What about the guy who comes in for a little recreational poker? He doesn’t play very often and might not even live in your area. He’s just passing through and saw a sign that read “Live Poker”. Maybe the game is 5-card stud and this guy practically trips in his hurry to take the open seat.
The dealer welcomes him into the game and sells him chips. His first hand finds him with an Ace up and he looks at the dealer and says, “Can I split these?”
Is this a tell or what?
The dealer says politely, “No. This is poker. You’re playing 5-card stud.”
The hand is bet and called all the way down and – as advertised – the newcomer wins the pot with split Aces. Then he wins the next few hands and the locals are starting to fume, after all, he walked right in off the street and started winning. Now he’s picked up a few chips and started to stuff them into his pocket and before the dealer could say anything, four of the locals begin – all at once, “You can’t take chips off the table.”
Startled by their outburst, he’s not sure what to do next. The dealer explains that it is a table stakes game and all the chips must remain in play until he’s ready to leave the table. If he was savvy on poker play, he’d probably go right then and it would serve all of them right for harping at him. He doesn’t of course because he’s winning and having fun.
He stays too long and when he’s got a short stack of chips in front of him, he gets involved in a big pot and starts to reach in his pocket for cash. The same four players jump right into him again. “You can’t buy chips in the middle of a hand!”
Poor guy. He only came into have a little fun and play poker. He’s made to feel like a leper when he tried to save a few of the chips he won and then when he gave them all back and wanted to buy more . . . he got yelled at for that too!
Let’s hear it for the table captains of the world. “BOO!”
Most table captains do their job very poorly. They are so busy being noisy and knowing everything that they can’t see the ‘forest for the trees’.
How can one stress the importance of gently guiding new players into poker and making their experience enjoyable? It will be Poker Hell if the same players compete for the same money throughout eternity.
Many first time players come into a game with the idea that they will lose. Why not allow them to have fun while they do it? Some of them are completely intimidated by the betting and not knowing the order of hands.
New players are not aware of the fact that a game is short handed until it is pointed out to them by another player who refuses to play with a few seats open.
Ok, so a few of you were born with cards and a rack of chips in your hand. Your mother hated it but the majority of us weren’t. If you’re going to elect yourself as table captain, be a good one. Make sure you’re right when you correct a newcomer and be gentle, it may be their first time. Give those of us that like to play (full or short-handed) a break and let us have the opportunity to keep the new players in our games.
Take a walk if you want but do it quietly – SHUT UP!
They say Montana poker players are so tough because they’ve been fighting over the same $l00.00 for the last 20 years. Maybe the table captains humiliated the live ones so many times that only the old rocks remain. Think about it!