Common-Sense Etiquette

Auto-posting blinds and antes is usually something you can choose to enable without much thought about strategic issues. This simply lets the game automatically post your antes and blinds without waiting for you to give the official go-ahead. In full table games, this really does save an appreciable amount of time. If you’ve played a lot of home games, you know how it goes. There are always a few players who keep forgetting to ante or post blinds, and everyone ends up waiting around for the cards to be dealt.

An additional courtesy you can pay to your fellow players is to excuse yourself politely if you need to leave the game for a period of time. Online, the way to do this is to click the Sit Out or Deal Me Out option (see Figure 10.3). This removes you as an active participant, although you still retain your seat. Otherwise, you’re prompted as usual when it is your turn to act, and everyone has to wait until you time out.

Figure 10.2: The Auto Post Blind, Auto Muck, and Sit Out buttons at Ultimate Bet


The nice thing about playing poker over the Internet is that a lot of the etiquette breaches common in the live game are simply not possible online. Players cannot splash the pot (throw chips out sloppily), slow roll another player (slowly or tauntingly reveal a winning hand at showdown), or act out of turn. You won’t get smoke in your eyes, either.

So long as you play at a reasonable speed, refrain from abusive or offensive language, and observe the cardinal rules of table talk, you’ll be just fine at any online poker game. And remember—forbearance, restraint, and little white lies are at the heart of courteous poker discourse. So when that chucklehead in seat five beats you on the river with a hand that shouldn’t have even seen the flop, type NH, click Deal Me Out, and then go tear up the couch cushions.

(© 2005 Deal Me In! Online Cardrooms, Big Time Tournaments, and The New Poker Book. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed)