Posted by Johnnymac 1:46 AM
A Quick Story About a Tough Guy

Work has been busy the past couple of days and I haven't been able to get to my New Orleans stories the way I wanted to. Nonetheless, I am up late tonight after a friendly round of beer poker with the neighbors and something happened in their game that reminded me about a quick story to share.

I played in the neighbor game tonight to be friendly. I would say that I played "just for fun" but I've become less and less a fan lately of home poker because it just doesn't require the same skills as does a good cash holdem game played in a casino or cardroom. The element of luck in most of these games and their inherent design in favor of expensive drawing hands is just not that fun to me now. It's more about action and bravado and not necessarily about skill and strategy. For instance - being dealt the best hand at the beginning does not mean as much and isn't that much more profitable than a lesser hand because the pots grow so big and the bets stay so comfortably small that the proper strategy quite often is to draw often and let luck decide the winners.

Something else that bothers me about home poker is how the focus isn't really about winning as much as it's about being social. In fact, players that focus on winning are often shunned because they make the atmosphere too competitive. When Dr Fro became a regular in my home game a few years ago, before I learned to play casino poker even, a couple of other guys quit coming because they said he was "too serious" and no fun to play with. Most of you reading this know Fro and know that he's a great guy and a good friend to a lot of people, and even at the poker table he likes to crack jokes and be friendly and talkative, but since he plays to win and is competitive too, some people don't like to play with him. This is ridiculous - why play the game if you don't want to win? Why hold it against someone who does? Why don't we just sit around and drink beer and watch Cinemax instead then and not even worry about playing cards?

By focusing on being friendly quite often rules are relaxed and unfairness is tolerated all in the spirit of keeping everyone happy. For instance, tonight many players who were busted purchased chips off of other players and the sellers then just pocketed the cash and simply recirculated the chips already on the table. Everyone knows that most players who are up in a card game will tighten up and become risk averse as the game goes on because they want to "lock in" a win. (Mike Caro touches on this concept from time to time as a strategic move - it's easier to bluff people who are in this mindset.) While there is nothing inherently wrong with this basic human psychology - everyone feels this way from time to time - it is still wrong and unfair to take money off of the table, especially in the form of chips, because that risk averse tendency is even stronger if a player has to reach into his pocket. Once a winning player already has money in his pocket he's very reluctant to put that money back into the game and risk losing it. This makes it difficult for other players to recover their losses because the stakes of the game have essentially changed and the expected value of winning hands has therefore declined because there is less money to be wagered. For this reason many casinos do not allow players to pocket any money until they have left the game for good and quite often they also do not allow players to buy chips from one another unless the cash paid for the chips is immediately exchanged for chips. This didn't happen tonight in the "friendly" game and thus many players who appeared to be short stacked were really big winners and the game tightened up considerably towards the end because of it.

I say all of this because I saw a Tough Guy do this on Saturday in a 6-12 game and have no clue as to what he was doing or why the other players in the game were frustrated with him. This particular TG was on quite a run when I sat down and had apparently made some rather frustrating river wins against the rest of the table and built up a large stack. Like most Tough Guys he also had a cell phone that was constantly ringing and finally at one point he decided to get up and "go get some lunch." He picked up his chips and walked to the cage and cashed in about $600 of which $400 seemed to be profits from I could discern. He then walked back to the table and asked the dealer if he could "reserve" his lucky seat and come back in about half an hour. The dealer told him to check with the brush and the brush told him that he would have to go to the bottom of the list since he had cashed in his chips. He seemed frustrated and argued a bit and finally agreed that he would put $100 back on the table for now and the rest when he returned. Naturally when he returned the original dealer was gone and the brush had wandered off on some other chore and the TG sat down and tried to play off of his $100 stack. Those of us who had seen him build his stack were rather interested in having him continue on in the game because of his bad play, so I and some other players at the table asked the dealer to make him cash in for the full amount again. When the dealer did this the TG seemed surprise and replied, "I can't... I already cashed them in!" I sincerely believe he had no idea whatsoever what the big deal was to the rest of us.

As this was going on, the gentleman next to me turned and quietly said, "I bet if they make him do it he'll quit and not want to risk losing that stack!" And in fact, when he finally was forced to rebuy for the entire amount he saw about four more hands and reather disgustedly got up and left the table when the blinds came to him. We were all disappointed but since it was only Saturday afternoon I had a feeling that like all TG's he would be back. The lure of what seems like easy money in one's first poker experience is quite strong to tough guys, and in fact, our hero was back at the same table when I sat down on Sunday afternoon. This time did not look as happy as the day before ("I was hitting those big straights yesterday!") and he rebought into the game for about $400 over the course of the afternoon. When he finally did get that last cell phone call he played one more hand and was out the door with a scowl. Another tough guy with empty pockets.

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