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. What’s wrong? What’s right? What’s an angle? Got a question about how to behave at the poker table (or a comment about a column)? Email TRG at [email protected].

Props to Mike Sexton

Is there another game on earth where a commentator can actually participate at a high level and win? Mega-props to Mike Sexton, the host of the World Poker Tour, on taking down a WPT main event in Montreal. Sexton is a true gentleman, a tremendous advocate for the game, and—not that anyone needs proof of this—a great player. Congratulations, Mike!

Props to Norman Chad

The Rules Guy is a long-time fan of ESPN’s color commentator Norman Chad. The fractured college names are great, the ex-wife jokes are great, and his deadpan delivery is great. He always deserves props, but he gets extra-special props for one of his lines during the coverage of the World Series of Poker main event when Griffin “Flush_Entity” Benger coolers William “Speech Play” Kassouf. After Griffin opens, Kassouf tanks, and Chad remarks: “And we now will wait for Will Kassouf because…this is his time.”

Props to Griffin Benger

1. For busting Kassouf before the Brit could make the November Nine.
2. For calling Kassouf’s behavior out on ESPN.

Props to the 2016 WSOP Final Table

TRG believes the tide may have turned against tanking, and the proof is the speed of the play at the 2016 final table. The November Nine deserve some serious props for establishing and adhering to a reasonable pace of play. If this a harbinger of things to come, it’s a very good thing for poker players and poker fans everywhere.

You Shows Yours and I’ll Muck Mine

Dear The Rules Guy:

It was nice to read an article about a good guy and what most likely was a good result (“Lee Jones Lets Guy Off the Hook,” Aug. 31, 2016). However, I wish to comment on your reference to praising Lee for opening his hand right away: “No one enjoys being a spectator in the game of ‘who shows first.’”

You article would seem to suggest that proper etiquette is to open your hand quickly when you know you have the winner. I disagree and argue that the etiquette of the game demands that the acting player be obliged to open his hand or throw it in the muck. In the present story, the villain declared “all in” despite the arguments against. The villain is the actor; Lee should table the winner after seeing the actor’s cards.

This is a game of information. When a person calls down another, they are entitled and have in fact paid to see the other player’s cards. This is important not only to determine the winner, but to assess future action and reads, betting patterns, etc.
I cannot count the number of times people get frustrated during the “who shows first” wait, but this is within the calling player’s right. The caller should not have to endure the scorn of other players for doing what is right.

A last point to this is the players who put money in the pot, but fold on later streets. They too deserve to know what was going on the in hand; again to gain information paid for, but also to protect against collusion at the table.

— Ridiculed for Sticking to the Rules

The Rules Guy is going out on the proverbial limb here and speculate about what you do for a living, Ridiculed for Sticking to the Rules:

You are an attorney.

Here’s why TRG thinks you are an attorney. You make your case forcefully, logically, and passionately. And the fact that you signed your thoughtful email with your professional signature. Since any attorney can probably out-argue a lowly poker columnist six days a week and twice on Sunday, TRG will concede this at the outset: TRG largely agrees with you.

When you call a river bet, it is your right to wait and see your opponent’s hand tabled before you turn over your own cards. Seeing his hand can be a strategically important bit of information, and you’re entitled to it. This isn’t a matter of etiquette; it’s a matter of rule. TRG turns to his own version of canonical poker law, The Rules of Poker (Lou Krieger and Sheree Bykofsky):

“On the final betting round, the last player who actively bet or raised the pot (and was then called) is required to show his hand first. Once he shows his hand, other players reveal their down-cards in clockwise order.”

That is the law of the felt. But on the very same page of the book, Krieger and Bykofsky go on to say:

“Regardless of which player might be required to show his or her hand down first, any player who thinks he or she has the winning hand can speed things up immeasurably by immediately turning his or her hand face up.”

In an “interpretation note,” they add, with a remarkable degree of understatement, “It can be very frustrating to watch two or more players sit there, each waiting for another to turn his hand over….it’s a lot better for the game if someone—anyone—turns his hand over.”

TRG’s point in the earlier column about Lee Jones was a matter of etiquette, not rules; of decency in the moment, not a strict adherence to the rules. The entire mission of this column is not to parse the rules to the nth degree but try to plumb what makes a decent human being at the poker table (and therefore makes a good experience for more players). Sometimes that involves taking slightly the worst of it for some greater good: a faster table, a happier table, a more friendly game, your own reputation as a good player (“good” in the moral sense as well as the skill sense).

As for players ridiculing you, that is wrong, wrong, wrong. No player should ridicule anyone, full stop. A player can certainly complain at any slowdown in the pace of play, and, knowing poker players, they certainly will. But in the case you describe, it’s misguided: their anger should be directed to the real villain, the bettor who should show first.

So let’s tackle this issue from the other angle. Why won’t players who should show first actually do so? Two reasons: They don’t want to cede an inch in the information war. But also, they are often embarrassed to show their potentially losing hand—not necessarily because of how they played it (though that may be a factor). But because mucking and seeing the pot pushed elsewhere somehow feels less psychologically painful than showing and seeing the pot pushed elsewhere. So they stall in the hopes they can minimize the inevitable pain.

So you are absolutely correct in your interpretation of the rules. But remember that the spirit of the law can be more important than a strict interpretation. You may lose a tiny bit of expected value by not seeing an opponent’s hand, but you’ll gain so much goodwill by being more flexible. ♠