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 Basic Poker Etiquette.
Poker etiquette is not exactly a poker strategy, however it does add to your table image which is a big part of poker strategy when you are sitting at the tables in an online tournament or in a local Texas Holdem tournament there are some basic guidelines that will definitely help you gain the respect of you fellow players. It is important to have a positive table image so you do not have people trying to take you out because they don?t like you. I know it sound silly but if you piss off a whole table because you are doing things that violate poker etiquette I guarantee you will not last long no matter what your hand, all hands are vulnerable to multiple callers and that is exactly what will happen if you forget to use proper poker etiquette when you are sitting at a local game or if you are playing poker online in your favorite poker room. Proper poker etiquette shows respect for the players at your table and the game of poker. The other thing you will find is that if you do not use poker etiquette you will find yourself getting very few invites to games in a very short time. Well let?s get to the basic poker etiquettes.
Probably the first rule is to refrain from trash talking the other players. Some table talk is fine but don?t go overboard and expose your inner sucker by becoming the loud mouth at the table and get players gunning for you. Lets say you have a new guy at the table and he doesn?t know the hands to play and he chases a gut shot or some sort of runner runner play and hits. Something like that will make a lot of people get pissed and go off on the guy. I have seen this lots of times myself where an experienced player gets taken by a play like that and then goes off on the guy telling him ? What the F are you doing playing that garbage ? or something along those lines. Don?t be that guy play your game and stick to what you know is good poker eventually things will go in your favor if you play when the odds are to your advantage. I like to think of it as ?ok if he didn?t get lucky and hit I would have raked a great pot? so over time my turn will come. The other thing is when you make a statement like that you might as well put a sign on your forehead that says? HEY GUYS I M ON TILT?. Which is something a smart player will take advantage of in the next few hands because he knows you are more vulnerable to making a bad call. The other thing you will find is that if you come off as arrogant by down talking to a player you will make the other poker players at the table uncomfortable and they will decide to go after the arrogant prick that thinks he is so much better then everyone else. So just looking at those few examples will show that trash talk is not a good idea.
The next rule of poker etiquette is to not play your hands out of turn. I think we have all done this by accident I know I am guilty of it. I remember one time I hit quad Jacks on the river and I got so excited that I made a big bet with two more players in the hand before me. They got pissed off and folded I did show them the hand because I wanted them to know it was really a stupid thing on my part and cost me money because I did not give them the chance to play. This happened when I first started playing cards and was an honest mistake. If you do go out of turn pay more attention to the game. This is really not so much what I am talking about. I am talking about it being bad poker etiquette when someone goes out of turn on purpose to gain an advantage over another player. Things like grabbing your chips and pretending to make a bet when it?s not your turn. I have seen people do this in order to see a cheap hand. They sense a player before them is going to make a raise so they start grabbing chips or even say raise when it is not their turn to slow the other player down and represent a great hand. Then when it is their turn they just call. This will fly a few times and then the other players will pick up on that kind of play. Doing things out of turn does happen but if you see a guy say raise or act like it to then only call when it is his turn you will know what is up and that kind of out of turn play will get people gunning to eliminate you form the poker table.
I think the most important rule of poker etiquette is to never look at another players down cards. No matter how bad you want to know the only time you should look at another players cards is when the hand is over and you have called his bet, then you paid to see those cards, any other time the cards can get mucked and you are not entitled to look at them no matter how tempting it is. This poker etiquette can be a hard one to follow especially when you feel like you got bluffed and you want to know. No matter how tempted you get do not look at those down cards. Another thing is that if you feel someone is going to look at your down cards, when you muck them mix them up in the muck pile before the cards get passed to the next dealer. This is something that I will do if I feel like the guy that is dealing next is going to be tempted to look at my down cards. Lets say you are in a hand with the guy that will deal next and the hand plays out where you make a big bet and he folds. This is when this kind of thing will happen as the card get picked up the guy will try and either put your muck cards on bottom or top of the pile and casually sneak a peak at what you tossed. If you sense this kind of thing is happening anytime you muck cards and you know this player is dealing don?t just muck your cards but mix them up in the muck pile if possible. This will send a message to the guy that you are on to him. Poker etiquette is very important when it comes to this. If you violate this poker etiquette you might as well have leaned over and looked at the guys cards. This will get you branded as a cheater and make other players suspicious of you, which is not a good image to have.
One last thing pertains more to Texas Holdem Tournament style poker playing or any time where there are blinds involved that go up on a timer. One thing that I consider bad poker etiquette is that when someone runs out the blinds. What I mean is they will take forever to call bet or raise every hand in doing this you will see less hands per blinds. Lets say you are short stacked and the blinds go up every 15 minutes. You have a player at your table that takes 3 minutes to make up his mind every time it is his turn. You are lucky you are going to see 2 or 3 hands with this guy on the table. This can get quite aggravating because as the blinds go up you are becoming less and less competitive. This poker etiquette to me is just good courtesy to the other players. Granted you will get hands that require a little thought but not every hand. I have seen this a lot when players get drunk and should not even be at the table.
Well these are the basic rules of poker etiquette the rest is just common sense. If you have any other type poker etiquette that you think should be mentioned here send us an email and if we decide it is pertinent we will add it to the list.
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