You Heard it Right!

My travel schedule has been hectic, as usual, but most of it lately has centered around teaching poker, one of my favorite things to do. In the past month, I was one of 12 instructors for WPT Boot Camp Battle at Sea, held on a Card Player Cruises trip to the Mexican Riviera, gave two seminars at Wildhorse Casino in Pendleton, Oregon, held a seminar for the Nevada Poker League, hosted an eight-hour poker training session in Santa Rosa for the Wine Country Poker Group, and was on a poker panel speaking to a private Canadian theater arts group at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. After the seminars, I was afforded opportunities to play poker with these various groups in cardrooms, rather than follow my normal routine of playing online poker. During my sessions at the poker table, many funny comments were made by my opponents. I wrote down some of them to share with you.

Here are my top 10 funniest comments, provided in David Letterman style:

10. “I win 78 percent of the time,” claimed one of my opponents. Another player at the table asked him what program he uses to record his results. “I don’t keep records,” he said. Hmm, makes me wonder how he got the 78 percent statistic.

9. “I never raise with aces … I want everyone to call me.”

8. “If they give gold medals in curling, they definitely should give gold medals in hold’em.”

7. “I don’t play cash games because I don’t play them well.” Someone at the table said, “You don’t play tournaments well, either, but that doesn’t stop you from playing them.”

6. “Fast play is the old slow-play.”

5. “I’m just a check-raise addict.”

4. “My phone must have pocket-dialed you.”

3. “I don’t like playing at the table with poker dealers.”

2. “I just folded the A-K of hearts because hearts came up last time, and the same suit never comes up two times in a row.”

1. Here’s the funniest poker line that I’ve ever heard at a poker table. A man with a Southern accent moved all in, and his opponent, another Southerner, asked, “You all in?” The first player replied, “Sure am … sack and all!”

Change of subject: In my last column, I went over some of the latest trends and concepts in the poker industry, and promised to report on some modern poker lingo in the future. Since this column is meant to be a bit humorous, here are some of the funniest terms that the poker world has coined lately:

Bum hunting – Someone takes a seat at a heads-up table online, but won’t play against an opponent until he has checked the opponent’s online stats and thinks he has a significant edge over that opponent.

Flat-Tire Hand – A hand that needs to catch a jack to improve

Brokeback Mountain – Nickname for pocket kings (two cowboys in the hole)

Push Monkey – Someone who buys in short at a no-limit table and then pushes all in frequently

Drooler – The live one (fish) in the game

Rigtard – An idiot who thinks that online poker is rigged

Chop blocker – Someone who calls or raises from the button when it is folded to him, thus preventing the blinds from chopping

Bonus whore – Someone who takes advantage of multiple online bonuses

I hope that you enjoyed this column. Please send any funny poker stories or poker slang to me at [email protected].

By the way, I have some good news for Card Player readers. The starting price for the Dec. 5-12, 2010, poker cruise has just been reduced to $587 plus tax. For more information, check out my website at www.cardplayercruises.com.

Now, let’s play poker!

Linda is a partner in Card Player Cruises and teaches for WPT Boot Camp. She is available to host seminars and corporate functions, and can be reached through her website at www.cardplayercruises.com.