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].

You’re Not Sorry, So Don’t Say You Are

Dear The Rules Guy:

Typical tournament situation: I’m all-in preflop with a coin-flip type hand. I’ve got tens and my opponent tables A-K, for example. Somewhere, and it doesn’t really matter where, an ace or a king hits the felt. I’m gone and my opponent doubles up. He says “Sorry.”

This tilts the hell out of me!

Now I hasten to add he doesn’t say it sarcastically, as in “Sorry I busted you, loser.” The kind of “Sorry” I’m talking about sounds genuine, but how can that possibly be? He’s sorry he’s still alive in the tournament? He’s sorry he just doubled up? Sorry he now has a decidedly better chance to make the money? Sorry he has a chance, which I do not, to win the tournament?

I kinda doubt it! What do you think, TRG?

—Never Sorry and Never Gonna Say I Am

Dear NSANGSIA:

As you well know, dear reader, The Rules Guy absolutely, positively loves civility and compassion at the poker table, in the poker room, and anywhere on the casino floor. Moreover, TRG appreciates civility and compassion outside the card room or casino and, frankly, in all walks of life.

Civility is what separates us from wild animals. Compassion is the lubricant that keeps the machinery of the world’s many moving parts humming along with relative smoothness. Together, civility and compassion keep the beasts within us, well, within us.

And as you might suspect, dear reader, TRG absolutely, positively loves it when players use the magic words (“please” and “thank you”), when they toke dealers and floor people, and when they are polite to the legions of folks who bus tables, fetch drinks or chips, check coats, maintain security, and perform all the other jobs required for a comfortable game. TRG knows that true character is revealed by how people deal with those who serve them.

Finally, TRG is pleased beyond measure when a player apologizes for a breach of procedure or etiquette, even when the utterance is something as infelicitous as “my bad,” a phrase whose grammar is as opaque as its meaning is clear.

So it may be a shock to some when TRG says that the kind of “Sorry” you’re talking about, NSANGSIA, is bad. Sure, it seems polite; it even sounds polite. But it’s anything but — even when the utterer is trying to be polite. Counterintuitive, yes, but bear with TRG: The reason it tilts you is because it feels so disingenuous.

Let the record be clear: TRG is all for saying “sorry” when a player acts out of turn (by accident). Or when someone realizes the action is on him, but is responding to a text from his pal who’s playing across town, humble bragging that he’s up three racks (strange how he rarely texts anyone when he’s down three racks). And the word “Sorry!” when someone spills Patron on the player to the right is of course expected and appreciated.

If you’re guilty of bad manners or bad behavior, you owe it to the game and the offended party/parties to say, “I’m sorry.” Add an explanation if you want, but the act of contrition is probably sufficient. (An aside on this front: TRG has witnessed hundreds if not thousands of encounters of rudeness or incivility that are instantly defused when the offender says, “I’m sorry.”)

But the situation you describe so well, NSANGSIA — to say “sorry” when you’ve won a big pot or busted someone — is ridiculous. And somewhat rude.

As Love Story’s Jennifer Cavilleri would have put it, had she been a poker-playing Radcliffe student: “Poker means never having to say you’re sorry.”

When TRG says “you” in the following paragraphs, he’s talking not to you, NSANGSIA, but to those who have said “sorry” to you or others:

—Even if you make the worst call in the history of poker: Don’t apologize.
—Even if you hit a one-outer on the river and bust your best and oldest friend: Don’t apologize.
—Even if you know your opponent is down to his case money and this hand is going to felt him, do not say “Sorry.”

Note that TRG is not saying you won’t feel sorry. Assuming you have a shred of your humanity left, there will be moments when you feel genuine sorrow and compassion — for example, when you’ve beaten someone whose friendship you value or whose play you admire. (On the other hand, when you bust someone you despise — that loudmouth, heckling, berating asshat who is a fixture on the poker landscape every single day — you will feel the opposite of sorrow. You will feel joy. To be more precise, you will felt schadenfreude, the greatest word the Germans have given us: pleasure at the misfortunes of others.)

Alternatively, you might feel remorse. Or sheepishness. Or chagrin. But when you say “Sorry,” you’re essentially trying to defuse your own feelings of inadequacy and/or guilt — not assuage your opponents’ pain. That’s why it tilts the hell out of you, NSANGSIA. Because “Sorry” in such a context can never, ever be sincere. The winner is raking the pot. The winner is alive in the tournament or the game or, better still, taking down first place money. The winner wins. And that feels good. And if a player is truly sorry about that, he is clearly playing the wrong game.

It’s fine to feel empathy. In fact, it’s beyond fine. The recognition that another human is in pain is one of the things that makes us human. Empathy is a trait worth cultivating. In many, many situations, saying “Sorry” is a real comfort to someone in pain. But not when someone has just lost a monster pot to you.

What can you say? “Good game.” Or “You played well.” And if those are much too far from the truth, which they often will be, how about, “I enjoyed playing with you.” And if even that is too far from the truth, then just stack your chips and avoid eye contact. Cowardice may indeed by the better part of valor. ♠