A round of applause…please…

All the players that have been watching the WPT – please take a bow! More applause…hooting, cheering, whistling, foot stomping…extreme appreciation.

I love these people! They are so much fun and they bring new meaning to the words “Chip Wars”.

The $4-$8 Holdem games have taken over all the low limit tables. We used to have three or four $1-$5 7 Card Stud games and $4-$8 Stud games…now we have ten players crammed around a 7 Card Stud table that was built for eight people. Most of them never say a word about being crammed, they just keep jamming. A player told me last night that he’s been playing at the Mirage because there’s too much action in our games. God! The whole world should have such problems.

Poker is on the upswing. It’s anybody’s game. And the best part of it is that you don’t have to go to college or have a degree to play it. You don’t have to invest your life savings or have a big bankroll to step out and take a walk through Poker Land. The only problem you may encounter is yourself. Sorry, no poker lesson on that one today, you have to be smart enough to figure it out.

******

On the ram and jam note, I dealt a $30-$60 Holdem with a player, in the 9s, that could barely focus, he was d-r-u-n-k! I hate it! He was finally on water from the cocktail waitress but if they served him to that point, what were they thinking? It is possible that he came in drunk or that he went out to the bar and got his own, but this guy could have been declared comatose by a medic. He was all the action.

He left the table for a moment and, Donna in the 2s, told me that he was lucky to have any chips in front of him. Apparently he’d been playing like that for quite some time.

He played every hand during my down, having around $2,000 in chips when I sat down, he lost them all. He straddled and won a big pot by drawing runner, runner, against Aces. Then he raised and reraised four pots in a row with hands like Q-5 Off, 9-4 Off, without a pair or a draw, just turning over Q high at the end of the hand.

He went broke and said he would get more money. He returned at the same time the 10s returned to the game, (the 10s was gone during my down). The 9s threw out two $100 bills. I gently said, “Honey, that’s a short buy-in for this game, and you have to have at least $250.”

The 10s jumped right on me, “He’s been playing…”

I replied, “I know…and I’ve been dealing.”

I went back to the 9s and told him he could have one short buy-in but it had to be at least $250. I really was hoping that he didn’t have any more money on him because he was in no shape to sit at a card table and make any kind of play that would require reason or judgment. I’ve never been an advocate of tying out a lamb to attract a lion.

He dug around in his wallet and managed to come up with three $20 bills. He was back in the game, lost almost all of it in that hand, with the same kind of play.

I got pushed and quietly told the incoming dealer that the 9s was on water from the cocktail waitress and that he had already had a short buy-in.

It never bothers me to see people jamming and ramming at the table, even if they play like it was their last day on Earth, win or lose. It does bother me to see a player in the shape the 9s was in. He went to war without a helmet and shield and ran out of ammo…