An Uncomfortable Situation at Commerce Casino

An ethical question arose late in day 1 of the World Poker Tour event at the Commerce Casino’s L.A. Poker Classic. The blinds were 150-300 with a 25 ante. A young player raised from early position to 900. An older player (OP1) to his left reraised to 3,000. Another older player (OP2) reraised again to 8,500, and everyone folded back to OP1. (Their names will be revealed at the end of this column.) OP1 asked OP2 if he knew that his reraise was a reraise. OP2 agreed that he had been aware that it was. OP1 then said, “When I was young, I would have gone all in with this hand like a shot.” He then hesitated a few seconds, and went all in for about 12,000 more. OP2 had an automatic call of this final 12,000 reraise into a pot of nearly 20,000 with two kings. OP1 showed two aces. OP2 started to rant at OP1 about his misleading comment, unethical behavior, and so on. What do you, dear reader, think? Are statements and behaviors that are designed to mislead your opponents and cause them to make mistakes just another element of poker?

I asked a number of top players what they thought of this situation. Approximately 80 percent of them thought it was standard, acceptable poker behavior. Daniel Negreanu said it was a great line, and that he wanted to use it. Some of these players, like Sorrel Mizzi, even felt that they would be happy if their opponent made a comment like that before moving in, since they would be able to deduce that he had aces. About 20 percent of the players — mostly those who have played in London, where talking during hands is frowned upon — felt that while OP1 hadn’t technically violated any rules, his statement was at least somewhat unacceptable. Matt Glantz said that he disapproved, and thought it was “disrespectful to poker.”

My own feeling has always been that talking is part of poker. The rule is that a player is entitled to say or do anything that may cause his opponents to make a mistake or give away information about their hand. You want to get them to make mistakes, and you want to learn enough to avoid making mistakes yourself. This is especially true in a heads-up situation. You are allowed to hesitate. You are allowed to ask questions, and draw any inferences you want from the answers or lack of answers. It also should be obvious that any conclusions you draw from your opponents’ behavior or statements are at your own risk. Your opponents are exactly that, opponents, and they’re trying to get you to do the wrong thing. Mike Caro and Joe Navarro/Phil Hellmuth have written excellent books on reading your opponents. At the most basic level, assume that your opponents are trying to mislead you. If they act weak, they are strong, and so on. The rules of bridge are completely different. In bridge, you are not allowed to say or do anything to deliberately mislead your opponents. In bridge, there are penalties for hesitating when you are not faced with a problem in order to fool your opponents. (In poker, you have to hesitate sometimes when you are not faced with a problem in order to balance the times when you hesitate when faced with a problem.) In fact, bridge books will often say that “bridge is not poker,” and that behaviors designed to mislead your opponents are illegal.

There are some things that I do think should be illegal in poker. One is verbally abusing another player. This includes cursing, and sexual, racial, or religious slurs. In general, these types of statements are barred and penalized. It does not include comments about an opponent’s playing ability. I seldom comment on how badly my opponents play, but I do feel this kind of comment is allowed. Some top players, such as Phil Hellmuth and Mike Matusow, frequently use this form of table-talk as a weapon to put their opponents on tilt. My tendency is to avoid embarrassing a weak player by pointing out his errors. I might, however, try to upset a good player by pointing out his blunder. I caught a good player bluffing online. He typed in, “Nice call, moron.” And I replied, “Hopeless bluff, donkey.” Another type of forbidden comment is to deliberately miscall your hand in a showdown, hoping that your opponent mucks. Another is stating that you will take some action, and then refuse to do so. It used to be fairly common for a player to say something to convince his opponent that he was calling or raising, and then refuse to do so. Modern poker rules, in general, consider verbal declarations to be binding. If you say, “Raise,” you must raise. But even this has an exception. If a player bets, and you say that you’re going to raise before another player to your right has time to act, and he raises, you are allowed to do whatever you want.

Back to the original situation, who were the two players involved? I was OP1, who made the statement. Dan Shak was OP2, the one who got extremely upset. Since he actually had kings and would have called anyway, none of this had any bearing on the outcome of the hand. Dan is a very nice guy. He was so upset that I apologized, even though I felt then and still feel that I did nothing wrong. He is a successful commodities trader who is rapidly improving in poker. He certainly is not some rich novice who needs to be protected. He recently won a tournament in Australia. Regardless of his feelings about the propriety of my statement, I think he would do well to accept the fact that his opponents are trying to mislead him. If they are bluffing, they’ll do whatever they think will produce a fold. If they have a monster, they will try to induce a call. Even your friends will try to lead you astray. One of the players with whom I discussed the hand said that he plays in some cash games with his wife, and he often attempts to mislead her. For the sake of his marriage, I am withholding his name.

Steve “Zee” Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful games player. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. He can be found at many major tournaments and playing on Full Tilt, as one of its pros. When escaping from poker, he hangs out in his bars on Avenue A — Nice Guy Eddie’s at Houston and Doc Holliday’s at 9th Street — in New York City.