A Word On Etiquette

I witnessed a hand yesterday in which one player, a young women who seemed to be a very good player, took a long time to consider whether or not she wanted to call a river bet. Given the action, I was pretty sure she had a Kings or Aces, but she was pretty sure the hand was no good. Finally, she made the crying call.

Her opponent showed down two-pair, and the young woman nodded and tapped the table in a show of sportsmanship. Then a player not involved in the hand asked to see her cards.

“You want to see my cards?” she snapped. Then she flung her cards at the muck.

Yet another player chimed in, offering,”it’s bad etiquette to ask someone to show their hand after they’ve lost and mucked.”

“This is poker! There’s no such thing as etiquette,” the man shot back.

I wanted to take a moment to point out that this statement – that there’s no such thing as manners in poker – is absolute wrong.

Poker is a game of intense competition. During the play of a hand, a player is entitled to talk or assume a body posture that bests serves his interests. You want to manipulate your opponents, so you do what you need to do.

After a pivotal hand, however, emotions are bound to run high. It’s during these moments when you should really keep quiet, especially if you’re not involved in the hand.

If you think someone played a hand like a fish, why tell him? What’s to be gained? Do you want to point out his misplay so he won’t repeat it? That hardly seems to your advantage. There’s another danger. Several times in this WSOP, I’ve seen players espouse an interpretation of a hand that was completely wrong. At that point, the player revealed his own limitations to the better players around him.

There are, in fact, many points of etiquette in poker. I don’t plan on becoming the game’s Emily Post. Rather, I’ll leave you with this simple rule to follow: keep your mouth shut after the play of a hand and you’ll be just fine.