Now that live poker is coming back into vogue, this is probably a good time to remember one of the fundamental caveats of live play: Protect your hole cards at all times. There are two sides to this issue. At the start of the hand, as you gaze down in anticipation to find out whether you’ve been dealt a premium hand to raise with, a drawing hand to call with, or another in a long line of useless junk hands—you must be careful to view your cards in such a way that players sitting next to you can’t see what you have.
If you should inadvertently flash your hole cards to a neighbor, the player on the receiving end of this free information is under no obligation to let you know that you’ve just given him a gift. The usual poker etiquette is to warn the flasher once. If the hole card-flashing continues—well, all’s fair in love and poker. Many players won’t even warn you once. So peek with care.
Better yet, memorize your cards so that you won’t need to look at them again until the hand is over. For one thing, this allows you to devote your full attention to scrutinizing your opponents for every nuance of body language and facial expression as the hand progresses. Moreover, the act of having to re-check hole cards can give off a tell of your own if you’re not careful. This sort of thing happens all the time when the board contains four cards to a flush—inevitably you’ll catch at least one or two players at the table glancing back at their hole cards in the hopes of finding one card of that suit.
The second step in protecting your cards is to cover them with something—a chip, a personal token, or your own mitts—at all times during the play of the hand. This prevents your cards from accidentally being mucked, fouled, or declared dead. For example, if another player tosses his hand into the muck pile and even one of his cards so much as brushes up against your cards, or causes one of your cards to flip over face-up (it happens), then your hand is fouled and, barring a last-minute pardon from the floor person, destined for a premature death.
But the number one cause of wrongful card-death occurs when the dealer accidentally mucks a player’s hand. Typically it goes something like this: an inattentive player doesn’t act on his hand when the action is to him. His cards just lay on the table, untouched and seemingly unwanted, and so the dealer assumes the hand has been folded. Before the absentminded player even realizes what’s going on, his cards have been whisked away into the muck pile, never to return.
This can happen even when the player is attentive and doing everything right—except for that one pesky, boring little chore of protecting his cards. Dealers are strongly encouraged by the house to keep the game moving (the faster they deal, the more profit the house rakes in), but this is one case where speed can kill. It’s especially important to protect your cards if you’re sitting next to the dealer because these are the most common seats for dealer mis-mucking.
The simple act of putting a chip on top of your cards makes the dealer aware your cards are still live. If you don’t want to use a chip, just about any smallish object can become your card protector. Large coins are very popular. Other typical card protectors include animal figurines, “lucky” stones, cigarette lighters—just about anything that is small enough to sit comfortably on the table in front of you, and heavy enough to hold down a couple of playing cards. If it’s an object that makes you feel lucky or is otherwise psychologically comforting, so much the better.
Barbara Connors is a sucker for classic old movies, science fiction, and the St. Louis Cardinals. Her life’s ambition is to figure out the unusual behavior patterns of that unique breed of humans who call themselves poker players. Contact her at fyreflye222@yahoo.com.
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