Poker Peeves
I have long been an impatient person by nature; those close to me will contest to that. Time is of the essence and I cannot stand when people waste mine. Impatience is easily my worst character trait, not to mention one of my fiercest adversaries at the poker table. Though I do love the game, I often find myself furiously tapping my feet underneath the table, impatiently waiting for a playable hand. The hulking hours and repetitive nature of the game make it easy for its players to develop pet peeves, which, for impatient people like me, can simply drive you nuts. I’ve given the matter considerable thought and put together a list of my top five poker peeves, most of which are strongly driven by impatience. Perhaps you can relate.
1. Tournament players asking for a count when the bet they’re considering to call clearly puts them all in. I typically see this one at least twice throughout the course of a multi-table poker tournament. Usually on the turn or the river, after a majority of the hand has already been played, one player makes a large bet that puts another player all in. After some mysterious deliberation, the player facing the decision asks “how much is it?” when it’s apparent to everyone else at the table that he will be all in if he decides to call. The question bothers me for two reasons: the first, it’s a monumental waste of time! Unless you have terrible vision or are color blind, you should be able to infer from eyeing the size of your opponent’s chip stack and comparing it to your own that you will be all in if you call. Secondly, asking the dealer for a count at this point in the hand is a likely indication that the player neglected to consider his opponent’s chip stack at the beginning of the hand, which is one of the most important factors to consider in tournament poker.
2. Players in a limit poker game who consistently ask questions like: “how much is it to me?” or “how much can I bet?” Now that I exclusively play no-limit or pot-limit games, I no longer have to deal with these ever-annoying questions. Years ago, however, when I first started playing poker, this one never failed to blow my mind. Limit poker games are called limit for a reason. That reason, as I hope all or most of you reading this already know, is the simple and easy-to-understand concept (or so I thought) that the game has predetermined, fixed betting amounts that, with the exception of kill games, NEVER change. In a $4-$8 game, for example, the most anyone can bet on the flop, EVER, is four dollars. No more, no less. Four. Why then, is there always one ignoramus at the table who insists on asking “how much can I bet?” It would be one thing if this player was new to the game and simply needed to know its structure. That’s fine. Ask once, maybe twice if you need reminded, but when you ask the dealer every single stinking time you play a hand, it makes me want to find all of the people responsible for your education and let them know what a fine job they did teaching you how to learn, comprehend and apply the most basic of concepts. Perhaps if teachers were paid more than cocktail servers and garbage men, we wouldn’t have this problem.
3. Poker dealers who average 25 hands per down when dealing a cash game, but no more than half of that when dealing a tournament. I am not generalizing here, as this does not apply to all dealers; only those lazy few who are content with trudging through their tournament downs because they do not get paid per hand like they would in a cash game. These dealers assume that their tips from a tournament will remain the same, no matter how they decide to pace the game, failing to consider that the average poker player is extremely perceptive and often will tip according to a dealer’s performance. Poker dealers who also play the game, tournaments specifically, understand that the more hands you see per round, the better, as the blinds are always on the rise. Fewer hands per level means fewer opportunities to apply your poker skills, instead leaving your fate to chance, in hopes that you will land a couple of premium hands before the blinds raze your chip stack. Tournament directors should ultimately be held responsible for ensuring that their dealers do not take on-the-job vacations during tournaments, especially when you take into consideration the substantial amount of fees subtracted from tournament buy-ins. Shame on you, lazy poker dealer!
4. Jamie Gold and his blueberry fetish. Although this one has nothing to do with my own impatience, it certainly speaks to the issue of wasting peoples’ time. Sure, we know that your “mentor,” Johnny Chan, kept an orange on the table during his back-to-back (almost three peat) main event victories, but he did so to use the scent of a peeled orange to alleviate the smell of cigarette smoke, not to try and add some self-produced, only semi-interesting and utterly extraneous tidbit of personality to his legacy. You don’t need to remind us that those who came before you left their mark on the World Series with character; Chris Moneymaker with his Oakley sunglasses and proper last name, Greg Raymer with his trademark fossils and holograph lizard glasses and Joe Hachem, forever immersed in accented chants of “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie…Oy, Oy, Oy!” I can accept that you needed the blueberries during the marathon sessions you put in at the World Series, but don’t stop the flow of a five hour, six player Poker After Dark sit’n’go, or a heads-up match on national television to try and infuse the name Jamie Gold with a bowl of blueberries. Sadly, your WSOP legacy has already been created for you, in the form of your endless and often senseless table chatter, coupled with the deal you reneged on with Crispin Leyser to share half of your main event winnings. A gambler’s word is his livelihood, perhaps second only to his bankroll, and once it’s broken, it can rarely be salvaged. Sorry, Jamie, but if this was a credibility contest, you’d be out like the fat kid in dodgeball. Please. Enough is enough. Leave the blueberries alone.
5. Set-ups! Topping my list of poker peeves, without question, is the superstitious old guy at the table who asks for a “set-up” when facing a cold deck. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a “set-up” is a brand new set of cards, still in the box, and still neatly arranged by suit. Unfortunately, most card rooms have a policy of honoring any player’s request for a set-up, in order to maintain the integrity of the game. The policy is in place to protect the deck from visible wear and tear or from suspected markings made by cheats. Instead, these disgruntled old men abuse this privilege and ask for a set-up anytime they feel the cards have not been falling in their favor. In other words, when Pops McGrumpypants feels as though his luck is worse than everyone else’s, so much so that no one in the history of poker has ever seen such a terrible run of cards, the game gets put on hold while the dealer spreads, examines and shuffles the new decks for the eye in the sky. Players like Pops fail to recognize that streaks of cold cards come with the territory of playing poker. Sitting out a hand, changing seats or calling it a day (which is probably the best way to deal with a cold deck) are all reasonable methods of “affecting” the cards, if you will, without slowing down the game and subsequently cutting into the dealer’s earnings for the down. What usually happens to players who ask for set-ups? Their “bad luck” continues through the new cards and they eventually find themselves storming out of the poker room, mumbling expletives under their breath, with much lighter pockets. For peeves’ sake, say no to set-ups!
“When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say good bye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music (and poker!).” (Denis Diderot)
By Gary Gates
- Poker Expert
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