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].

Ne touchez pas mes cartes!

TRG takes this conundrum — which features both rules and etiquette! — from Matt Savage’s Twitter feed: The event is the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship in August of this year, and it’s late on Day 2. The screenshot Savage posted (it appears to be from the Seminole Hard Rock’s live update feed) reads:

_In one of the final hands of the night, Travell Thomas was given a penalty for grabbing and revealing Marc Macdonnell’s mucked cards. It appeared to be a preflop raise or reraise by Macdonnell to take the pot, and Thomas picked up the cards to see what they were.

A floorperson was immediately called over, and Thomas was given a one-round penalty to finish out the night. His penalty carried over to the beginning of play the next day, and he had to sit out the first several hands._

Savage added, “I welcome your opinions on this situation.” #SituationOfTheDay

Dear Matt Savage and readers of The Rules Guy:

The Rules Guy is generally always ready to offer an opinion and will open the discussion by noting that, even to a relative newbie, grabbing another player’s cards with an eye towards taking a peek is seriously wrong, extremely disrespectful, and definitely, unquestionably, and decidedly a punishable offense. Badly done, Travell!

To his credit, Thomas himself Tweeted about the incident with what seems to be remorse: “Just ended the night with a penalty because a guy raised me every hand and I was over it so I looked at his cards. I’m a idiot.”

TRG believes there are more examples of idiotic behavior than actual idiots, so he urges Thomas to cut himself some slack here. But TRG will also say this: This was an idiotic move, and there can be no justification for it—no matter how frustrated and victimized you might feel from a truly aggressive player, and no matter how curious you might be about a player’s holding, you never have the right to see his or her cards if there’s no showdown. (If a hand goes to showdown, any one dealt into the hand can “legally” ask to see a hand that was called—but only the dealer or the player can table the cards. And even that is a request not to be made lightly.)

Strangely, it’s hard to find an explicit rule on the Travell Thomas issue, something that says, “Dude, don’t touch my cards ever for any reason, you dig?” or “No player, and we do mean no player, can turn over an opponent’s uncalled hand.” But TRG is The Rules Guy, not the The Rules Writer Guy, so he leaves the actual wording to the professionals.

However, TRG did find some official language that governs this area of poker etiquette. Rule #18 from the Tournament Directors Association states that, “Players not still in possession of their cards at showdown, or who have mucked face down without tabling their cards, lose any rights or privileges they may have to ask to see any hand.” True, this incident occurred preflop, not at showdown, but the second Thomas mucks his cards, his right to see Macdonnell’s cards is gone.

Another rule, #59, is even more on point: “Players are obligated to protect other players in the tournament at all times. Therefore players, whether in the hand or not, may not: 1. Disclose contents of live or folded hands, 2. Advise or criticize play at any time, 3. Read a hand that hasn’t been tabled.

Clearly, rule #3 applies here, since Macdonnell’s hand has not been tabled (his raise was uncalled).

So it’s obvious that an infraction occurred, and it’s obvious that a penalty was called for; the only issue was how severe should that penalty be. And that’s where this situation gets interesting, because the reaction to Savage’s post on Twitter was, well, Twitter-like (ie, severe).

Daniel Negreanu had the funniest line: “We should ask Annie Duke what’s fair. She used to do this all the time.” (Somehow, TRG isn’t surprised by that.) Others respondents were essentially torn between a “one-round penalty is def not enough!” and “to implement more than one orbit is abs[urd].”

But what’s important to note here is the virulence of the virulent here. As Luke (@slayamerica) put it, “u can’t flip over someone else’s hand lol it’s like first rule of live action.” He’s not right—it’s not the “first rule of live action”—but he is so right. People flip out when someone reaches across the felt to reveal your about-to-be-mucked hand, and TRG doesn’t blame them one bit.

Why? Because poker is a war of information, and if you want that particular kind of information, you’re going to have to ask really nicely or pay for it in the form of calling that big bet or raise and seeing the hand tabled. And because poker is a game of deception and, let’s face it, deception has a certain moral ambiguity. When we react viscerally to the uncalled hand being flipped over, we recoil, as if we were caught in a lie, which we generally are. We don’t want to reveal our bluffs. We may say it’s because we don’t want players to see our bluffing frequency, which is certainly true, but we also don’t like to be caught in a fib, even if that fib is not only acceptable, but an essential part of the game itself.

Another component is the sense that when our hand is turned over against our will, our privacy has been somehow violated—and that too makes us react. In The Rules of Poker: Essentials for Every Game (Lou Krieger and Sheree Bykofsky), “Although they get fewer and fewer with each passing day, some things are still private in this world and poker hands are among them.” (Rule 3.7)

Clearly, Macdonnell’s hand should have remained private. For what it’s worth, TRG thinks the one-round penalty for Travell Thomas feels about right (as to whether turning over Marc Macdonnell’s hand is a punishable offense, there can be zero argument). It’s a rule thing. And it’s an etiquette thing. ♠