The Rules Guy: How To Conduct Yourself at the Poker Table

Most players learn poker’s explicit rules pretty quickly: the “one-chip rule,” for example, or “verbal declarations are binding.” But not everyone seems to have digested the game’s vast book of unwritten rules, admonitions like “don’t berate other players (particularly bad ones)” or “say ‘nice hand’ even when you mean something entirely different.”

Enter “The Rules Guy.” TRG believes that civility and sportsmanship are never wrong, and that bad behavior (even when you’re simply trying to get an edge) is bad for the game. Have you got a question about how to conduct yourself at the poker table? Email TRG at [email protected].

Dear Reader,

For the past year, you’ve asked and The Rules Guy has answered (and please, keep asking; TRG loves your questions and loves to answer them). But for this first Card Player of 2014, no questions — just some suggestions on how be more civil, more neighborly, and more polite when you head down to the cardroom. Happy New Year!

— The Rules Guy

Please Be a Considerate Customer

When you go to the cardroom, respect the game and the people who make it possible:
Treat dealers well. Far too often, TRG witnesses dealers getting abused by players, and this is simply unacceptable. Don’t throw cards. Don’t talk as if they can’t hear you (especially when you rant about their incompetence). Don’t chastise a dealer for his or her failure to give you a playable hand or to deal the card you needed for your draw. And if you have a legitimate problem with a dealer, call the floor. Don’t make it personal.

In fact, treat everyone well. Be nice to chip runners, service people, and floor people. Don’t bark out “Chips!” in a voice that can carry a quarter mile; let the dealer summon the chip runner, and say “thank you” when your chips arrive (an audible “thank you” is welcome; a “thank you” in the form of a tip will be appreciated even more). Don’t be impatient with the floor person at the board; he or she wants to put you in a game or start a new table, and sometimes you just have to wait (with your headphones off!).

Please Be a Considerate Opponent

Poker may not be a blood sport, but it is a hyper-competitive, hyper-aggressive game, and you should be ruthless when it comes to battling at the table. But being ruthless does not necessitate being a jerk: Show some consideration for your opponents. TRG knows that you know consideration means not berating (though many players have not gotten the message), but it also means a host of other small behaviors.

Post blinds and antes in a timely fashion and without requiring a prompt. There’s at least one guy (and it’s always a guy) at every table who won’t post until the dealer says, “blinds up.” This is passive-aggressive behavior at its finest (by which TRG means at its worst), and slows the game down for everyone.

Don’t lobby excessively. You have the right to take breaks, and you should take breaks (it improves your focus). But if you’re lobbying anywhere near as much as you’re playing, you’re lobbying way too much. At many if not most stakes, a couple of empty seats can cause a game to break.

Take your problems to the floor, not to other players. You can ask a player, say, not to show his hand to his neighbor, but it’s often better to go to the floor before things get ugly or out of hand. Floor people will rarely intervene without prompting (unless a disturbance is obvious and substantial); if you speak up, you’ll certainly get help in any decently managed cardroom. (And if you don’t want to be known as a rules nit like TRG — fair enough — you can always go the floor between hands.)

Keep the game moving. Don’t take your time when you don’t need to take your time. If you’re in middle position holding 7-2 offsuit, and the action goes open, raise, and reraise, don’t take thirty seconds to fold your hand. Just fold it. You’re not on TV, and it’s not a million dollar pot, and even if it were, you’re still going to fold. Just do it!

Now if you are faced with a big decision — a pot that’s big by the standards of your game, or a pot that represents your tournament life — by all means take your time. Ask for time if you need it, make your decision, then act. (No agonizing facial expressions, either, or speeches like “I’m folding the best hand,” which is surely among the dumbest things uttered at a poker table when the competition is fierce.)

Please (Please) Shut the Hell Up

Most players know the rules of the game, the written ones like “Don’t act out of turn” as well as the more implicit ones like “Don’t tap on the aquarium.” But even for players who know better than to berate, the temptation to say something is sometimes too great. If they’re beat by a miracle draw, they say “Nice preflop call” (with a sarcastic tone). If they fold a strong hand, they say “Next time…” with just a hint of malice. And if they’re running bad, they say, to no one and everyone, “I cannot make a hand” in the petulant voice of the 10-year-old who didn’t get that bike he wanted for Christmas.
TRG says, with great deference and politeness, “Shut the hell up.”

Forget for a second that this kind of trash talk and whininess is bad poker. Remember: you want players to made bad calls; you want players to give you the chance to bust them; you don’t want people to know you’re frustrated. This kind of table talk is bad behavior, full stop. Rude, disrespectful, and un-karmic, which isn’t a real word but should be.

Even winners can be guilty of talking too much. Some players feel a strange compulsion to explain their actions on what Tommy Angelo calls “sixth street,” when the betting’s over and the pot is shipped. “I had to call three times pot with my one overcard, my backdoor club draw, and fifth pair.” Whatever. You’ve won the pot; don’t try to win approval too.

And there is one more thing you must never say at the poker table: “One time.” Unless you really, literally mean it: It’s your last hand of poker ever and you’d like to go out on a positive note. Then you can say “One time!” and TRG will be pulling for you.
When should you speak up at the table? Why, that’s easy: When it’s time to say, “Nice hand, sir!”

Please Remember: It’s a Game (But a Great Game)

TRG’s campaign to improve civility at the poker table is not intended to make poker as prim as a Wednesday afternoon bridge club. TRG knows that in any competitive endeavor, some people will try to figure out an edge, legitimate or not, and some people will misbehave. But at the end of the day, it’s still a game, and it should be a pleasurable activity.

Poker as a whole would be improved by more civility, courteousness, and graciousness. And you can make it happen. Good luck in 2014. ♠