I was playing at the casino not long ago and again at a home game that I frequented from time to time and was blown away by a couple of things I saw. No, not a horrible bad beat or a donkey chasing an outside 4 to catch a guy in the river. No, it was worse than that. It was an incredibly horrible poker etiquette. I know this is a game where we are supposed to try to take everything away from our opponents and when they go on tilt our task can become a lot easier. However, there is a tag involved when playing this game and I am going to go over some of the examples that I saw when I played live and some others in general.
Slow Rolling – This is by far the worst of all. Not to be confused with slow playback, which is obviously fine. Slow pitch is when a hand is shown down and you intentionally take your time showing what you know to be the winner. For example, if you have AA and the board is AAK 8 2, you know you have the best possible hand. Many times I have seen people with the nuts wait for their opponent to show their cards or go for the dramatic effect and slowly turn their cards over. When you have the best hand (and it’s usually pretty obvious when you do), show it right away and collect the chips. You don’t need to show your opponent. You’re probably going to be inclined anyway to lose a big pot without any stupid antics like slowrolling involved. Anyone who does it intentionally should take a trash punch from the person they did it to. The only time it’s okay is when you are good friends with someone and have that kind of relationship. I have a friend that I can get away with. There was a funny episode of Poker After Dark where Antonio Esfandiari slows Phil Laak and I say it’s funny because those two are always trying to break each other. To illustrate how these two love to go to each other, here’s a video from a previous episode where Antonio says Phil is all in … And now, here’s the slowroll … Other than that, just show your cards
Talking when you are not in hand – this is also pretty bad. I was in a hand a while ago where the flop was J 8 6 rainbow. Me and two players were in the hand, one was utg, another was immediately to his left and I was in the cutoff (one away from the BB). He had a pocket 9. The turn brought what I thought at the time was a sweet-looking 9. UTG player and bet $ 25. The next guy called without a problem and I won $ 75. The UTG player moves all in. The second type goes into the tank for quite a long time. He’s talking out loud (which he shouldn’t be doing when there’s another player in the hand. Attention, that’s fine) trying to figure out what he thinks the player might have all in. He shows his hand to the person behind him and keeps saying “How can I throw this away?” I put him in a set of 8 or 6, probably 6. Either way, I know I’m calling, but I’m trying to make it sound like I want him to decide so I can withdraw. I hold my cards in a way that makes it look like I’m preparing to screw up, which I think really made calling harder for him. Suddenly, the boy to my right starts talking. “Well, there is a straight with 10 7 but there is no flush. Maybe he played JJ slow …” I looked at him right away and told him he needed to be quiet and he says he can say whatever he wants. The dealer immediately intervened and told him not to speak when he was not playing. The guy couldn’t understand what the problem was. It is not up to you to speak of a hand in which you are not involved. You might say something like “The way he bet, I think he’s lying.” Well, maybe the person in the hand didn’t understand what you did and now calls with a better hand, causing the first to lose some money. Or maybe you’re wrong, causing the guy to call more money because he takes into account what you said. Either way, it doesn’t need to be affecting the result. By the way, the second guy folded and had a pocket of 6. I called and the UTG player showed 10 7 (which I couldn’t put in because he had played pretty easy up to that point and 10 7 UTG is a horrible hand. I did an 8 to make a full house. 😉
Reprimanding other players: We have probably all made it, or come very close to it. A guy plays a hand like a full donkey and wins a big pot and now you’re steaming. It’s really hard not to get mad in some of these situations, but the reality is, you should be glad this guy is making these kinds of plays. Eventually, you will lose those chips, and if you stay focused, those chips have a good chance of coming back to you. Don’t educate them either. Just touch the table with your knuckles and say good hand. You want them to think they made a good move and therefore they will do it again. It happens a lot in the online world because people are much tougher behind their monitors than in real life. However, what really amazes me is when I see the professionals doing it. They REALLY should know better and no one does this more than Phil Hellmuth. Sometimes it’s a good show and sometimes it’s really bad, like when he freaked out in last year’s World Series against Dragomir. Now, I don’t necessarily blame him for being mad at the ridiculous preflop call, but he went out of line …
Reprimanding the dealer: this one is just plain silly. You suffer a bad beat and you start to get mad at the dealer as if it was his fault. Like somehow, for some reason, he shuffled the cards in such a way that it made you lose. He’s there to shuffle the cards (sometimes not even that, since poker tables now have built-in shufflers), deal them, keep the pots straight, and push the chips to the winner of the hand, all while keeping the action moving from timely manner. . They are not there to catch you or to give you bad cards. They are just trying to win the game. When you get a bad beat, maybe you analyze your own play or simply attribute bad luck instead of taking it out on those who have nothing to do with the outcome. Maybe the Gods of Poker caught you for not tipping your dealer on the last pot you won. LOL
Reacting to a flop when you are not on it – This is somewhat similar to talking about a hand, but it is simply done in a different way. Let’s say you called a raise and the table comes J 7 7. Another guy at the table not in hand visibly shrugs or shakes his head in disgust. You can be pretty sure that person doubled one of the remaining two 7s. Giving information like that is simply wrong. You must respect the people who are in the pot by maintaining your composition and not reacting at all. There was a pretty serious incident at the WSOP a few years ago involving Shawn ‘Sheiky’ Shakhan and Mike Matusow that illustrates this. By the way, do you realize that many of these examples involve professionals? Even professionals can lose their minds from time to time …
Splashing the pot: This basically means that when you go to bet, you throw your chips in or around the other chips that are already in the pot. This can make it difficult for the dealer to set what our bet is if you didn’t declare an amount when betting and it just slows down the game. Just stack your chips in front of you, or if you have to do it where you slide your chips, make sure they are not near the pot. My favorite example of how a guy splashed the pot like an idiot and put on felt is here.
Another example of not talking: this one undoubtedly goes in speech when you are not in a hand category. There are times when a player will go all-in, and the person deciding whether or not to call asks the player all-in how much they have bet. They look for information about that person’s hand, hoping to detect a signal in the way a person responds or in the way they count their chips. Bad etiquette comes when a third person answers the player’s question all in. Now you just interfere in your hand where you have no place to do it. Again … keep quiet!
Acting out of turn – Usually this is just an inadvertent mistake. You don’t realize that the person to your right has cards and you go ahead and check. Maybe you bet. Your acting out of turn can now influence the person to your right in making decisions and how you want to act. They might just go ahead and bump you up now with a bluff, when before they could have passed / folded. They may have bet first, allowing you to raise and take the pot there or win a bigger pot later if they call. Some people will purposely act out of turn as a way to “fish”, which means trying to get information from someone about their hand, or they are trying to confuse their opponent as to where they really are. They don’t understand that it’s bad etiquette. Try to stay focused on where the action is at the table at all times and you won’t have to worry about it.
These are practically the main ones you will come across at the tables. There are also some that you will find online, where people might say “I think he’s bluffing” or “I think he’s beaten you.” It’s easier online to ignore these things because you can go ahead and silence them, but it’s still bad etiquette online as well. Try following some of these guidelines the next time you are at the tables.
I know it sounds a bit funny that in a game where you are trying to smash the other player, there is also a kind of gentleman etiquette or rules that we are supposed to follow while doing it. It’s like hockey when two guys fight. They’re punching each other in the face, but if you fall to one knee or fall on the ice, there’s a mentality that you don’t hit the guy while he’s on the ground. You stop hitting and receive your five minute penalty. Maybe that’s what they should start doing in poker. Offer a certain amount of penalty minutes depending on the level of the tag violation (eg, ten minutes on the rail while still blinded for rolling slowly, 5 minutes for reprimanding a player). I bet you would see a lot of the idiotic things Phil Hellmuth or Tony G do, at least drop to the bare minimum.