Rule of Thumb

In determining how best to deal with poker infractions, a good place to start is with the question: Will such and such a response serve to discourage, or encourage, such infractions in the future? This principle applies to acts both major and minor, premeditated violations as well as those born of nothing but ignorance or unthinking habit.

To illustrate the point, consider something as simple as folding out of turn, a practice whose increasing popularity owes partly to technology, partly to thoughtlessness, and partly to the many distractions that exist all around us. Combine the baseball game on one TV, the stock ticker on another, and the golf tournament on a third, then throw in the incoming cell phone call, the outgoing call it prompts, and that sudden urge to bet the ponies, and some people find it easy to forget that there's a poker game going on. And although mucking a piece of cheese on the button when the action's still a mile away so as to duck outside for a quick smoke and return in time for the next hand is not the worst breach in the world, neither is it something the house can afford to encourage, promoting as it does a lessened regard for the rules in general, and increasing the chance of compromised action.

The latter consequence should be obvious to anyone who's ever contemplated a steal in late position, and had to weigh the risk of whether or not the button (or cutoff seat) had anything. If, when his turn comes, the button is outside having a smoke, the only thing he can have is nicotine in his lungs, in which case the cutoff seat inherits the button without having to earn it by action, a circumstance potentially compromising to other players. That's assuming, of course, that the cutoff seat (now the de facto button) hasn't himself already been compromised by the fact that the player to his right has been likewise positionally upgraded to that of de facto cutoff, and so on and so forth. This tweaking of the pecking order is not positionally absolute, and any seat may benefit or suffer, but whether a particular hand is affected, or to what degree, is not really the issue; the bottom line is that there is a poker game going on – and if outside distractions are such that one can't commit to honoring its rules throughout the entire hand, one should see to whatever pressing business it is that beckons, and not take the hand in the first place.

None of this is controversial, and there isn't a floorperson or manager worth his salt who would suggest that playing in turn isn't important, or that the rules don't need to be respected. The question, then, is not, "Should the rules be observed?" but rather, "What response, when they are not, will best assure that they will be?" With that thought in mind, consider the following brief exchange, an entirely unremarkable scene that plays out in cardrooms every day:

Button (mucking his hand six places out of turn while reaching for his cell phone/cigarettes/palm pilot: "Deal me in next hand, dealer."

Dealer (crisp and friendly): "Yes, sir."

Is there anything that such a response will assure, other than we'll be watching the same player muck out of turn again and again? Honoring a player's request to get a hand while still away from the table is, after all, a courtesy – but what message does it send when the house extends courtesies to those players who flout the rules at the exact moment they're thumbing their noses at the ones who respect and play by them?

Suppose instead that dealers in that spot were instructed to reply: "I'm sorry, sir, but I won't be able to deal you in next hand," and then direct any protests to the nearest floorperson – who could politely explain away from the table that courtesy is a two-way street, and that while the house is happy to extend its courtesies, it must naturally draw the line at doing so when it comes at the expense of other players. Wouldn't that send a more positive message – and produce a more positive long-term result?

Along similar lines, let's look at another bad marriage of response to action, this one concerning the more serious business of verbal contract between players; specifically, the scenario that occurs when heavy early action drives all but two players from the pot, one of whom then solicits the other, "Check it all the way down?" Let me hasten here to say that everyone is, of course, entitled to switch gears during the course of a hand, and that situations certainly exist in which putting the pedal to the metal with an eye toward reducing the field and then applying the brakes once that goal is achieved is both sensible and perfectly legitimate. But, while the right to check the turn and river is as inalienable as the right to play fast on the flop, it should go without saying that making a contract regarding future action is ethically out of bounds. Unfortunately, such field-stretching has in some rooms become a ho-hum affair, the routine practice of both those who know what they're doing and those merely aping an action they've seen endlessly performed and come to regard as "social."

Reasonable people may disagree on the best means by which to discourage such conduct, but there's one thing that can only make matters worse, and that's when the suggestion, "Check it all the way down" starts coming from the dealer's box. Unfortunately, this too is a practice that's gaining in popularity, and it's worse than inappropriate; it's unconscionable. A dealer has no more business – no matter how light the betting, or seemingly rote the hand – soliciting players to check than he would have urging them to call or to raise, and to solicit them on the flop as to their action on the turn and river is a disgraceful bit of business that should be nipped in the bud the first time it's observed. What lesson will a poker newcomer learn when he sees the person entrusted with running the game proposing such "arrangements"? Should anyone be surprised when he starts proposing them himself?

Indeed, it is with just such new players in mind that I write this column, for the recent success of the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel has provided an infusion of new blood to many cardrooms. In the last week alone, I've talked with a half-dozen people who've told me that it was the excitement generated by the TV coverage that prompted them to try their luck at the tables. This is all to the good, but let us not forget that many of these players have little understanding of poker's traditions and rules, and while they may scan the rulebooks and peruse the signs on the walls, what they learn will largely be determined by what they observe. That being the case, this would seem an especially opportune time for cardrooms to assume the responsibility of adopting responses to infractions that deter rather than encourage – before a new generation of players draws all the wrong conclusions about the importance of respecting the game's rules.