On the fun side of poker, Steve S., a reader here, came by a game I was dealing last week and introduced himself…he did it perfectly – just like I’ve instructed people to do – walked right up behind the 5 and 6s, I looked up, he told me who he was and said, “HI!” Love it! Thanks Steve.

Robert Wayman, another reader here, made it into the room Friday night. The room was a screamer, noise, confusion, people to the max, and we got to visit for a few seconds before I started work. It’s so great to meet people that read me…almost like an intimate relationship…most of them can figure out what’s going on in my head just by reading. Either you love me or you hate me. I can take it either way. But…remember I get a kick out of you coming in to say ‘hi’. So please do.

This is too funny – Vivienne, long time friend – met her at Bellagio – and she’s one of my Pan Buddies on Saturday night, sat down in the 9s of a $2-5 NLH game. The 10s had been in last week and was in this game. I’ve said hello to him for the last two or three years in various Holdem games. Color me stupid here but I called him Mike last week and he didn’t object. I introduced him to Vivienne as my long time friend, Mike.

He replied, “I must not be her good friend because my name is Ken.”

Laughing my ass off over that one. I asked him why it took him so long to correct me, the conversation went back and forth until he finally said we had to put a stop to it. I hate it when I miss someone’s name and I’m super conscious of it.

Oh shit! I just realized that I’m human.

I would have been embarrassed but it was too funny. Ken was great with all of it. I ended up dealing to him two times that night in different games. I wanted to call him by another name just for fun but I thought better of it.

*****

I discovered one of the complexities that’s game specific to the $2-5 NLH game. In the beginning we had all games in order of Must Move. At some point the decision was made to have one Must Move game and all the other games (if there were three or more) would be Main Games. Meaning that once you move past the Must Move Game into a Main Game, you could get on the transfer list to other Main Games.

The problem as I see it: The buy-in is game specific…$200 minimum/maximum. What if you are in a Main Game and on the transfer list. When you transfer to another Main Game, if you have under $200 in chips, do you have to have the buy-in? Also if you have over $200 in chips, do you have the take your win off the table and come in with $200 only?

In all games in the room, if you transfer from one to another of the same limit, you must have the minimum buy-in. The only time you can enter the game with less is if you are from a broken game.

I’ve posed the question of the $2-5 NLH to more than one supervisor and received a variety of thoughts on it. The last I heard the question would be posed to upper management to see what the final answer is.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t delve into these things but I can’t help it. The question will come up by a player sooner or later…amazing that it hasn’t to date.

Then one has to question whether two or more floor people will know the answer once it is given. I bring this up after dealing to Jason V. in a $15-30 H game. He related two floor decisions, on graveyard, that are completely laughable.

One is when the dealer put up a four card Flop and had no idea which was the Flop out of the four cards. The Brush person came to give a decision and said, “Pick two.”

The Shift Supervisor ended up being called and the decision was to shuffle and put up a new Flop.

The second was in a heads-up scenario and player two was not held to their action because two players had not acted behind them to constitute sufficient action. I’m dying laughing here. No shit, Sherlock! It’s heads-up so how could two players act behind him?????

This goes back to my original statement recently in which I stated that it’s not possible to have a universal poker rule book because no two people will ever give the same decision on the same issue, even on the same shift.

On that note, I have to have a glass of wine. More tomorrow.