Page 10 - November 2006 • Southern California Gaming Guide

Jim Mercurio: Poker
“I Got Nothing...Pocket Aces” IBad Poker Etiquette at Your Home Game
was watching the ESPN coverage for the main event at the World Series of Poker® and saw the young punk Eric Molina throw out insults and taunts to several players. Jamie Gold’s own brash style seemed to bring it on himself, but I thought Molina was way out of line
when he was trash-talking Tom Jacobs, a mild-mannered pro.
It’s really easy to look at Molina and say what a jerk. But we should also look at ourselves and see what ways our poker etiquette is less than perfect.
In my home game the other night, I was in a pot with a guy who played with us for the rst time. I raised the pot from late position with pocket aces and he called in the big blind. Flop came JQK. He made a pot-sized bet into me. I at-called. A blank came on the turn and he made another pot-sized bet. If it were a tournament, I might lay this down here, but it’s our home game where the stakes are relatively low and part of the fun is giving and getting action. Another blank came and he said “All- in.” I was ready to lay the hand down, but, having been oblivious to all that was going on, I didn’t even realize he was short-stacked. When I saw that his nal bet re ected less than 25% of the pot, I made the call.
I was lamenting the imagined bad-beat my aces took and I said, “I have nothing,” and then turned my cards over and sighed, “Pocket aces.” My opponent’s look went from relief to anger and he mucked his cards.
Yeah, he was pretty pissed. I could try to rationalize it away by saying I thought he had a better hand or that I was being ironic, but the truth is I was a big fat jerk. I inadvertently slow-rolled him, which is the term for the rude gesture of taking extra time to turn over the winning hand to crush your opponent’s false hope that they had just won.
You’re probably thinking,“But Jim, I am not a big fat jerk. You are.” Yes, but let’s look at a couple other things that players do at home games that are probably worse, because they actually cost other players money.
Let’s all agree that if two players are heads-up in a big hand and the op is K88, it would be pretty rude to announce to the table,“I folded an 8.” But when you see the op and slam the table hard in frustration or say “Darn it” or look at the op and whisper to your friend that you folded an 8, that’s exactly what you are doing. is could be equally bad for both players, but what’s worse is when you screw over one player more than the other.
Let’s say you are involved in a big three-way pot and at the end, a player makes a big bet. e player who is next to act before you takes a really long time to call. Well, your Diet Coke is running low, so you muck your cards and head o to the kitchen to re ll. Sloppily tossing in your 50-cent at-call out of turn pre- op in a family pot is probably no big deal. But your folding out of turn in this three-way pot is a major o ense and may have cost the original bettor the pot.
...Continued on page 28
Page 10
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
November 2006
Poker: Wired Aces and River Rats