First, A Beginner

It’s been almost two years, but we finally got a $20-$40 limit mixed game going again at my local casino last night. It was a good mix of games: pineapple stud eight-or-better, A-5 triple draw, pot-limit Omaha, badeucey, Omaha eight-or-better, and badugi. It was also a good mix of players, some old hat and some brand new. We had people who were regulars in the game that died off previously and some people who were interested in playing the game for the first time.

The night went well except for a few hiccups. Someone who I’ve played poker with on many occasions got out of line with the dealers and it affected the mood of the game, and that’s unacceptable in this situation.

We were playing badugi. If you haven’t played it, it has a different format from any other game we played that night and it’s certainly different than any game the dealers at this casino have been dealing over the last few years.

The game uses a button and blinds, and each player is dealt four cards face down to start. There is a round of betting and then three subsequent rounds where you can discard any number of the cards you currently have and get new ones. Each of these drawing rounds is followed by a round of betting. By the end, whoever has the lowest unpaired unsuited cards wins the pot. The best possible hand is 4-3-2-A of all different suits and, besides the fact that all badugis (four unpaired cards of all different suits) beat all non-badugis, hand rankings are the same as any other lowball game where aces count as low cards.

Because some dealers are new and some haven’t dealt these draw games in a couple years, they needed some instruction. I was happy to take point on this. I was walking each dealer through procedure for each game as we went along. We had a new dealer in the box and I walked him through two hands of badugi and then I ordered some food. After I ordered food, I looked up at the pot and saw that people had cards and that the dealer still had the stub in his hand. Then I noticed that there were no burn cards on the table. Uh-oh.

Burn cards are important in every game. They make it so that a person who has marked the cards can’t see what the next card in play is going to be. That’s the only reason they are employed. It’s a big reason, but I can assure you that nobody in this game was attempting to mark cards. They were so new at many of the games that they were working so hard on remembering the rules and trying to play well that I doubt that they would have the mental energy remaining for such nefarious activities, even if they were so inclined.

As I said, we were all having a fun time up to this point, and tried to continue with much effort on my part after, but this was an uncomfortable situation. The player on the button was much more experienced than the other two players in the pot. He had stayed pat on the last draw and the dealer was in the middle of dealing the second player in the pot his new card(s).

I made a mistake at this point. We were well past the point where it could be rectified, but I still said out loud, “Have you burned any cards this hand?” The dealer got flustered and so did the player on the button when, after deciding that there was no point in burning after the first player has received his final draw cards and the next player is about to receive his, we realized that there was no way we could back the hand up in a satisfactory way, even on this one street. He got especially flustered when his eight badugi (a very, very strong hand) lost to the two seven badugis that the other players made on that last draw.

I definitely made a mistake. I should have realized that there was no way to make this right and just bit my tongue so that I didn’t call attention to the mistake the dealer made. This would be good for the dealer and good for the game. Hopefully, since they didn’t notice at any point in the hand, the players would continue not to realize that the dealer had made such a mistake and I could gently correct the dealer on the next hand to make sure he burned a card on every street in the future. Instead, I spoke up, which caused a bit of a chain reaction. The dealer tried to burn in the middle of dealing cards to a player, which we stopped. Then showdown happened and the player on the button threw his cards down on the table and said some not very nice words to the dealer. He was frustrated because if the dealer had burned, the other players wouldn’t have made their hands.

He should be experienced enough to know that the burn card didn’t make any demonstrable difference in what his opponents’ hands were anyway and that, since it was the dealer’s first time dealing this game, he should give him some leeway. It turned a game from one with a jovial mood to one with a sour one. I think everyone realized that he was the only player making it that way and it won’t really change whether they want to play in the future, but it’s a behavior I wouldn’t expect from someone as experienced as this person. Remember that everyone makes mistakes and before each person becomes an expert at something, they must first be a beginner. ♠

Gavin Griffin was the first poker player to capture a World Series of Poker, European Poker Tour and World Poker Tour title and has amassed nearly $5 million in lifetime tournament winnings. Griffin is sponsored by HeroPoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @NHGG