ETIQUETTE - FEB. 7TH, 2025

Let’s dive straight into the rules, as I noticed a couple of things this week that shouldn’t be happening. Interestingly, both fall under the "Etiquette" section.

Rule 69: Ethical Play

Poker is an individual game. Soft play will result in penalties, which may include chip forfeiture and/or disqualification. Chip dumping and other forms of collusion will result in disqualification.

Rule 70: Etiquette Violations

Etiquette violations are subject to enforcement actions in Rule 71. Examples include but are not limited to: persistent delay of the game, unnecessarily touching another player’s person, cards or chips, repeatedly acting out of turn, maintaining poor card or chip visibility and countability, betting out of reach of the dealer, abusive conduct, offensive hygiene, and excessive chatter.

Rule 71: Warnings, Penalties, and Disqualification

A: Enforcement options include but are not limited to verbal warnings, one or more “missed hand” or “missed round” penalties, and disqualification. For missed rounds, the offender will miss one hand for every player (including him or her) at the table when the penalty is given multiplied by the number of penalty rounds. Repeat infractions are subject to escalating penalties. Players away from the table or on penalty may be anted or blinded out of a tournament.

B: A penalty may be invoked for etiquette violations (Rule 70), card exposure with action pending, throwing cards, violating one-player-to-a-hand, improper use of devices or strategy tools (Rule 5), or similar incidents. Penalties will be given for soft play, abuse, disruptive behavior, dodging blinds or cheating. Checking the exclusive nuts when last to act on the river is not an automatic soft play violation; TD’s discretion applies based on the situation.

C: Players on penalty must be away from the table. Cards are dealt to their seats, their blinds and antes posted, their hands are killed after the initial deal, and if dealt the stud bring-in they must post the bring-in.

D: Chips of a disqualified player shall be removed from play.

The first issue involved a player who had the nuts (the best possible hand) but only called a bet when they were last to act on the river. This is a serious mistake and could be considered soft play, which in turn may constitute collusion or even cheating. There is no legitimate reason not to raise when you have the best hand and no one left to act behind you. If you’re first to act, checking might be a strategic move to induce action, but when you're last to act, checking or failing to raise is simply leaving value on the table—something completely contrary to proper tournament play.

The only real explanations for this are either trying to go easy on an opponent to keep them in the game (which falls under soft play as defined in Rule 69) or failing to recognize that you had the best possible hand. This is why such a move is not automatically penalized under Rule 71-B but is instead left to the tournament director’s discretion. Recognizing the best possible hand in any given situation should be a fundamental goal for any poker player. When I teach poker to beginners, one of the first exercises I use is playing hands face up and having them determine the winner, followed by identifying what the best possible hidden hand would be. If you can’t recognize the nuts, you’re likely to misplay hands and lose when your opponent turns over a stronger holding you failed to anticipate. Likewise, if you’re not extracting maximum value when you do have the nuts, you’re not playing optimally.

The second situation I saw involved a player taking their chips off the table and putting them in their pocket during the break to avoid being colored up. Your chips should NEVER be in your pocket—they must remain visible on the table at all times (Rules 25 and 70), even during breaks. If you need to transport chips when moving to another table, request a rack instead of pocketing them.

There are multiple reasons this rule exists. First, when you return to the table and pull chips from your pocket, how can other players be certain you didn’t add extra chips while they were out of sight? Even if you’re trustworthy, these rules are in place to prevent cheating, and bending them may encourage others to do the same. Second, chips can easily be forgotten or misplaced. Just last year, a player moving to the final table pocketed some chips, only to forget about them. Not only did they unknowingly play the rest of the tournament about 10K short, but they didn’t find the missing chips until weeks later when they wore the same jacket again.

Most importantly, pocketing chips interferes with the ability to color up properly. As a reminder, here’s a refresher on Rule 25:

Rule 25: Cards and Chips Kept Visible, Countable, and Manageable. Discretionary Color-Ups

A: Players, dealers, and the floor are entitled to a reasonable estimation of chip counts; thus, chips should be kept in countable stacks. The TDA recommends clean vertical stacks of 20 same denomination chips each as a standard. Higher denomination chips must be visible and identifiable at all times. If a floor person can’t look at a chip stack and quickly estimate its value, players likely can’t either.

B: TDs control the number and denominations of chips in play and may color up one or more players at their discretion at any time. Discretionary color ups are to be announced.

C: Players must keep live hands in plain view at all times.

The Tournament Director isn’t concerned with how your chip stack looks but rather with enforcing the rules to ensure fairness and maintaining the game’s flow. In a turbo format like ours, with 15-minute blinds, every second matters. Excess chips slow down the game by making pots harder to count, increasing the time needed for each hand, and delaying table changes. Since the clock isn’t always paused when players move tables, efficiency is crucial.

For these reasons, whenever possible, I’ll consolidate larger stacks into higher-denomination chips. Of course, I may not always be available to color up everyone immediately, depending on what’s happening in the tournament. However, if your stack becomes difficult to manage, feel free to ask, and I’ll do my best to accommodate you.

Dead Man's Hand Poker uses the rules set forth by the Poker Tournament Directors Association. The Poker TDA is a voluntary poker industry association founded in 2001. The TDA mission is to increase global uniformity of poker tournament rules. The Poker TDA rules can be found here.