Discourteous, Unethical or OK

[bav]

Players who fold from early position strengthen the power of the last guy to act. The fewer people he has to worry about check raising him, the more liberal he can be with an attempt to steal. Take it to the extreme, with 10 people seeing the river, and 8 of them fold, cutoff checks, and now button has one opponent to worry about instead of 9--think the button is going to feel it's a lot safer to try to steal?

As the size of the contested pot grows and the number of players in the pot shrinks, so goes the impact. You folding first with $12 in the pot and 6 players in is of negligible impact. You folding first with 3 players in and $1200 in the pot isn't so keen.

It's not unethical unless you're intending to benefit one particular player. I look at it as mildly discourteous to do when the pot is of appreciable size. You're basically telling the other players you're unwilling to do them the favor of just checking and sitting quietly in the hand with your cards for another 15 seconds. You'd rather check out and go back to giving your attention to whatever else is more important.

I've never bitched about someone doing this. But I've seen people get bitched at for doing it. And heard players explain exactly how it impacted the play ("why yes, you doing that DID free me to bet the river--I had already put this guy on two pair, but I was afraid you had hit the flush on the river so I couldn't bet the river with you still in the hand.")