10 Home Poker Arguments: Who's Actually Right?

It's the last hand before somebody's ride shows up. Dave pushes three red chips forward, stops, reaches back for two more, and says raise, and half the table yells that's a string bet, while the other half says this isn't a casino, and now everybody is looking at you because it's your house, your cards, and apparently your problem. So, I went through about 2,000 comments where people fight about exactly this, and I ranked the 10 home poker arguments that start the most fights with who's actually right in each one. Some context first because it changes the answers. Our game is a casual 25 cent 50 cent game around a kitchen table. Nobody deals for a living and nobody wants to look up a rule book in the middle of a hand, and we've had almost every one of these fights at our own table usually right around the time the pizza runs out. And that's the part people miss when they shout that's the rule. A lot of what gets quoted at home games is casino procedure written for a room with a dealer and a floor person, and some of it works differently at your table or doesn't matter at all. >> [music] >> So, for each one you'll get the moment, what the table yells, the actual ruling with where it comes from, and the one house rule that stops it coming back. And there's one rule on this list that the loudest guy at almost every table gets exactly backwards, and I'll tell you which one once we've been through all 10. They go from mild to nuclear, and number one is the argument with the most comments by a mile, where I'll tell you how I'd rule it and you can tell me I'm wrong. >> [music] >> Number 10 is splashing the pot. Somebody bets by tossing a handful of chips straight into the middle. They land on top of everybody else's chips, and now nobody knows if he bet $4 or $6. And one guy in the comments said he splashed once, the whole table got so busy counting that they forgot he'd flopped a set, so now he does it on purpose. At our table, it's never an angle, it's usually the guy on his third drink who wants to feel like he's in a movie, but the fight is the same either way, and no rule book throws the bet out, it still counts, but it has to be counted back out of the pile, and that's where the fight starts. So, the house rule is to put your bet in front of you, not in the pot, and let it get pulled in after the betting is done. Number nine is rabbit hunting. Someone folds, the hand ends, and he asks the dealer to run out the river so he can see what would have come. In a tournament, the answer is no, the tournament director rules ban rabbit hunting outright, mostly because it slows the game and it hands out information. But at a home game, honestly, nobody's in a hurry and nothing is at stake once the pot is pushed. There's still a real cost to it though, because once everybody sees the river that would have made his flush, the guy who folded spends the next 10 minutes explaining how he should have called. So, my house rule is that you can rabbit hunt after the pot is pushed. It's the dealer's choice and if it starts happening every hand, it costs a dollar into the pizza fund. Number eight is taking chips off the table. A guy doubles up early, slides half his stack into his hoodie pocket and keeps playing short like nothing happened. And when somebody calls him on it, he says, "They're my chips. I won them." Card rooms don't allow it in a cash game because poker is played table stakes and the chips you have on the table stay there until you leave. So, he's wrong and the reason is fair because he's protecting his win while everybody else has to play into him for the rest of the night. And at a home game, it's worse than in a casino because your friends can't just get up and find another table while he sits on half his winnings. And if he cashes out and comes back an hour later, he should come back with what he left with. This is also the one that wrecks the count at the end of the night because those pocket chips turn into a mystery. So, in our game, every buy-in and re-buy goes into the app I built, HG Poker, and at the end the count screen tells you if the table is over or short with a reason like missing chips or a missed re-buy. The app takes no bets, holds no money, and moves no money. It just means nobody has to remember who had what at 1:00 in the morning. Number seven is the card that gets flashed on the deal. You're dealing, a card flips over on its way to Mike and he wants a new hand. And somebody always says you have to play the card you're dealt, which sounds tough and fair and is wrong. The standard rule is that if the first or second card dealt is exposed, it's a misdeal and you deal again. And if one card is exposed later in the deal, it's replaced with the next card and the exposed one gets burned. So, Mike doesn't get a free re-deal every time, but a flipped first card is a reshuffle. At home, where the dealer is just whoever had the deck, I'd keep it that simple because one flipped card in the first two means everybody gets a fresh hand and nobody has to argue about whether it was on purpose. And number six is acting out of turn, like when Sam folds before it's his turn. A fold out of turn is binding, so his cards are dead. It doesn't matter that Jen was still thinking, and it doesn't matter that he was going to fold anyway, because the rest of the table now plays the hand knowing he's out. A check or a call out of turn usually stands too, unless somebody before him bets or raises, because then the action changed, [music] and he gets to decide again. Number five is the one big chip. The bet is a dollar, Jen drops a single $5 chip in without saying anything, and then claims it was a raise. This one isn't close because the tournament director rules say a single oversized chip with no word is just a call. If she wasn't facing a bet, it's a bet of the full chip. At our game, the big chips are the green fives, so this comes up every time somebody runs out of reds. And one commenter said different houses are different, which is fair, but then you have to say so before the first hand. So, the house rule is if you want to raise with one chip, you say raise before it hits the felt. Number four is the string bet back to Dave from the start. The rule is that a raise has to happen in one motion, or you say raise first, because otherwise a player can push some chips, watch your face, and then go back for more. So, Dave's raise is only a call, and the half of the table that yelled string bet was right. And it's not about being strict, because the whole point of the rule is that you don't get to see a reaction and then decide how much you meant. But plenty of home games never enforce it, which is fine as long as everybody knows. My house rule is one sentence, say the word raise, and you can take all the time you want. Number three is verbal action. Somebody says call then pushes in a stack big enough to raise, or he says I call and raise you 20 like it's a movie. Out loud and in turn, the words count, so the first thing he says is what you did, which means he called. And if he says raise, but only puts in enough to call, he still has to make it a raise. And the funny part is that most people who argue with this rule are the ones who said call out loud and then wish they hadn't. This is the rule that ends the most arguments, because nobody has to read anybody's hands, they just have to listen. Number two is the showdown, and it's two fights at once. First, who shows first? The player who made the last bet or raise on the river shows first, and if everybody checked, it starts with the first player left of the button. And second, the hand ends, someone mucks, and somebody says, "You called, now show me." And everybody at the table has an opinion because nobody likes losing a big pot and never finding out what beat them. If he won without a call, nobody gets to see his cards, period. If the hand was called, a player who called can usually ask to see it in a card room, but at home that turns into a weapon fast. And most rooms play show one, show all, so if he shows one person, he shows everybody. So, here's how I'd rule it. You pay to see a hand only if you called it, but plenty of hosts disagree. And number one, with more comments than everything else on this list combined, is the slow roll. You get called on the river, you have the best hand, and you wait, you sigh, you show one card, and then you flip the nuts while your friend thinks he won. And if you've played long enough, you've watched somebody do it to a friend, and the whole table goes quiet for a second. It isn't against any rule about who wins the pot, it's an etiquette call, and card rooms can penalize it as bad etiquette. But the fight is about what counts as won because the top comment under a famous slow roll video with 2,600 likes just says that wasn't a slow roll. So, here's how I'd rule it. If you were called and you knew you won, you table it right away, and thinking before you call doesn't count. But plenty of you will tell me tanking with the nuts is a slow roll, too. So, look at the whole list again. Almost every fight on it came from something nobody said out loud before the first hand, whether it was the word raise, the one chip, the cards on the table, or what happens to the chips in your pocket. The rules exist, and they're usually clear, but the house rule is what stops the argument because everybody heard it before any money was in the pot. And the one the loudest guy gets backwards is number five because a big chip feels like a big move, but without the word raise, it's just a call. So, back to Dave and his three red chips. Before the next game, read your table the 10 house rules, and the next time someone says, "That's the rule," you'll know if he's right. Now, tell me in the comments which one starts the fight at your table, and how would you rule the slow roll? And if you want 10 more of these, tell me that, too, because there are plenty left. >> [music] >> Oh.