I disagree. Like any other game, poker has explicit rules, but it also has customs, accepted behaviours, and implicit rules. It may not be against the rules to say, “I have a flush” and then turn over a pair, but I guarantee if you do it in a private game regularly you won’t be invited back. And I’ve seen casinos kick players out for doing that.
The ‘don’t be a jerk’ rule always applies. It’s not against the rules to try to rile a player up by beaking off at him, laughing at his losses, etc. You might even get him on tilt and win some extra money from him. That doesn’t make it right. Players who pull these kinds of stunts are well known and universally despised.
And in my experience, the players who are always trying to shoot an ‘angle’ on other players are losers anyway. None of the very good players I know do this stuff. It’s strictly for the amateurs or those who don’t have a good grasp on their own emotions, like Phil Hellmuth.
One of the worst things about the latest TV poker craze is that players like Hellmuth make for good TV, and so you see far too many of that type of player on television. The quiet ones who are polite, unobtrusive, but take your money aren’t very interesting to watch. Therefore, new poker players who get their poker knowledge from watching the WSOP on TV get a skewed picture of correct behaviour.
The same thing happened when 'The Color of Money" came out. The pool halls filled with people who swaggered around, swinging their cuesticks like bo staffs, talking about their ‘sledgehammer breaks’, and pounding the butts of their cues on the floor in recognition of a good shot. And almost none of them could play worth a damn. It was annoying as hell.