Many new players are coming into brick-and-mortar (B&M) cardrooms for the first time. They have played online and in home games, but may not know the rules and conventions of live cardroom play, and might get tripped up.
As a public service, this series explains many of the rules and situations that newcomers probably have not encountered.
You Have to Have a Hand to Win a Pot
"Well, duh," you say, "I'd never try to win a pot without a hand." Consider this: In a limit hold'em game, four players call in front of you, so you call with 7-6 suited. The flop brings Q-5-4 rainbow. Everyone checks. A 10 comes on the turn. Again, everyone checks. The river brings a magical 8. Everyone checks to you and you bet. No one calls, so you toss your cards into the muck, expecting the house dealer to push the pot to you. Just then, the guy who won the previous pot resurrects his cards from where they had been semi-hidden behind the as-yet-unstacked pile of chips. "I call," he chirps.
"I had a straight," you tell the dealer.
"Where are your cards, sir?" he asks.
"I threw them away. I thought everyone folded."
"Apparently not."
The caller holds his cards facedown in front of him. "Let me see those cards," you demand. The caller turns them up, 3-2, a missed straight.
"He couldn't possibly win!" you shout. "He wouldn't call with those cards. Call a floorman."
A floorman arrives, and gently informs you, "Sir, in this house, throwing your cards into the muck before the pot has been awarded is an indication of surrender."
"Well, those are my cards right there. Look at them, and you'll see that I had a straight."
"That may be, but there's no way of telling those were really your cards. Anyway, you gave up."
This situation could never happen online, where the software automatically awards a pot to the best hand, or to the only remaining hand if no one calls. You can't bet online, get no calls, and somehow lose the pot. It never would happen in a home game, either, where the players would not tolerate the behavior of the hand hider. In a cardroom, were he a gentleman, a player considering a call would say to you before you dump your cards (if he could catch you in time), "Hold your cards. I've still got a hand." And if he had a hand that couldn't possibly win, the same gentleman wouldn't take advantage of a novice like that. Unfortunately, not every player is a gentleman or lady.
The lesson here is, don't surrender your cards until the house dealer awards you the pot. Don't think that the players and dealers are out to get you in a B&M. An alert dealer would try to stop you from discarding your hand in a situation like this. But dealers get busy, what with chips and cards flying, and can't always keep track of everything.
This situation is a special case of Part I's admonition to protect your hand at all times.
Don't Fold Out of Turn
Online cardrooms offer an unfortunate option. You can fold at any time when the action is on you, even when there has been no bet in the current round. Presumably, this is to speed up the action, but the downside of this is that it is not protecting the other players.
For example, in a no-limit hold'em game, the player on the button flops a straight-flush draw and bets on the flop (which contains an ace) and turn. Unfortunately, the river misses him completely. He is reasonably certain that the player under the gun has middle pair. To his right you sit, a new player not up on cardroom etiquette. The first player checks. You, drawing to a straight or flush, missed your hand and disgustedly throw your cards into the muck. The button had planned on making a final bet to try to steal this pot. Had you held on to your cards, the first player might well not have called, fearing that an overcall from you would beat him, but with you now gone, he's much more likely to call, so the button dares not make a bluff that otherwise might have had a reasonable chance of succeeding. But your not holding on to your cards stopped him. You did not protect him. When you are in this situation and the first player checks, you also should check and hold on to your cards, even if you're that sure you can't possibly win. Then, if the button bets, hold on to your cards until the first player acts. Only when he has completed his action should you throw your cards away.
Similarly, had you folded out of turn, the first player might now be able to check-raise, which he might not do if he thought you might call. If the button were not bluffing, but instead held a hand worth value-betting, he might be faced with a raise from the first player that would not have occurred had you held on to your cards, making it less likely he'd bet. Your seemingly innocent act might have changed the outcome of the pot. Online cardrooms permit folding in turn, but most B&Ms have a rule that's often expressed as, "Do not act out of turn." Folding when there has been no bet is considered acting out of turn.
Not only does not folding out of turn protect the
other players, it also protects you. If you fold at the river on your turn when you have missed your draw, you clearly have something with which you might call on those occasions when you don't fold. You might as well be playing your cards faceup.
More coming.
Michael Wiesenberg's The Ultimate Casino Guide, published by Sourcebooks, is available at fine bookstores and at Amazon.com and other online book purveyors. Send e-mail to [email protected].
