All in the Family

Just when I thought that my dad, Peter, an avid poker enthusiast, and I were the only ones in the family to have the gaming bug, along comes a first cousin, once removed. If you are "relative challenged," he is the grandson of my aunt, who is my father's sister. Make sense? He has written to me with stories of poker, chip tricks, family gossip, and baby pictures. When I got his e-mail a few months ago from an address with the name Ross Watson, I just figured it was another of the several hundred e-mails I get daily from people wanting advice on this or that, directions to a casino, info on how to book a poker cruise, an autographed photo of me (OK, I snuck that one in), or to tell me a bad-beat story. By the way, I don't like bad-beat stories, so please send them to someone else, OK?

Meredith Kate Watson

Anyway, blood is thicker than water and worth more than a big blind, so I began corresponding with him. Apparently, while growing up, he played poker for pennies and grew to love the game. As poker's popularity has grown, so has his love for the game, and he has become quite adept at doing poker chip tricks and is working on mastering the art of fine play. He is going to be writing a book on chip tricks soon, and when he does, I hope to print an excerpt from it in my column. In the meantime, he wrote to me on the day of his first child's birth. Her name is Meredith Kate Watson, she was born Dec. 7, 2004, and he sent along a photo. Striking family resemblance, eh?

So, how is this related to poker? Ross shared with me some of the sly ways that he and his fellow poker addicts get to practice their chip tricks for the coming book. He told me about the funny reaction he's gotten from colleagues as he's been brushing up on his chip tricks – the merging of the button-down corporate world with poker, as he calls it.

He said, "Over the past six months, my co-author, Jen Teti, and I have had chips in our hands from our waking moments until sleep. Notice that I say sleep, not bedtime, because as my wife can attest, chips are often found under the covers. Obviously, a large amount of my waking time is spent at work in a large corporation. So, it can get a little tricky explaining to my colleagues why I'm knuckle-rolling a poker chip as I'm walking down the hallway. Nonetheless, it is actually quite surprising how accommodating everyone has been, given they don't even know about the book! I largely attribute this to the popularity of poker, or it might be attributable to the lack of awareness typically seen in large corporate environments. Either way, both Jen and I have had to find a middle ground for these worlds to exist simultaneously.

"Mostly, it's been about balancing perceptions, perceptions that you're working rather than just goofing off. For example, Jen and I have learned, unfortunately from experience, to practice chip tricks with our hands under the conference table; chips dropping on a table make a very loud noise, which tends to be a bit off-putting; however, in comparison, chips dropping on the carpet seems almost respectful, and certainly is not disturbing. We've found that the person seated next to us will often assist with chip cleanup. Another way that we've found for these worlds to exist concurrently is to ensure that we bring a notebook to all meetings, an item that most people show up with anyway. However, as opposed to using it as a tool to write in, we tend to use it as a surface to practice the chip roll or chip backspin, which are relatively noiseless tricks on a notebook; we both have very good memories. As long as we're contributing during a meeting, people perceive the chip tricks as almost unconscious activity on our parts, akin to flipping or twirling a pencil.

"Another time when I'm very careful about perceptions is when I'm scheduling the monthly poker night. Since most of the players are colleagues, I send out a meeting notice that blocks the time out on their calendars. I make sure to mark the meeting private, which disables colleagues from viewing the content of the meeting. It's a bit disrespectful for colleagues to see, if they happen to be looking at our outlook calendars, that we're leaving work a little early to get to our poker game. However, if they see that the meeting is marked private and we're leaving a little early, they tend to think we have a doctor's appointment or something similar; remember, it's all about perception. Another thing related to poker night that we're careful to do is sign out the projector that we bring to our game; we project a poker computer program on a wall that keeps track of levels, time left, and blinds. We wouldn't want anyone to think the projector had been misplaced. Since our poker nights usually take place on Fridays, it looks as though the projector was signed out for the weekend. So, if someone happens to be checking, it may look as if someone is doing a lot of work over the weekend, although that's not our intent; it just ends up being the perception created. It's not easy balancing these worlds, although it certainly makes the corporate world a little more fun."

So, as we all know, poker is all about perception and making others think something different than what is actually occurring. Nice slant on the classic magician's redirect, eh?

Class dismissed.

As always, please e-mail me your poker-related questions and comments. Also, please visit www.cardplayercruises.com for your poker travel needs. "Meet me at the Oasis!"