The Poker Corner

Sometimes playing poker is just like any other desk job—you sit for long stretches repeating the same movements over and over and over again. Just like cubicle-dwelling wage slaves, sedentary poker players are susceptible to problems like carpal tunnel syndrome and Dunlap's disease (that's when your belly dun lap over your belt). The physical tasks you must perform while playing poker are not particularly demanding, but that doesn't mean you can't carry them out with some precision, style, or élan.

When you're playing Hold-Em and your hole cards are dealt, you must jump through your first hoop—looking at the damn things. Perhaps a side effect of online poker is a diminishing of players' manual dexterity, because I'm often amazed at how many players struggle with what should be a relatively simple maneuver. There are several simple and effective techniques for looking at your cards. You can make a tent of your hands and use your thumb to peek at the corners, which is perhaps the most popular method. You can lift both cards on an angle and slide the top card back, revealing the back card. Phil Hellmuth likes to peek at the bottom card and then shuffle the top card underneath before taking a second peek. Greg Raymer uses the thumb of one hand to look at the top card, releases, and then lifts the bottom card with his thumb. Go with whichever technique works for you.

But for God's sake, don't be the guy who picks his cards up off the table and holds them up in front of his face. First of all, some cardrooms won't let you do this, you can't take your cards off the table. Secondly, doing this makes you look like a doofus supreme. Third, lifting your cards off the table might give the other players at the table chance to look at them, and don't go thinking its cheating if their wandering eyes amble your way. Protecting your cards is YOUR responsibility, not your opponents.

That said, protecting your cards isn't that difficult. There's no need to contort yourself into positions that would make a yoga instructor wince to check your cards. You see players nearly laying their heads on the rail, or with their elbows skewed so wildly it looks like they might dislocate their shoulders. And you don't need to see the entire card to figure out what your holding. Some players bend their cards so violently it looks like they're popping the tab on a can of Coors. Do that for a few hands and good luck trying to shuffle the deck.

If you can't be bothered to peek at you hole cards in a way that protects your hand as well as preserving the cards, remember this—at the Main Event of this year's World Series a player named William Rockwell made it into the second day of competition. Because of a motorcycle accident he suffered in 1990, Rockwell lost the use of his arms. If you watched ESPN's coverage you saw Rockwell checking his hand by using his feet to slide the cards up a small wooden ramp. Such determination and ingenuity is worth admiring and emulating. Find a way to look at your cards without causing too much fuss.

Most of the time those cards aren't even worth looking at. Poker often means spending a pleasant afternoon looking at trash like 10-5, 9-4, and J-6. Even a frothing maniac is going to toss in the occasional hand, and for some players this act of capitulation is a direct affront to their self-esteem. They all but throw their cards at the muck, or worse—they throw them at the innocent soul who dealt them. If you want to set a bulls-eye atop your head for the Poker Gods to aim at, throw your cards at a dealer. At some card rooms you might get the boot for this kind of bad behavior, but even if you survive being 86'ed you've shown everyone at the table that you're either steaming or scum.

But let's say you've made a calm, rational decision to get rid of that 9-2 mess you were dealt. How best to send these cards back whence they came? You could just hand them to the dealer—but this is the wussy way out. Cards are a poker player's tools, and most skilled workers like to play around with their tools. Think about cooks fiddling around with their knives in the kitchen. Well, cards aren't nearly as much fun to screw around with as knives (unless you're Chris Ferguson and can make a salad using either).

But there's no reason you can't show a little flair when you give up your hand. What you don't want to do when folding is accidentally reveal your cards—that's bad form. So you skirt the edge of disaster. Instead of handing them to the dealer, you pick them up and gently frisbee them to the dealer. Some players add a little pizzazz by using their thumb and a little wrist action to get the cards spinning in the opposite direction—very nice. Or you can leave the cards on the baize and send them back with a haughty flick of the index finger, either simultaneously or one after the other. A variation of this move involves flicking them back using a chip instead of your finger, but I think this a low-rent move. Why I can't say, but when I see a player scraping the felt with a chip to dispose of his cards the corner of my lip curls with distaste. A matter of personal aesthetics, perhaps.

If by some miracle you're actually dealt cards you WANT to keep, you should take a moment and carefully look them over. You should only have to look at your hand once—going back to check your cards after the flop can be a king-sized tell for your opponents to seize upon. If the board shows four hearts, you should know without checking if you hold the ace of hearts or diamonds. When you look at your cards, a trick for remembering them is to silently announce to yourself what they are. "The ace of diamonds…and the king of spades…". The key word in that sentence is SILENTLY. If you're not able to read without mumbling (or moving your lips) find another way to remember your hole cards.

So you've managed to check your hole cards without anyone spying, you have them firmly locked away in your mind—you're home free, right? Now you just have to play the hand. Well, most of the time, yes. But your cards are still vulnerable. Dealers sometimes make mistakes, and if the dealer doesn't realize you're still involved in the hand and grabs your cards and sticks them in the muck, your hand is dead, no matter how shrilly you scream. If another player who hasn't read this column zings his cards across the table and they get mixed up with your cards, both hands could be declared dead.

How to protect your cards? With a card protector, of course. The easiest way to protect your hand is to take one of your chips and drop it on top of your cards. One of the more ominous sights that have been shown during televised poker tournaments is Howard Lederer checking his hole cards, reaching down to his stack, and dropping a single chip atop his cards. Not a pleasant sight if you're already in the pot.

But poker players are a superstitious lot, and so bring a wide variety of trinkets and doodads to act as their card protectors. During this year's WSOP coverage we saw that Cyndy Violette brings polished stones with inspirational words painted on them. Todd Witteles, who plays online under the name Dan Druff, used a small bottle of Head and Shoulders shampoo (get it? get it now?). And of course there's Greg Raymer, whose nickname "Fossilman" comes from the fossils he uses to cap his cards. If there's some little charm that you think might bring good luck, give it an audition as your card protector. But try to keep it real. A vial containing your kidney stones, a statue representing a pornographic act, or a small cube of cheddar cheese…none of these should be given serious consideration.

The act of checking your cards, disposing of your cards, protecting your cards, and placing your bet, should develop into a comfortable rhythm just like shooting a free throw. Give some thought—not a lot, goodness knows, but some—to how you perform these repetitive and mundane poker tasks. Find a routine that works for you, and free up your mind for some of the thornier problems you'll encounter at the table.