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Just
as there are no official laws of poker, so also there is no official
code of ethics, except the obvious rule that you must not cheat
and must not form partnerships. However, there are some rules of
behavior that are accepted as more or less binding, at least in
any serious game.
1. When a player has dropped, don't ask him what he had, still less
look at his discarded hand or turn up his hole card or cards.
2. Don't throw in your own hand out of turn. To do so may not make
much difference to you, but it might benefit one player at the expense
of another.
Example. "A" opens a Jackpot. "B" stays. You,
sitting at "C," also stay. You draw one card to a flush
and fail to fill. It is important that you should not throw in your
hand until after "B" has acted. If you throw in before,
and "A" checks and "B" raises, "A"
has a legitimate complaint against you if he calls and loses. For
with a one-card draw sitting over him, "B" might well
have checked also.
3. Don't rabbit-hunt, that is, look through the undealt part of
the pack to see what you would have drawn if you had stayed. It
is distracting.
4. Don't try to give a misleading impression of your hand by deliberate
acting. For instance, if you have an Ace in the hole, don't look
at it constantly as if it was a nondescript card. If you have a
pat six in Lowball, don't, when you are offered cards by the dealer,
appear to ponder as though you had a pat nine or ten. This sort
of thing is known as coffee-housing and is highly disapproved of
by poker players. Of course, there is no harm in the casual and
flippant backchat that accompanies most games.
5. Strictly speaking, it is the chips put into the pot which make
a bet, and a bet by word of mouth alone has no validity. But it
wouldn't be very popular in most groups to try to take advantage
of this rule.
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