The poker explosion is running right off the scale of reality. A whole new crop of players that need to be trimmed and pruned…no, not of their cash…into the etiquette of poker. It won’t be easy. Look at all of the people that have played for years and still can’t figure out that proper behavior and game protocol even apply to poker, let alone know what it means.

I accept the fact that the job of teaching new players how to interact with the mechanics of the game is never ending. It’s taken me a long to figure out that it’s always going to be like the rent/mortgage; it keeps popping up and someone has to deal with it. No pun intended.

I find a lot of really helpful players that gently lead a new player into the betting, the blinds, how/when to act, without giving poker lessons. I love these people. They make my job so much easier.

I also find a lot of people that openly criticize a new player and teach them bad habits. Sure, you knew this was going somewhere…

1) $80-$160 Holdem and Omaha 8 or Better, the Time Drop is taken after the Flop. The Blinds cannot chop until the Time Drop has been satisfied. Some of the locals blatantly give the $40 small blind back when there are no calls/raises pre-flop. I’ve had nothing short of a fit when it’s happened, and it has, the last two days of work.

In one instance the Big Blind winked at me as he threw the $40 back to the small blind player. I guess I was supposed to think the whole thing was cute and just ignore it. I did not. I asked him what he thought was supposed to happen when another player saw him do it and expected me to ignore it too. He agreed that I was right but I’d bet my weeks tips that he still does it every time he thinks he can get away with it.

The second instance is that now these same locals are teaching the new players to do the same thing on a Time Pot. More fits by me. I have explained that if they continue to do this, each player will pay time individually just like the $30-$60 Limit Holdem and $10-$20 Blind No Limit Holdem games.

No chopping on a time pot means no chopping. Figure it out! I wish it would go to individual time, it would make the game much better.

2) I dealt the Friday’s $1,000 Buy-in No Limit Tournament. T.J. was instructing everyone at the table how to be a World Class Whiner. People learn these things from listening to the pros! In the big blind, he raised all-in and got called by the small blind that had less $$ than T.J. The small blind won the pot with J-8S vs. T.J.’s A-little offsuit, by making a pair of Jacks.

T.J. berated him, “How could you even call with Jack high? You didn’t have anything at risk…blah, blah, blah…”

Then T.J. called an additional $100 from the small blind with something like 8-4 offsuit. The big blind checked it out with T.J. and made a pair of threes on the River with 7-3 offsuit. T.J. went ballistic, “That’s the third time I’ve started with the best hand and lost…”

Ok…hold my sides while I die laughing here…what is it with the whine and the lessons?

This same table had a woman in the 3s that was so drunk, she literally couldn’t stand without bobbing and weaving but she seemed to know how to play poker. She yelled at me to yell at her when there was a raise because she couldn’t hear me. Christ! I thought I was already SCREAMING the first five minutes into the down. Maybe I was the only one that could hear my screams.

The 1 and 2s shared a little smile and secret laugh with me…they saw the overview.

3) One night, while dealing $80-$160 Omaha 8 or Better with a 1/4 Kill, Kenny was in the 9s. He’s been around Vegas a million years and knows a lot of the history of the players and ‘old days’. I like his attitude. He’s not a steamer and never gets out of line with anyone…maybe with his play now and then but that’s between him and him.

The subject of Dealer Abuse and a few other things came up where he kept pulling me into the conversation. Stu Ungar’s name popped up. I commented that Stu always liked to throw the cards into the Dealer’s chest and run out of the room when he took a beat.

Kenny said he could never figure out how anyone thought Stu was a great player when he couldn’t control his emotions if he lost.

I followed with an exaggerated, “He stuck a knife in the dealer’s chest when he lost the hand…but he’s a great player!”

We both laughed over that idiotic mentality. How the hell can you be a great player when you’re incapable of taking a beat? Everyone takes a beat. It’s going to happen. My thought is just knuckle down and play through it. The sooner you put it out of your mind, the better your game is going to be.

Don’t agree with me? Oh well…I never agreed with Stu Ungar’s fan club either.