A past World Series winner moves through the poker room – his dorsal fin riding high, up out of the water. He barely glances at anything other than the high limit section where he’s heading. He’s trying to pick out the next fish that’s flopping and bleeding, which is the scent that brought him here. He’s cruel and cold, malicious to dealers and capable of using every swear word known to mankind when he takes a beat, couldn’t possibly be his play or the random run of the cards, after all . . . he’s a major tournament winner!
Poker rooms are filled with them – those that will never know that fleeting moment of victory in a tournament and those that never play tournaments. They aren’t all the same, some of them amble and graze. Some of them are like magpies, floating in and then flapping out, harping and yakking about everything in general and nothing in particular.
It’s not uncommon to walk into a room that has high limit poker in the United States and find some first class, name brand, tournament winner. At times you’ll find a lot of them gathered under the same roof and playing in the same game – as high as they can play and survive or as high as their backer will go.
These players are the glitz, the icing on the cake! But the real cake, the foundation of poker is the regular, ring game player – the guy that can fade the live action games day after day and survive it with some sort of sense and equilibrium and still have a normal life.
Oh hey, before you get ready to take off in defense of tournaments – this isn’t a knock down, drag out, rag on tournaments. Tournament play is another ball game. A lot of tournament players can’t play ring games and survive, they are broke and getting staked and selling off percentages to get into a tournament. They hope for one big win – and if it happens, they can’t hang onto any of the cash or they’ve given up so many pieces of themselves – that they’re busted immediately. The upside of this is that once they’ve entered the limelight with the win, they now have people willing to take more of their action. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they can handle a ring game or that they have any discipline with their own bankroll.
Which brings us to what this is all about. They hit the high fly, the right fielder missed the ball and they made it to 1st base and won the tournament, but they’ll never make it home – to the plate – where all of the scoring is done.
They have a win tucked under their belt and it was all due to skill!!! 🙂 Now they settle into play and have already planned their life and their finances around how much they’re going to make each year playing poker! Poker just doesn’t work that way. If it did, we’d all play and everyone would win and we’d all live happily ever after.
U-huh! Amen! Alright, let the suck outs begin!!! These poor guys may not even be a break even player but they think they’re someone because for a brief span of time, for the length of a tournament, they played their hearts out and won.
They jump into a ring game and can’t win. Ouch!! It hurts when they hit the bottom. The funds have ran out. They’re borrowing to play, making deals, looking for any angle – none of this could be their fault because they are a Name Brand Player!! They swear when they lose, they’re inconsiderate and slow the game down by holding their hand and mumbling for 20 minutes when they know they’ve lost, they ridicule the new players, they berate the dealers and glare at them, they throw their cards, (and what the hell is that all about???), and no one is supposed to say a word to them about their insufferable behavior because they are a Name Brand Player.
To which this writer says plain and simply, “So What?”
Either you came to play poker or argue with everyone and try to abuse someone that works for a living. Can you imagine a player giving a dealer the “look” for 20 minutes and pegging cards at the dealer’s hands and then when the dealer gives the player the “look” back, the player runs into the office and reports to the Shift Supervisor that the dealer was looking at him? Oh My! Tisk, tisk, tisk . . . this just won’t do at all. Poor little player!
One player that may not be a Name Brand Player to the rest of you is definitely at the top of the list as far as this writer is concerned. His name is John Hennigan. He plays all of the games and all of the high limits. He’s never condescending or rude. Rather than put the dealer in a spot where the dealer might be on the verge of making a mistake or having a problem, John will gently say something like this, “Why don’t you just leave the bet in front of player and we all know what is owed to the pot?” or “He missed his blind so he has to post to come in!” Or anything that makes sense and is helpful.
It’s very difficult to jump into a game as a dealer and move buttons for each hand dealt in multiple games, not knowing who missed a blind or is a new player to the board games, figure the time, give buttons to absent players, change the deck, call for cocktails, fade the anger of the losers, (and not have someone inform you that you are a dimwit for even thinking that you were a dealer), even if you’re doing your job right . . . while you’re definitely not looking at the players as eye contact is a no-no . . . as if you’d want to look at all that misery packed into a body . . . and still run a poker game.
Thank you, John! You’re definitely name brand with me. See you there!
P.S. One time I said to John, “It’s such a pleasure to have you in a game. Thank you for always helping me!” To which he replied, “Well, Linda, it’s just easier to work with someone . . . ”
No kidding – why doesn’t the rest of the world figure this one out?