Poker: Don't antagonize losing players!

I took another trip to the new Parx casino poker room this weekend, where I had a bit of a roller coaster ride, losing a couple two buy-ins early before making most of it back quickly after dinner.  I am pleased that over the past month or two I am finally no longer getting visibly frustrated or emotional over bad beats or losses in big pots.  Nevertheless, I still have a tendency to go off on people over what I perceive as bad poker etiquette (on this occasion, a slowroller).  Why do people do this crap?   

As I do not really feel qualified to go into deep strategy discussion on this blog, I thought I would use my first poker post to discuss my feeling about etiquette at the table.  Overwhelmingly, all of these specific recommendations can be summarized under one general rule: Don’t antagonize losing players.  I generally believe in giving a pass to whatever behavior people exhibit immediately after losing a big pot; poker can be an incredible frustrating and stressful game.  But being a sore winner is just disgusting.  So, when you beat a player in a pot, here are some examples of what not to do:

-       Don’t slowroll! (This means deliberately waiting to table a winning hand so as to let your opponent think he has won.)

-       Along the same lines, if you think you have a winning hand, “fastroll” it, whether or not you were one who made or called the bet…if you don’t know what I mean by this, I will discuss it in a later post.

-       Never ask to see a losing or mucked hand, whether or not you are in the hand!

-       Don’t celebrate your win by high-fiving your friends or yelling “Ship It!”

-       Don’t cheer when another player is eliminated from a tournament

-       Don’t ask your opponent asinine hypothetical strategy questions trying to figure out if you could have bled more money out of them (e.g. “Would you have called if I bet $x/went all in?”)

-       Along the same lines, don’t give advice to your opponent on how they could have played the hand better.

I also get pretty annoyed when players quickly call the clock on another player.  I believe you should never call the clock on someone in a cash game unless they have been repeated acting slowly in situations that don’t warrant it.   I have called the clock on another player twice in my life, and both times, it wasn’t because they were pondering a big decision, but because they clearly weren’t paying attention to the game (e.g. one was a woman who would start chatting with a friend sitting behind her in a foreign language every hand while we were all waiting for her to fold preflop).   But if the player has been respecting the game throughout the session, please give the respect of allowing them the time they need to make a decision.

I engaged in a lot of heated political debates during my high school and college days, but as far as I can recall, poker etiquette is the only topic of argument over which (multiple!) people have threatened to physically assault me.  I honestly wish it didn’t get under my skin so much, but it does, so please just follow the recommendations above and will remain a happy poker camper while I am at your table.