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 The Rules Guy:

I play in the $2-$5 game at my local card room here in Oklahoma several days a week. Often, a guy in a wheelchair comes in to play this game. He’s so obese that he can barely reach the table, and he needs a helper to get situated. I’ve got no problem with any of that, but I do have a problem with this: He’s unbelievably slow. He has trouble reaching the cards, cutting out his bets, and even raking the pot. He really slows our game down. I’d like to complain about him to the floor, but wanted your advice first.

—Troubled in Tulsa

Dear Troubled,

The Rules Guy is willing to bet, and even willing to bet all-in, that your club has a rule that says something along the following lines: All rules and regulations apply at all times except for certain cases of disability access. The club can make reasonable rules modifications to accommodate disabled patrons.

That’s why card rooms will remove chairs, for example, or even ask players to move seats so that a wheelchair-bound player can position his or her chair in a reasonable way. And here’s the point: If your card room is willing, as it obviously is, to be flexible about people with physical challenges, surely you can be as well.

It’s not unreasonable to want him to play faster. But you should cut this player a lot of slack, and you should welcome him to your table as you would any other player. His money is on the table. His rake is no smaller than yours. He’s entitled to play at his own pace — even if it’s slower than you’d like.

Your duty as a poker player is to make him feel welcome. Try to imagine life in his situation. Poker might be his primary recreation, his main social outlet; it might even be an important source of income to him. It would be beyond churlish to deny him his seat the table. When he’s at the table, your game is his game.

TRG will allow that some players are so “challenged” that they do more than disrupt the game. They destroy it, usually by slowing the game down so much so that no other player will stand for it. The Rules Guy knows of an elderly player (90 plus years old) who was so slow that finally, the management of the card room suggested to him that maybe his poker playing days were over. It’s literally the last resort, and hard for both parties.

More often, games slow to the point of breakage because of a player’s short-term impairment: intoxication or lack of sleep. In this situation, you can feel perfectly justified at asking the floor to intervene, which they will do (or at least should do).

If your “problem” player is truly damaging to the game (for example, half the table asks for a table change when he rolls up), you might make a polite, helpful suggestion. For example, perhaps his assistant could handle his chips and cards for him to accelerate the pace of play.

Or you could look on this slow-motion game as a chance to savor the game itself. To hone your hand-reading skills. Or to work more intently on observing tells. Like most things, in poker and in life, the best course of action is to turn challenges into opportunities.

Dear The Rules Guy,

A question came up at our local casino here in Cleveland during a $1-2 no-limit game when a hand with two players went to showdown. Both players turned their cards up. The early position player had top pair/good kicker, the other stated he had a busted flush draw. The dealer took the cards of the played who thought he had a busted flush draw and was about to muck them when I intervened and said he had a straight. The dealer placed his cards back on the table and confirmed that he did indeed have a straight. The pot was then pushed to him.  

Well, needless to say, the first player was not happy. He stated that since I was not in the hand, it was the responsibility of the player and the dealer to comment on the hand at the end. I told him that I disagreed with him, that since both hands were face-up, it is everyone’s responsibility to ensure proper enforcement of the rules and the correct winner receives the pot. While we had a professional and polite discussion about this, we disagreed about the final outcome.  

Was it proper for me to point out the mistake at the end when both hands were face-up?

—Twisted1

Dear Twisted1,

Not only was your action proper, it was your obligation. Because both players tabled their hands, the overriding principle here is that “Cards speak.” Further, as Bob Ciaffone puts it in his “Robert’s Rules of Poker,”

Any player, dealer, or floor person who sees an incorrect amount of chips put into the pot, or an error about to be made in awarding a pot, has an ethical obligation to point out the error.

No doubt the first player wasn’t happy, but them’s the breaks. The best hand won the pot. End of story.

Well, not quite the end of the story. If your “busted flush draw” player had not tabled his cards — say he held them up to show his neighbor his busted draw, then mucked his cards. Then it would be wrong of you to point out that he had the straight (a violation of the “one player per hand” rule). Note that the dealer does bear some responsibility here, but you were completely correct in pointing out the best hand.

Finally, TRG cannot remember when a poker dispute was conducted in “professional and polite” manner. Bravo to you all. Civility can rule, even on the felt. ♠