Wednesday, November 25, 2009

POKER COUNSELING 101

“I can’t beat this game!” This is the most common mantra among the regulars at our little club, especially from players who routinely can and do beat the game.

Big Ed, a former WWF wrestler-turned-poker-player is a solid player who has made his living off the weaker players at our room for over a year, grinding out profits nearly every session. After a runner-runner beat in our $5-$10 game this week, he stormed out, cell phone in one hand, text-messaging everyone who might read that he will never play in our room again, again. This is a biweekly event for Big Ed. A man of considerable emotion, the swings in his moods vary far more than his chip stack ever has. Apparently, the big guy doesn’t like to lose. While straightening out fallacious reasoning wasn’t in the training manual, it seems to be a part of the job around these parts. After a one-day “cooling off” period, he will get a sympathetic ear, a shoulder to cry on and a gentle reminder about the nature of math and the phenomenon we call variance. At least Big Ed didn’t drop-kick his opponent this time, so our counseling efforts are beginning to pay off.

Erik the Viking is another “special needs” player. A former runway model, his career and life dramatically changed about two years ago when a tragic and embarrassing wardrobe malfunction brought his modeling career to an abrupt end and put him on the outs with the New York crowd. A regular in our little club, the most common eddy in his stream of thought is this: “There are too many bad players! I can’t win!” The Viking is a true rounder, making a reasonable living off small-stakes hold-em games in local clubs and casinos for over two years. While it seems silly at times, assuring Erik that games with weak players are better than games with strong players is a weekly event.

Fast Freddy is a local beet farmer who is a little rough around the edges. Conversing with him is about as comfortable as petting a porcupine, except that the quills all face the same direction on a porcupine. While so-called “magical thinking” is common among gamblers, in Fast Freddy’s case, it does present a few challenges to the management of the room, so we talk about it. “Lucky seats”, “hot cards”, “rushes” and “lucky dealers” lead to perpetual seat changes, sitting out when a particular dealer is in and creating havoc in the game by raising every time you get a 4 of clubs dealt to him. This leads, in turn, to a whole new round of counseling sessions we have to provide the other players and staff. While the counseling sessions with Freddy are about as profitable as investing in a covered-wagon manufacturing firm, they must be done. The only bright spot in the whole thing is that Fast Freddy only plays on dates with the numbers 7 or 3 in them, so we don’t have to address the issues often.

When choosing a poker counselor, it might be better to look on-line, rather than to rely on your local card room manager. After all, his only interest is in keeping a rag-tag group of misfits and cretins coming back every night to play more poker. More to the point, anyone twisted enough to do this job is not likely to be the best guide for the fecund poker player. If he could beat this game, he would be on the other side of the table, right?

TALES FROM THE FLOOR is written anonymously by the manager of a small, Northern California cardroom. The intent is to offer anecdotes and insight into the world of poker through the eyes of Johnny Coldeck. It should be said that Mr. Coldeck is not a certified counselor, though his years as a mental patient have given him some skills in that department. Although the counseling sessions have obviously been a colossal failure, knowing the right psychological lingo seems to have been enough for him to be able to counsel the occasional lost soul at the poker tables.

Friday, November 13, 2009

NICKNAMES CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH

New players to our little club are often puzzled by the nicknames we use for our players. Some new players go so far as to try to pick their own nicknames, completely missing the point! The following is a series of stories designed to highlight how these poker nicknames come to be, and why some names stick and some don’t.

When Tony Campinelli first came into our little club, he was immediately liked and respected. A true gentleman (they are rare in our corner of the world), Tony was always immaculately dressed and very pleasant to all the staff and players. In fact, he would never take a seat at the table without personally greeting and shaking hands with everyone at the room. Unusually quiet at the table and vague about his personal affairs, it took almost a year for his real occupation to occur to us. He would often be out of town on “business” for a few days, and would always have an obscure answer about his activities upon his return. He claimed to be the CEO of some indecipherable company related to computer software, but something always struck us as just a little off, as his bankroll was in fresh $100 bills. We ruled out the international pharmaceutical trade as a possibility, because it didn’t seem a good fit for a well-mannered, middle-aged man in Armani suits, wing-tips and a Fedora. At every holiday, Tony would bring gifts to each of the staff- extravagant gifts which none of us would ever be able to afford. We are not the sharpest group of people, as a rule, but we finally pooled our collective intelligence and dubbed him “Hitman Tony”. Out of respect and fear, Hitman Tony becomes “Tony Two-Tone” when he is not away on one of his business trips. We don’t see a lot of people wearing wing-tips around here.

Pao’ li (we pronounce it like “Pauly”), twenty-something years old and from some random Polynesian Island, came to our club about a year ago. Like Hitman Tony, he was always immaculately dressed in clothing which had more resale value than any of the other players’ cars. His gold chains alone (we won’t even discuss the rings) would purchase any house in this neighborhood, but there seemed to be something else, something indefinable, about the way he carried himself. He had a way of expecting, and getting, special treatment from the staff and players, leading to us to name him Prima Donna Pauly. It was actually a very strange phenomenon, and it was almost a year before the truth came out. A customer came into the bar one night this week and he began acting very strangely around Paul. Strange behavior usually goes unnoticed around these parts, but when the customer genuflected and began kissing the feet of Prima Donna Pauly, we could no longer avoid asking questions. At the cost a few beers, I was able to extract the back story from the visitor. He turned out to be from the same small island as Pauly. He claimed that Prima Donna Pauly had been the crown prince of this little island in the South Seas, and was scheduled to be married. It was an arranged marriage; he had never even seen his bride-to-be, and they were strictly forbidden from speaking. This did not sit well with Pauly, who came to the United States six years ago on a two-week Visitor’s Visa and has not returned to his home country. We were obliged to change his moniker from “Prima Donna Pauly” to “Prince Pauly”. While it is obvious this name makes him a little uneasy, he has accepted it with the grace of a Royal, so it will probably stick.

Tom, appearing by dress and behavior as the quintessential blue collar worker, appeared in our club some years back. Unassuming and seemingly polite upon his arrival at our club, we all wrongly assumed he was normal. Although he seemed to only own a couple of tattered t-shirts and the one pair of sandals, he appeared to take interest in the poker table conversation, but never really participated. After a few years, we began to suspect, as a group, that Tom actually wasn’t aware of what was being discussed on the table, but he was still quiet and polite, so the conversations on sports, work and home lives simply went on without him. One day, something changed. Tom began to feel comfortable enough with his surroundings to attempt to participate in our conversations. There was a problem, however; his attempts at communication usually consisted of him blurting out some totally random thought, unrelated to the topic at hand and generally having something to do with bowel movements or small animals, or both. The nickname, “Tourette Tom” was the simplest and most obvious choice.
The next time you hear a nickname at the card table, you might wish to pause and reflect about just how and why the name came to be. Unless you can figure it out on your own, however, asking about it might be a bad idea. In a case like Hitman Tony, it may actually be bad for your health.

Tales From the Floor is written anonymously by the even more anonymous Johnny Coldeck, manager of a small, Northern California card room. Of the various and sundry poker nicknames over the years, the one which seems to have taken on common usage when referring to Mr. Coldeck is unprintable in this fine family magazine. Don’t ask.