Acting in Turn

One of my goals in writing this column is to try to bring discussion to the table about rules that tend to have variations and are used differently in various poker rooms. One of those rules that I have written about in the past deals with a player's forward motion with chips when it is his turn to bet, call, or raise.

My Card Player colleague Barry Mulholland wrote a column last December about this very rule. Barry described a few different scenarios in which players technically act out of turn, but only by a split second after the player in front of them has started to act. Barry suggested that a rule be put into place that states: "If you enter the pot with enough chips in your hand to constitute a raise, you've raised."

That sounds easy, but is it really? I can't count the number of times I have moved my hand forward to make a call with six or more chips, only because those were the chips that I was shuffling at the time! What about oversized chips? Not allowing someone to bring multiple chips out to make a call yet allowing a single chip to still make a raise would be allowing the same angle to be made but in a different situation.

Some poker rooms use the rule that Barry describes and some actually have a line on the table that a player can't cross unless he is going to bet the amount of chips he holds in his hand when he crosses that line. Most poker rooms use a rule that allows a player to bring out as many chips as he wants, provided those chips are not actually cut out on the table into a bet.

A Card Player reader sent me an e-mail about Barry's column. He apparently didn't like the idea of Barry's rule being put into place, and his e-mail explained why. He stated: "When I'm 'on the fence' about a call or raise, I actually place my well-supplied chips-in-hand into the pot and glance downwind at the reactions of key players in order to take myself 'off the fence' at the last moment. To me, this is just observing table information that's available to me, and making use of it."

Barry's rule would go a long way toward eliminating exactly what the reader describes, but it wouldn't be the perfect solution. The perfect solution for preventing players from "taking a shot" is explained succinctly in the No. 1 rule that I preach to all players: Act in turn!

Acting in turn not only means waiting until the action gets to the player in front of you, but waiting until it is precisely your turn to act. Here are a few things that you as a player can do to make sure you actually act in turn:

1. Consistently hold your cards in the same general area and manner. Don't put a chip on your cards when you are going to call and hold them in the air (as if you are ready to wing them to the muck) when you are planning to fold.

2. Don't reach for your chips to call unless that is something you do even when you plan to fold.

3. Wait for the player in front of you to completely finish the action he is engaging in before you start your action.

If you follow these suggestions, not only will you prevent players from gaining information that will affect how they act on their hand with regard to betting, folding, or raising, but you will also hide any tells that you may possess.

I have said this many times in the past, so I will say it again once more: If every single poker player waited until it was his turn to act before initiating his action, there would be no need for many of the tedious rules that are in place today. In addition, players would be protected from angle shooters looking to exploit situations, and would be helping to conceal their playing styles and tells, thereby improving their games.