Protecting Yourself from Questionable Ethics

The other night I was playing in one of my typical No Limit games (the exact casino is not important, but let's just say that there are a lot of canals involved) and two situations arose within the space of an hour invovling players using strategies that I felt were unethical.

The first incident occurred when the player to the immediate right of me came out with chips before the flop. He held a large stack of ($5) red chips in his hand, about 20 chips or so, and as he brought the chips over the bet line he began quickly cutting them out on the felt. I had seen him come out with the fistful of chips and as I looked at my hole cards, in my peripheral vision I saw him cutting out several chips. I had a starting hand that I would not play to a raise, so I quickly mucked. When I looked up, I saw that the chips he had cut out were ($1) white chips, not red chips. He had stacked five white chips below the large stack of red chips, purposely held them in such a way that they were concealed, come out with the large stack of chips and then cut out five white chips one at a time in order to make it look as much as possible like a raise. When he saw that I had mucked my hand he started laughing as if this was all part of a secret joke. I didn't really care as far as my hand was concerned because I wouldn't have played it anyway, but the intent of the player was far from honorable and that disturbed me. I asked the dealer what the rule was since he had taken a large stack of chips over the bet line and in many casinos where I have played the player is then forced to at least put in a minimum raise and in some cases I have seen all the chips in the bettor's hand go into the pot. When I asked what the rule was in this casino the dealer just laughed.

The second incident involved two other players and was much worse than the first. Two players were in a pot that had been raised pre-flop and then bet on the flop and the turn. The river was checked and as soon as it was time to turn over hands the second player to act announced that he had an ace (which would have been top pair on the board.) This player was already racking chips getting ready to leave the table and he announced the ace without picking his hand up from the table as if he was too busy racking the chips to turn it over right that second. The first player started to muck his cards as he heard that the racker had an ace, but apparently thought better of it when he saw that the second player had not yet made a move to turn over his hand. The first player held his cards face down over the muck and said, "Let me see it." The second player picked his hand up off the table, still facing down, and as he said again, "I've got the ace man," he made a little flipping motion with the cards as if he was starting to flip them over...but stopped short. Now the first player was definitely suspicious and demanded again that the second player show his hand at which point (a little late in my opinion) the dealer stepped in and asked for both hands to be turned over. The first player tabled his King high no pair and the second player mucked his hand face down then turned and left the table.

I have played casino poker for years and have occasionally heard players misrepresent their hands on the river, but have never seen it taken that far or be that blatant. This kid had just won a huge pot about 5 minutes prior for around $1200, why try to cheat his way into $150 more?

I respect all the angles of our great game and agree wholeheartedly with the axiom, "It is immoral to let a fool keep his money." But I believe that a legitimate poker player will pride him or herself on taking that money through superior poker playing, not through questionable angles, unethical pot shots, or just plain cheating. This needs to serve as a reminder to all of us to never muck our hand until the winning hand is tabled and to always keep a sharp eye out for those who feel they need a little extra advantage in order to win.

Until next time...when you sit down at the table, may the sucker not be you!