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].

Exposing Cards: Is It Ever a Good Idea?

Dear The Rules Guy:

At a recent $3-$5 no-limit hold’em game, Seats 3 and 4 were heads-up on the turn. Seat 4 pushed all in and Seat 3 was thinking about calling (pot was about $600, and the call would cost Seat 3 about $300). Seat 3 took several minutes, and then asked for more time. Nobody called the clock. Finally, after about five minutes, Seat 4 asked Seat 3 if he wanted to see a card. Seat 3 said, “sure,” and Seat 4 asked him to point to one of the hole cards and, then, to turn it over. He did, but when returning it face down he accidentally flipped over the second card, exposing two pair (beating his top pair as we later saw). The dealer remained quiet and was going to let play continue as if nothing happened, but the other players insisted on calling the floor. The dealer explained what happened, the floor concluded there was no foul and let the hand continue. Seat 3 eventually folded. I believe the dealer and the floor hadn’t seen this before and did the best they could. What is the correct ruling here?

— A California Grinder in the Old West

Dear Grinder,

Well, this is a pickle of a situation. In no particular order:

A) Seat 3 should not tank for five minutes in a $3-$5 cash game for a $600 pot. That is a certainly a decent pot, but if he had to think for five minutes about a pot that size in a cash game, he is playing way, way, way too high. It would have been completely reasonable for any other player at the table to call the clock. (If it were $6,000, or an all-in for someone’s tournament life, then maybe five minutes is reasonable. In this situation, definitely not.)

Scorecard: Shame on Seat 3 for taking so long. Shame on everyone else for letting this hand take so long!

B) Seat 4 should not have offered to expose any card. It is explicitly forbidden in tournament poker, even in heads-up situations, and it really has almost no place in cash games. There may be some strategic value in showing one card, but it smacks of foolish gamesmanship that will cost the shower a bet far more often than it will result in a call (even before TRG finished reading the letter, he knew Seat 4 had a big hand). Of course, Seat 3 acted fine in accepting the offer: free information, no downside.

Scorecard: Shame on Seat 4, and shame (but less of it) on the dealer who allowed it (who may have been following house rules).

C) Seat 4 should not have allowed Seat 3 to touch his cards, full stop, and Seat 3 should not have touched them, full stop. TRG believes it may be some kind of weird violation of the “one player per hand” rule, but it definitely opens up an etiquette rules hornet’s nest.

It’s not insane to imagine a situation where Seat 3 fouls Seat 4’s hand, costing him the pot (even accidentally). And what did happen — both of Seat 4’s hole cards were exposed —gave Seat 3 all the information he needed to save $300. No brainer for him.

Scorecard: Shame on everyone involved, but no demerits for Seat 3’s action; the other guy set it up. Note that the floor acted reasonably. Seat 4’s hand wasn’t fouled, and he inadvertently (by carelessly offering to let another play touch his cards) caused his hand to be exposed. His carelessness cost him the call. (But there is no way that Seat 3’s hand is dead, at least in a cash game.)

Final tally: Seat 4 lost big-time (his “lost” EV is $300 times whatever percentage of times Seat 3 might have called him) — but he’s the only person who really got burned, and he brought the situation on himself by allowing his opponent to examine his hand.

For reference: There’s a famous anecdote about exposing cards for strategic purposes that involves Jack Straus in A. Alvarez’s classic book, The Biggest Game in Town. Check it out.

That Is So, So Sick… And Not In A Good, Good Way

Dear The Rules Guy:

I’m used to hearing the words “so sick” when someone takes (or watches, or gives) a bad beat. But what am I supposed to do when someone is actually sick? I mean visibly ill and presumably contagious? Is it on me to remove myself from the game?

— Germaphobe in Germantown (PA)

Dear Germaphobe:

The Rules Guy hears you. And hears the sounds of sickness. Coughing (typically uncovered). Sneezing (ditto). The raspy sound of the incipient cold. The sounds of maladies goes on, and sometimes, shockingly, the ailing players will even acknowledge their ailment but fail to take steps to protect others from catching whatever it is that ails them: “You know something, I don’t feel that well. Chips, please!…. Hey, you want some of my ribs?”

Ugh.

The Rules Guy doesn’t like it when contagiously sick people come to work, ride the subway or bus, fly, shop, eat in restaurants — or play poker. A floor man of TRG’s acquaintance says that unless someone is visibly sick to the point of incapacitation — like they’re throwing up — they won’t remove the ailing player from the game.

A thoughtful person, with empathy and the manners that accompany thoughtfulness and empathy, would not play and expose others to the germs that made him or her sick. That kind of selfish thoughtlessness is endemic, and not just at the poker table but in life itself. TRG’s advice: Don’t be that person. Maybe your example will rub off.

And in case it doesn’t, take hand sanitizer, never eat with your fingers at the poker table, and scurry on up to the board to ask for a table change. ♠

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