Thou Shalt Not Bet Out of Turn

Deliberately acting out of turn or making any false moves in order to gain information from your opponents is an unethical tournament practice. Sometimes novice players are duped because more experienced players will bend the rules and take a shot. Shame on them! It's up to tournament officials to interpret the rules in such a way that they will protect players, especially new tournament players, from this type of behavior. If I am running a tournament and am called to make a ruling, I give the offending player a verbal warning. If I have to return a second time, and it is obvious that the player was trying to get information by acting out of turn, I may force the action to stand. If it happens a third time, a 20-minute penalty away from the table is a certainty.

The second part of this "Commandment of Conduct" is: "Nor make any movement designed to either induce or inhibit the actions of an opponent." Sometimes people make false movements with their hands as though they are going to check, bet, raise, or fold, and make the action out of turn to deliberately confuse others or give out false information. In my opinion, this is not ethical behavior. A lot of tournaments now have a "forward motion" rule that I favor, and it is becoming more and more popular in cardrooms. In a nutshell, if a player moves forward toward the pot with chips in his hand, it is considered a bet and the action stands as a bet or raise, as the case may be. Too many times, I've seen a player make a forward motion with his hand and one of his opponents immediately picks up his chips as though he is getting ready to call, at which time the player who made the forward motion pulls his hand back and withdraws his bet before he places his chips in the pot. If there was a forward motion rule, the action would stand. This would prevent players from taking shots.

A typical example of a false motion occurred at a tournament that I ran a few years back in Southern California. Player A, an experienced tournament player, had a stack of chips in his hand and made a strong forward motion, to which Player B, a less experienced player, immediately reacted by reaching for his chips in order to call. Seeing Player B reaching for his chips, Player A immediately tapped the table with the chips in his hand, indicating a check. Player A clearly was on a bluff and knew that he would lose the last bet if he released his chips and was called by Player A. I was called to the table to make a ruling. Unfortunately at that time, this particular club did not have a "forward motion" rule, and because the chips had not been physically released from Player A's hand, I was forced to rule Player A's action as a check, even though I personally thought that he had been taking a shot. Immediately after this incident, the club changed its rules to make "forward motion" a binding bet. This was a classic case of a player manipulating the rules to his benefit and the tournament director (me) being powerless to do anything about it at the time, which is another reason why we need standardized rules for tournament poker.

How can you protect yourself in situations like this? You simply must not "telegraph" your intentions. That is, you must wait until your opponent's action is complete before you act on your hand. As an example of telegraphing, suppose that it appears to you that your opponent is going to bet. You grab a stack of chips so that you can call him. This is called "loading up." Of course, some wily tournament veterans "load up" in order to inhibit an opponent from betting by giving the false signal that they are going to call if the opponent bets. Intentionally loading up to inhibit the actions of an opponent is an infraction of ethics, although not as blatant as making a false forward motion.

Inferring weakness by intentionally checking out of turn is one way in which players attempt to induce the action of an opponent. The deliberate out-of-turn checker wants you to bet and often will raise you in this situation. Normally, you should ignore actions that are taken out of turn. However, if you believe that your opponent was trying to take a shot at you, you should complain to the dealer and call for the floorman to make a ruling. For further discussion and views on this "commandment" and others, or to post your questions or comments, visit my new website, where you'll find lots of good stuff designed to help you get to the winner's circle, where I hope to meet you one day soon.

Editor's note: Tom McEvoy is the author of Tournament Poker and the co-author (with T.J. Cloutier) of Championship Omaha. Visit McEvoy's new website, www.tournamenttalk.com, for current information on the tournament scene and links to other poker websites. For more information on his books, visit www.pokerbooks.com.