Telling Lies and Getting Paid

About a year ago, one of my best friends, the outstanding gaming writer Michael Konik, wrote a book called Telling Lies and Getting Paid. This isn't a review of that book; I've already done that and recommended it. Rather, we're going to look at just when it is and isn't acceptable to "lie" at a poker table.

One of the many reasons I enjoy poker as much as I do is that "lying" is, within certain limits, allowed at the table. I strongly believe in honesty in both personal and business relationships, but I also have a sneaky, devious side, and poker allows me to indulge that within the rules and without damaging my beliefs or reputation.

Put another way, poker lets me get the sneaky stuff out of my system without harming anyone else unfairly.

OK, then: Let's look at when and where "lying" is acceptable, when it's not merely acceptable but important, and when it isn't acceptable. (By the way, a great movie that uses the word "lying" instead of "bluffing" is Quiz Show … even if Ralph Fiennes does pull more money out of his pocket to bet in midhand!)

Tell the Truth at the Showdown

The most obvious unacceptable lie comes on the showdown, when you are announcing your hand. If you say, "I have a flush," and you don't, the other player(s) in the hand might well muck, but this is clearly "angle shooting" and unacceptable.

That this kind of attempt is an angle shot is one of the many reasons why you shouldn't muck your hand until you actually see the hand that has allegedly beaten you. You could be running into an angle shooter, or you could be running into someone who has made an honest mistake: That does happen, most commonly when someone thinks he has a heart in the hole and it turns out to be a diamond (or a spade vs. a club). It also comes up when someone thinks he's made a strong low when actually he has paired up.

As a result, even when you are playing with folks whose integrity you trust, you have the responsibility to protect your own hand, and protecting your hand includes holding on to it until you've seen that you're beaten.

A less clear case comes when you "table" (expose for all to see) your own hand without calling it, your opponent tables his, and the dealer and opponent both think you've won.

Not a Hypothetical!

This actually happened with two tables to go in the 2000 World Series of Poker main event: One player tabled A-6, and his opponent tabled A-9, with the board showing K-5-5-8-J. The dealer pushed the pot toward the A-9 player, not realizing that the kickers didn't play; each player's hand was A-K-J-5-5, and it should have been a split pot.

One line of thinking says that if you table your hand and neither the dealer nor your opponent realizes you haven't won, there's nothing wrong with taking the money, even if you realize the pot (or whole pot) doesn't belong to you. Another, and I think better, line of thinking is that if you realize you're being awarded a pot unfairly, you have a duty to speak up.

What about the other seated players in such a situation? Most are reluctant to speak, even if they see a mistake, because they figure they aren't involved. Nonetheless, any seated player who sees such a mistake has the right, if not the obligation, to point out the error. Because some players get very angry when a player not in the pot speaks up, many remain silent.

This one isn't "right or wrong," especially because there are two conflicting rules at work here: The best hand is supposed to take the pot, but there is also a "one player to a hand" rule. You need to make your own judgment call. The only element that is clear is that if you're on the rail, you're supposed to keep your mouth shut. Players not in the game should not participate.

Even there, the answer isn't always clear. On the hand in question from the 2000 WSOP, Phil Hellmuth was on the rail and saw, a split second before I did, that indeed the pot should have been a split pot (he probably saw it faster because he was already anticipating the possibility, as great players do); he said "split pot" so softly that only I could hear it. No one at the table said a thing, and the all-in "loser," Anastassi Lazarou, started leaving the table.

Lazarou's cards went into the muck, and he walked by Hellmuth.

"Split pot," muttered Hellmuth, and Lazarou immediately understood what Hellmuth had meant. Lazarou returned to the table (he hadn't gotten more than five feet from it) and said, "The pot was a split, give me my money back."

Suddenly, Memories Improved

Although no one at the table had said anything when the dealer failed to call the hand correctly, memories seemed very sharp when the dealer and Tournament Director Bob Thompson tried to reconstruct the hand. Everyone agreed on the cards. The dealer had missed the hand, the player had missed the hand, and Thompson, who had been over at the other table and had arrived only as Lazarou was exiting, hadn't seen what he wasn't looking for.

Lazarou was given his money back, and sat back down. "At the Series, you can't have a player go out that way," Phil said to me. T.J. Cloutier turned around and confirmed this sentiment emphatically. Especially with security cameras recording all the action, it would have been awful for a player to exit that late because of a mistake. Nonetheless, Phil told me he expected to get "barbecued on the Internet" for this, although it didn't happen.

This is just about the only combination of circumstances I can conceive of that could create an exception to the "no help from the rail" rule. This was a huge event, and even then, Hellmuth didn't say anything to the table or dealer. He just made a comment to the player, away from the table, who then returned and successfully argued his own case.

Hellmuth was still concerned (fortunately, the player who'd been awarded the whole pot immediately came to his defense and said Hellmuth had done the right thing), so even with this one exception found, you should keep quiet on the rail.

Is the Draw a Flaw?

Another close case comes in draw games, in which the question, "How many did you draw?" often gets asked. Certainly, each player has the responsibility to keep track of that sort of thing on his own. I've encountered home games where telling the truth is required, where no answer is required, and where lying is perfectly acceptable.

Although I think lying on this one (for example, saying "two" when you knew you'd drawn one) in a cardroom game pushes the envelope, and that if you aren't feeling cooperative, a better approach is either to say nothing or something like, "I forget" (even if that's a lie, because the player isn't entitled to the information, it doesn't cross the line), I believe you can't call lying here an angle shot. I wouldn't do it, and most of the players I consider friends wouldn't do it, but that doesn't mean it's against the rules.

Yet another toughie comes in no-limit, when an opponent asks how much you've bet when you shove a big stack forward. Because each player has the right to ask for a count, I don't feel bad for the player who relies on an inaccurate estimation. Recently I observed an Internet discussion about a hand in which one player had announced, "All in, $2,700," and when the player pondering the call asked the dealer how much the bet was, the dealer repeated, "All in, $2,700."

It turned out the bettor had pushed $4,700 forward, not $2,700, and a lively debate ensued. I agree with those who say, "All in means all in," and who hold the caller responsible for asking for a count, even if the dealer compounds the error/lie (for purposes of this hand, it doesn't matter, although for purposes of what's ethical, if you know you've bet $4,700, miscalling the bet size intentionally does cross the line and should not be done … but accidents do happen).

Once again, we have a situation in which the "victim" could have protected himself, and therefore should have, even if the dealer's statement makes us feel bad for the victim.

Although there are probably a few other relatively common exceptions floating around, this covers most of the key situations. Certainly, lying about what you have in midhand is perfectly acceptable. For example, if someone asks you what you have on sixth street in a seven-card game, it's perfectly acceptable to say "a flush" when you don't, because the questioner has zero right to a correct answer.

The Bottom Line: Entitlement

There, I believe, is where the line should be drawn. Whenever your opponent has no right to information, lying/bluffing is perfectly acceptable. If someone asks, "How much did you bet on the flop?" for example, when we're now at the river, misdirection is acceptable. Your opponent is supposed to remember what you bet because he called on the flop, so if you want to say "$5,000" when the real answer is $3,000, fine (again, I wouldn't do it, but there's a difference between style and rules).

Whenever your opponent does have a right to information, you don't have the right to lie.

Suppose, for example, he can't see your board in stud, and asks what cards you have showing: He's supposed to have access to that information, and a lie isn't acceptable. In the case in which your opponent asks what order your cards arrived in, and you've shuffled them about, the answer is less clear, but the opponent was supposed to be tracking that. I'd call an intentional lie there an angle shot and unethical, but it isn't crystal clear.

If you apply the "right to information" rule to whatever situations you encounter, I suspect you won't run into trouble; hard feelings, perhaps yes, but poker isn't about the fellowship of man. Misdirection is a key element of the game, and as long as you don't cross the "entitlement line," you're probably OK.