fishing for information about that person's hand, hoping to detect a tell in the way a person answers or the way they count their chips. The bad etiquette comes when a third person answers the question for the all in player. Now you've just interfered in the hand where you have no place to do it. Again...just stay quiet!
Acting Out of Turn: Usually this is just an unintentional mistake. You don't realize the person to your right has cards and you go ahead and check. Maybe you bet. Your acting out of turn can now influence the person to your right's decision making and how they want to act. They might go ahead and raise you now on a bluff when before they might have just check/folded to you. They might have bet first, allowing you to raise them and either take down the pot there or win a bigger pot later if they call. Some people will act out of turn on purpose as a way of "angling", which means trying to get information out of someone about their hand, or they are trying to confuse their opponent as to where they're really at. They don't understand it's bad etiquette. Try to stay focused on where the action is at the table at all times and you won't have to worry about it.
These are pretty much the main ones that you'll come across at the tables. There are some you'll find online as well, where people might say "I think he's bluffing" or "I think he has you beat". It's easier online to ignore this stuff because you can just go ahead and mute them but it's still bad etiquette online as well. Try to follow some of these guidelines the next time you're at the tables.
I know it sounds kind of funny that in a game where you're trying to crush the other player, there's also sort of gentlemanly rules or etiquette that we're supposed to follow while we're doing it. It's sort of like in hockey when two guys get into a fight. They're punching each other in the face but if one gets knocked down to a knee or down to the ice, there's a mentality there that you don't hit the guy while he's down. You stop punching and you take your five minute penalty. Maybe that's what they should start doing in poker. Offer a certain amount of minutes penalty depending on the level of the etiquette infraction (eg. Ten minutes on the rail while you still get blinded in for slow rolling, 5 minutes for berating a player). I bet you'd see a lot of the idiot stuff that Phil Hellmuth or Tony G do, at the very least drop to a minimum.
Anyway, until next time good luck at the tables and see you back here soon.
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