Bellagio - My Home Court

I have spent the last few weeks in Las Vegas, and that gave me the opportunity to hang out at Bellagio. The poker room was packed every night, which means one thing: Business in Las Vegas is picking up.

Two years ago, Mark Gregorich gave me a very important poker lesson. He told me that if I wanted to maximize what I could win playing poker, I would have to learn all of the games. He had a few reasons for telling me that. First, I may not be able to get into my "first choice" game, and it isn't worth sitting around and watching. Second, there may not be good value in my preferred game, whereas a different game may have a few gamblers with a lot of money. Finally, he said that poker is poker, and playing a variety of games will help keep it interesting. So, I have worked on learning new games.

About six months ago, I noticed that comedian/actor Steve Martin was playing in a stud game at Bellagio. I wanted to sit down, but I really didn't know how to play. This bothered me so much that I read a book on stud. Last week, I finally ventured into a stud game. After a few minutes of playing, I realized that I was not the worst player at the table (I usually am). There was a kid with a lot of money in front of him who was raising every hand to the end with no fear of the other hands. Within 15 minutes, I saw him lose a few thousand dollars and he kept complaining about the bad beats he had incurred. I decided to get a quick bite to eat at the snack shop. When I returned, the dealer had called a floorman to the table. As it turns out, the kid had lost a few more hands and had thrown his cards at the dealer and called him a few names that I can't repeat. I know that Bellagio does not tolerate behavior like this, and that a floorman asks an offending player to take a break and cool off. When the floorman asked what happened, the dealer explained it verbatim. The kid then asked the floorman to see if anyone at the table had heard him swear at the dealer. The response was not what I expected. In fact, there was complete silence because none of the players wanted him to leave the game. The kid then said something along the lines of, "See, this little jerk doesn't know what he is talking about." Of course, he was then asked to take a break.

This should not happen. If a player gets out of line, other players should speak up. I understand that we play poker to make money, but cardroom conduct is more important. I have heard many poker stories about the past, and it seems to me that we have it easy these days playing in legal cardrooms with dealers. Treat dealers with respect; it is not their fault when a bad card comes on the river.

The following day, I hopped into a $50-$100 Omaha high-low game. This is my favorite game at Bellagio because everyone playing in it has a good sense of humor and understands poker. I had just lost hand after hand to World Champion Berry Johnston when I got involved in a hand against Puggy Pearson, another world champion. Puggy has been playing poker longer than I have been alive, and refers to himself as "The Roving Gambler." The river brought a card that counterfeited my low and gave me two pair for high (not a good hand). Puggy fired out a bet and I made a crying call. Before he flipped over his hand, he started singing his song of death for an opponent: "I, I, I said – I am a roving gambler … " This is a shocker to anyone who hasn't played with Puggy, but I have heard it many times, and always laugh. Unfortunately, he was singing to me this time – and it wasn't that funny.

On a final note, I would like to welcome Warren Karp to the Card Player team. Warren has been involved in the industry as an employee and player for the past few decades, and will be writing a column for beginning players.