**Bryan Ekers], it’s obvious that somewhere, someone’s shed is missing a tool.
You have agreed with everything that everyone has said about poker ethics but then refuse to call it ethics because you’re as stubborn as the Herpies sore you must resemble in some way.
Then you say that the difference between ethics and (ethical?) guidelines that ethics are written - as if secular humanists don’t have ethics because they don’t have some inspired texts to guide them.
One person already called you a dick; how many votes do you need before you realize it?
Wouldn’t you say that “sportsmanship” and “etiquette” are ethics in and of themselves? I’m genuinely curious, as I don’t see a distinction. They’re codes of conduct deemed acceptable by society.
Actually, this is not entirely true. There is a standardized set of guidelines for all professional tournaments which applies to every player participating. Those rules address as many contingencies as possible, including deliberately slowing down play and discussing hands while the hand is in progress, which is a form of angle shooting. I apologize, I cannot link to anything remotely resembling “gambling” from my work, so no cite…Sam, some help? Card Player mag did an extensive couple of articles about the rulings last year.
Oh, and angle shooters should be expelled from tournaments. None of this weenie 10 minutes crap.
When watching a boatload of WSOP on ESPN, I saw Matusow and Shiekhan (Sp?) get into the rules/ettiquette/sportsmanship/ethics when Shiekhan folded two cards that would have flopped him a boat, pounded the table in reaction which inflamed Matusow since he was still live in the pot. Matusow shot back with a “What the fuck?” and got the 10 minute misconduct along with Shiekhan. I was looking for the actual recounting of this hand somewhere, because I don’t have the accounting of the hand and reactions verbatum.
Then “sportsmanship” ensued.
Bad etiquette on Shiekhan’s part, although that may not have been his usual “ethics” WRT tournament poker. If Shiekhan does this at every event, then that is bad ethics.
I thought the whole fun of live poker was the psychological element - smack talking, lying, and intimidation. The human interaction is what sets poker apart from a game like roullette.
It is part of it. But you’re not allowed to discuss a hand in progress, especially not to the effect of “I hope you can beat my ace…” right before someone in front of you bets. It’s designed to chase people out of pots. If you want them out, make the bet too high. But deliberately talking about your hand or deliberately misrepresenting your hand is not legal in tournament poker.
They piss me off too, but for a completely different reason: 90% of the time, people who berate others do so because they suck themselves.
Poker isn’t a game of cards, it’s a game of psychology. If you can’t change up your strategies so you can win against (choose one: the fish / loose players / tight players / aggressive players / drunk players), then YOU SUCK.
If you’re consistently losing money to idiots who call two raises with T5s, then YOU SUCK.
If you can’t win money in the long run from morons who slowplay pre-flop, then YOU SUCK.
I have to admit that I’m unfamiliar with much of the poker jargon being used in this thread. I decided to look it up and I found that “slow rolling” was merely taking your time showing a winning hand just to rub everyone’s noses in it. I can’t understand why this would be considered unethical. Play is over, so there’s no way your slow roll is going to change the outcome. Sure, it might be a bit jerkish, but what’s the harm? It is similarly unethical to make a big deal about winning a hand?
“Slow rolling” is probably the ethical equivalent pulling the pigtails fo the girl in front of you in 4th grade. It is rude behavior to be sure and one can argue that rudeness is unethical but sure, it’s the least of problems.
Other unethical behavior and tactics have been discussed in this thread above, antics that go beyond rudeness into a realm where you attempt to gain an unfair advantage through an “angle” (hence the term).
Slow rolling will still get you kicked in the nuts in many backroom games so it’s not advisable.
There is, I find, a spectrum running from “politeness” (rules of interaction among the general public for common situations such as table manners) to “sportsmanship” (rules of interaction among people engaged in a rule-defined pastime) to “ethics” (stricter rules of interaction involving members of a voluntary professional association). Open-table poker qualifies as a pastime. The fact that it can be played for serious money doesn’t elevate it beyond a game and make it into a serious, professional occupation. Of course, the points along that spectrum of any given activity are a matter of opinion.
I discussed tournament ethics quite specifically in post #48 of this thread:
In my days of live poker (two years of 1/2 NL - I’m such a manly man), I’ve heard the following spoken in multihanded play:
“God these cards suck”
“Damnit I missed the flop again”
“My kicker isn’t good enough”
“I have a good pocket pair”
“Oops, maybe I shouldn’t have folded my aces”
I thought comments like these were all fair game and pretty harmless. Granted, I’ve never played any serious cash games or tournaments. Can you really get kicked out for silly table talk?
I remember once when two guys were heads up. It was at the turn and the action was on Guy A. He turned his cards up for the table to see (a flush draw)and asked the table if he should call Guy B’s bet. The table convinces him to call and he gets his flush on the river. Guy B scolded the dealer for not taking action but took it in stride considering the pot was over $100. Shouldn’t Guy A’s hand be declared dead if he flips it face up, or does that not apply to heads up?
So you cannot answer either way with specifics, however you can speak in general terms. My favorite involbed Layne Flack on a WPT event with a big bet on the table and Mike Matusow deliberating on a call:
Layne: Ask me what I have.
Mike: Okay, what do you have?
Layne: You beat.
IIRC we never saw Shiekhan’s hole cards so we don’t know exactly what part of the flop he hit, but he definitely slammed the table hard. Matesow said “you need to shut the fuck up,” and Shiekhan started saying something like “What was that Mike? You got something to say to me?” The tournament director correctly gave each player a 10 minute penalty, Shiekhan for the poor conduct and Matesow for the F-bomb.
Of course it was highly edited, but the Matesow incident wasn’t the first at the WSOP where Shiekhan behaved poorly. There was a hand against Tiffany Williamson in which she was taking a long time to make a decision and he called a clock (which is generally frowned upon, although given the amount of time she spent in the tamk I can’t really blame him). He then started behaving poorly toward her (especially after she sucked out on him with a mediocre A7os), including at least once calling a clock within seconds of the action hitting her just to be pissy.
You really don’t get it. The ethics of poker don’t change just because the fora does, only the punishment. Things that are considered unethical in a WSOP event, for example, might get you a 10-minute penalty (like the case mentioned eariler when involving Matisow & The Shiek). If you do that in a friendly home game, the punishment is awkward stares and a lack of invites back. Do it in some backroom game and you can get your ass kicked. The ethics remain constant, it’s only the punishment that changes. No situational ethics in poker (although to be fair, in some places minor breaches of ettiquette are more tolerable than others.)
If context makes the outcome that flexible, I wouldn’t consider it a matter of ethics, which are somewhat more rigid and less forgiving (or they’re useless). I don’t doubt that within a WSOP event, all participants are advised of and must consent to certain behaviours, with penalties for violators up to and including expulsion. In addition to this, some schmo off the street can’t just walk up and say “deal me in.” The WSOP players have formed a voluntary association which has barriers to entry and penalties for violations of accepted, documented standards. That’s a textbook situation for an ethical standard and I have no objections to it whatsoever (as indicated back in post #48).
What I find unsupported is the expansion of “ethics” to cover all games of poker, where there are no written standards of behaviour, no standards for penalty or expulsion (one venue’ll give you an awkward stare, another resorts to violence?) and no barriers to entry. Poker didn’t become a game of ethics because some people decided to play it that way. For the generic situation, “sportsmanship” and “etiquette” are adequate.
Your criteria here (notions of written standards, penalties, barriers to entry, control over membership, etc.) are all questions of professionalism. While these things might determine whether or not we label something a profession, they should not (and do not, in common usage) determine whether certain behavior falls within the general realm of “ethics.”
I guess, by your formulation, that if i find some guy’s wallet on the street, whether or not i choose to give it back to him is not a question of ethics. Nor is my decision about whether to help up someone who has fallen out of a wheelchair. Or return money to a cashier who accidentally gave me too much change. Or to be a vegetarian or a pacifist.
Listening to you redefine the term “ethics” is rather surreal, as if someone came onto the boards determined to define an automobile as only something made by General Motors.