Etiquette

      " You played that as bad as you can.
        Your career's finished.
          You're gone, gone, gone."        Tony G, obnoxious poker pro.

 I've recently been taking an interest in the rules of poker, mainly because I've been working towards starting a regular tournament at my home club. The rules of poker seem to fall into three categories: the basic rules that everyone has to comply with; rules that you are expected to follow, but for which there is no definite penalty; and the guidelines for expected behaviour, ie etiquette.
   The first group of rules are pretty straightforward, and are found in use across the board, from professionally run tournaments to casual home games. Things like the betting limits, the way the cards are dealt and what happens with misdeals are all spelled out clearly and generally followed without question.

  The second group of rules is a little trickier to define, especially for amateur games. These are the sort of things that you are not supposed to do and would probably be penalised for in a professionally run game. Things like misrepresenting your hand, abusive behaviour, using a cell phone at the table, talking about the contents of a hand, agreeing to check down a hand when another player is all-in,  excessive celebration and so on. There  are a lot of these sort of rules, some of which are specified in amateur games, but which usually don't incur any penalty unless there are repeated infringements. These rules are often referred to as 'poker etiquette' but don't really fall into this category at all. This is the sort of thing where, if you do it at the table, someone will give you a gentle reminder that it's not allowed.

   A few of these minor transgressions have been known to occur at the Friday night tournament that I regularly play in. Splashing the pot happens quite a lot, with players chucking chips onto the table rather than just placing them. Another is the case where a player shows another what was in their hand. Someone usually says, 'show one, show all' when this happens and the offender has to show

everyone the contents of their hand. The most common of all is talking about a hand when it is in progress. I've never seen anyone get pulled up on this and it happens all the time. Players at this tourney routinely comment on the possibilities of a straight or flush as each card is revealed, make guesses about what other players may be holding and suggest which card would be really good to have at a particular point. This sort of behaviour is not supposed to be allowed because it is giving away free information about a hand.

   Another common 'free information' transgression is the 'doh!' moment. This is where a player slaps their head, groans, rolls their eyes or otherwise reacts when a card comes that would have given them a monster hand if they hadn't folded. This can seriously disadvantage a player who is still in the hand, because it gives away information about a card or cards that have been folded, and are therefore  no longer in play. I used to be guilty of this sort of behaviour myself in my early days of live poker play. At one stage I actually banged my head on the table to make sure everyone knew that the hand I just folded would have given me quads on the flop! Nowadays I can generally resist the temptation to react obviously to these missed opportunities. After all, if you can maintain a poker face when you are in the hand, surely you can do it when you're on the sidelines.

   Another 'minor rule' is the one that says you cannot agree with another player to check down a hand when a third player is all in. It's usually in both the active players' interests to just check to the river, because you have a better chance of eliminating the all-in player, but you can't actually say anything about this. So if both players are aware of this, they usually just check it down without saying anything. Unfortunately, many players don't get this and if someone bets into me in this situation, I find it hard to refrain from pointing out what the optimal strategy might have been. Pointing this out after the fact may not be strictly against the rules but it is probably bad etiquette.

   That brings me to what I would call the area of poker etiquette: the types of behaviour that don't break any actual rules but are considered 'bad form' in the poker world. There are a couple of things that are not restricted solely to the game of poker but which are generally frowned upon in the real world as well. Poor personal hygene is one. It's not much fun sitting in close proximity to someone who hasn't seen a shower for a while, especially if you are stuck in that same seat for hours on end. I always take care to ensure that I'm not the one causing this sort of discomfort to others at the table, but there are one or two people at the Friday tourney who are notorious for a lack of attention to this area.
   The second thing is rude or insulting behaviour. This is no more acceptable around the poker table than it is at other times. I haven't seen much of this in live games. Occasionally you get a bit of good natured ribbing, but that's a different thing altogether. Playing online is a completely different situation. When people are sitting alone in a dark room, thousands of kilometres away from their opponents they seem to think that they can be as obnoxious and insulting as they like. To be fair, the vast majority of players are perfectly civil or just don't communicate at all. But there is a small but outspoken group who just act like jerks. They will say things online that they would never dream of saying to someone face to face. The anonymity of the computer screen just seems to bring out the worst in some people.
   Another thing that can bug other players is slowing the game down. This can happen online when someone is multi-tabling and takes a lot of time to get around to acting on their hand because they're paying attention to other tables. Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do about this. Sometimes in live games you get someone who slows down the action. This is particularly annoying in

tournaments, because everyone wants to play as many hands as they can before the next blind level. The live tournaments I play in take place in clubs and the most frequent cause of delays in play is drunk players. Players who have had too much to drink often slow down the action because they get distracted and fail to pay attention to the game. The worst instance of this that I've encountered was a player who was so drunk that she couldn't count out her chips properly and other players ended up putting her bets in for her to stop the game from grinding to a halt. Fortunately, I've only seen this sort of situation a few times and things generally progress at a reasonable rate.
   Another example of poor poker etiquette is the bad winner. This is the person who gloats, crows, or generally makes an ass of themselves when they win a hand. Ok, so you're allowed to be happy about winning but there's no need to rub it in. The best thing a winner can do is to quietly rake in the chips and start stacking them up. We've all been on the losing side of a hand often enough to know that it's not much fun, especially if you've made a bad call. And the worst way anyone can win a hand is by slow-rolling. This is when you know that you have the winner but take your time to show your cards, allowing your opponent to believe that they're ahead. This is very bad form. I always make it a point to show my cards straight away when I think I have the best hand, even if I'm not that sure of whether or not I'm actually ahead.

  Although the slow-roll is very bad poker etiquette, probably the worst thing a player can do is asking to see a folded hand at the showdown. Poker rules generally state that any player who is in a hand has the right to see a hand that someone has folded at the showdown. When playing online I often use the playback feature to see what another player folded. This provides very useful information about how people play particular types of hands. But I would never dream of doing this at a live table. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, all players want to limit the free information they give away and have every right to muck their hands if it's obvious that they're beaten. If you extend this courtesy to others then they will do the same for you. Secondly, and far more importantly, the reason that players have the right to see a folded hand is to guard against collusion. If you suspect that someone is soft-playing when up against another, maybe even folding the best hand, you can call them out. In other words, if you ask to see a folded hand, then you are implying that they are cheating. This is very bad.
   I guess what it all boils down to is showing proper respect for the other people sitting around the poker table with you. The idea is to try and take their money, but to do it with such grace and good humour that they don't mind. It's a good trick if you can manage it.