Home Poker

Don't Blow It
By Squeege

It takes all kinds, but some of them aren't always welcome. I've played poker with some people who bet, fold, and announce their draw out of turn. Some of this is tolerable, and sometimes, it's not. Where playing friendly poker is concerned, the last thing you want to have to do is discipline somebody at the table. But, there is etiquette and there are rules.

I like to encourage sequence every chance I get, without being pushy. I have seen people not only fold out of sequence, but flip their hand face-up afterwards. It is not frequent, but once is enough. And this time, it was once too many. Here's what happened.

The game was Hi/Lo Pass the Trash (sometimes called Anaconda -- found in the Draw Poker section) with a roll-off of five cards at the end. There were about six people in the game, but we'll only concern ourselves with two of them. Player #1 was going high and Player #2 was going low. Player #1 was rolling off a low diamond straight flush from 2 to 6, while Player #2 took a good look at the competition and folded from the game.

Not only was the fold out of sequence, but Player #2 flipped his cards face-up, before scooping them all up and throwing them in. Nobody at the table, except Player #1, noticed that one of the cards that Player #2 had buried was the five of diamonds, thus ruining Player #1's supposed low diamond straight flush. Player #2 had been going low, so he had a couple of low cards, and the five of diamonds was one of them.

Smartly, Player #1 spoke up immediately. Again, nobody had even seen the five, but Player #1 took no chances. He immediately pointed out that not only had Player #2 acted out of sequence (which is discouraged, but not normally enough to stop a game), but that he had also committed a big faux pas by quickly revealing what cards he had buried before throwing them in. Any plans that Player #1 had been developing were ruined.

The situation was resolved by allowing everybody to help calculate how much money (to the nickle) Player #1 had invested in the pot, and allowing him to take it back, as though he had never been involved in the game. This, of course, was not the perfect solution, but the only one that anybody could think of. Despite Player #2's apology, the damage was done.

Sequence is one thing, but good form is another altogether. There are some things that need strong attention paid, and one of them is keeping one's buried cards discreet. The player who folds is withdrawn from the game, and what that player had buried is nobody's business during, or even after, the game. When you fold, you are out, and you take your secrets with you. In a case like this one, it blew the bluff of another player.

Adapted from HomePoker.com