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:

This is a weird one: I was playing a tournament when I noticed a player trying to get a glimpse of another player’s hole cards. But let me set the stage a bit. The hand he was trying to see belonged to a much older man who was incredibly careless with his cards: he picked them up like he was playing bridge. And I should say that the guy looking was not in the hand (seated to the right); I don’t believe he was trying to cheat. But if he can see the cards, he does have information other players don’t. I think that’s clearly unfair, but I don’t want to be the guy saying something like “he’s breaking the rules.”

What is the ruling, TRG? And what should I have done?

— The Reluctant Enforcer

Dear Reluctant Enforcer,

First, The Rules Guy wants to say that he knows what you mean in your last bit there. No one wants to be the “hall monitor” in his or her game. (Well, no one but Allen “The Chainsaw” Kessler — and TRG says that with all due respect to the nitty but well-informed player.) Hall monitors were horrible in grade school; they’re horrible in the card room too.

Horrible, but sometimes necessary. A clean, fair game is hugely important, and players bear some responsibility for ensuring a clean, fair game. TRG thinks you should speak up in this probably benign but loaded situation — loaded because it’s not completely obvious what rules apply here, and it’s not 100 percent clear if there’s any harm here.
So let’s examine the situation logically. First, what is the applicable rule?

One player per hand.

TRG sees this situation as a form of implicit collusion. Explicit collusion occurs when two players plot to share information or to tactically take advantage of other players. It seems obvious that your “peeper” and the older player are not in cahoots. Explicit collusion is monumentally wrong, but even implicit collusion degrades the integrity of the game. If any player believes some form of cheating is going on, the game is compromised.

Your peeper may have completely innocent motives. The fact that you “caught” him in the act so easily suggests he had no ulterior aim and nothing whatsoever to hide. (Or he could be the least subtle cardsharp on earth!)

But of course he should not be looking. And the reality is that if he sees another player’s cards, he can no longer be considered completely innocent. He has information others don’t, not just the contents of the hand but what that player does with those cards. What does he fold? What does he call with? What does he raise with?

Whether he seeks this knowledge for gain or simply stumbles upon it, he has a potentially substantial edge in the battle for information — unfair. An ethical player wouldn’t look at all. And if an ethical player inadvertently gets a peek, he should inform the player to protect his hand. (“Excuse me, but I can see your cards. You should protect your hand.”)

Which brings TRG to his next point.

Every player should protect his or her hand. Squeeze your cards so no one else can see them. Cap your cards so they are not inadvertently mucked or fouled. Hold onto your cards until you get the pot or are 100 percent sure you want to muck.

Protecting your cards protects your interest in the hand underway. But it also protects your session (the battle for information) and possibly your fate that day. The guy who gets a glimpse of his neighbor’s cards and stays alive in a tournament when he should have gone broke changes the entire tournament (the “butterfly effect”).

Ergo: You should speak up and let the floor person know what you’ve observed (do it as an aside if you don’t want to announce it to the table). The floor should warn the peeper about looking at another player’s cards and penalize a second offense. A third offense would be almost unthinkable, and would certainly demand a more extreme penalty.

At the same time, the floor should warn the revealer to protect his hand. And if his failure to do so provides an informational advantage, he should be required to show his hand either immediately (a huge “penalty” for the revealer) or at the end of the hand. The “show one, show all” rule, typically used for players who choose to show their cards to a player, applies here.
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Dear TRG:

We’re down to two tables of a decent-sized tournament, so everyone is in the money, when a guy brings up the notion of a chop. I’m one of those guys who doesn’t like to chop in general, and I’m never chopping at that stage of a tournament. I said, politely, that I wasn’t interested. But this player kept bringing it up, over and over again, until he busted just shy of the final table. What’s the etiquette here? For the guy who wants to chop and the folks who don’t?

— Oaktown Bobby

Dear Oaktown Bobby,

Welcome to the world of “chop whiners.” It seems obvious that they know not what they do. First and most strategically, chop whiners reveal their utter desperation to avoid variance. They might as well wear a neon sign that reads “Please take advantage of my many weaknesses.”

Useful information, as you surely already know. But chop whiners are also crossing an etiquette line by, well, whining.

How it should work:

Chop Requester: “Anyone interested in a chop? We could all lock up 15th place money right now.”

The field: “Er, um, no thanks.”

Chop Requester: “No problem. Just thought I’d make the suggestion. Play on!”
End of story.

Asking for a chop may be minus EV, but it’s not egregious in terms of poker etiquette. But it does cross a line when then Chop Requester turns into Chop Whiner and cannot let the notion go:

Chop Whiner: “Look, it’s a really good deal, you should do it…You don’t want to flip for $1,000…No one has a huge stack…The blinds are so big it’s all luck now anyway…”

Chop Requester has turned into Chop Whiner. Chop Whiner often turns into Chop Tilter: “Well, if we’re not going to chop, I’ll just move in on every hand until I bust you.” Chop Tilter then devolves into Chop Asshat: “Ha! You busted early! Serves you right for not chopping.”

When confronted by Chop Whiner, Chop Tilter, Chop Asshat, or any of the other players who seek to uglify the beautiful game of poker, TRG counsels: Turn the other cheek. Don’t counter bad behavior with more bad behavior. (But do say, liberally, “Raise!”)

And if you’re one of those players who really want to chop, make your request once and as disinterestedly as possible. If you encounter resistance — a single murmur of dissent — then STFU about it until circumstances change (like several more players go bust). ♠