Twenty plus years as a school counselor may have prepared me for my Grandma Moses "career", my favorite pasttime which is playing cards. As preposterous as that may sound, there is truth to it because most of what happens at a poker table involves awareness and identification of personalities and predicting and evaluating their behaviors. The settings are drastically different, or are they? Sitting around a poker table with strangers or friends is an immense bonding experience. It is a microcosm of life and the many personalities in the world.
It was my job to observe and evaluate children and teens. Conclusions had to be drawn about their personality types, leadership styles, potentials, right-brain/left-brain dominance, intelligence, daring, at-risk behaviors, flexibility, persistence, determination, and more. While sitting at a card table with 9 other adults, I see certain characters coming to life. Sometimes it takes longer than others for
"them" to appear but if you sit there for an hour or so, they will come.
It is good to have had guidance sessions with class clowns, jocks, computer whiz, mama's boy, prom queens, "most likely to land in prison" guys, baby of the family, band boys....and all of the others we have all known in our school days.
Ordinarily I don't reveal what career field I was in, but once in a game at Wynn, an obnoxious, talkative, aggressive young man was getting on the last nerve of everyone at our table. He had not said much directly to me, but when I won a big hand from him, he started mouthing to me.
After a few barbs, I told him that I knew who he was. He quickly blasted that we had never met before. My reply not only relieved the tension at the table, but obviously struck a nerve with Loud Mouth.
I just smiled and said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I was a school counselor once, and I recognized you as the kid who always got sent to the office because the teachers' wanted you out of their classrooms."
He looked embarrassed and grinned for the first time all day, and said, "That's right...ummm, but you weren't the counselor.
Poker Pals are the Best.
Halloween and Poker...what more could you want?
Poker has traditionally been a man's game, so women who love to play have to learn to hold their own. My personal theory is that Daddy's Girls love to play poker because we usually see someone or some behavior at the table that reminds us of that most important man in our early lives. Riding shotgun in my father's pickup truck in Central Texas in the 1950's left a powerful impression on me. It taught me how important it is to balance being feminine while secretly dreaming of being "one of the guys" just like Dad.
At the poker table I can do both, and sometimes to my advantage, as most other women players have.
Is it a surprise that I play and imagine I am Jennifer Harmon riding in the pickup truck with Daddy Doyle?
I have met and played with famous basketball coaches, financial analysts, therapists, writers, as well as tree-trimmers, plumbers, teachers, stay-at-home mothers, and others from many professions.
After attending The Real Deal at The Venetian, Phil Laak, Lacey Jones and Antonio Esfandiari took me and a few other people to Lavo for drinks. It was fun talking to them and listening to their witty exchanges. Recently, at a satellite tournament at Wynn Classic, I looked up to see Hoyt Corkins across the table from me. I never know who I'll meet next.
Poker is a great equalizer because it gives us the opportunity to sit at the same table regardless of what we do or who we are. Most people who play are great readers of others and intelligent in a way that is not easy to explain. We do not bond or connect with everyone we play with, but the ones we do are like adding another person to the family.
Collusion. Collision?
Often poker is learned by playing at the kitchen table for pennies with family and friends. Everyone has to play to make the game. Uncle Joe and Aunt Sue, Grandma and Grandpa, Mom and Dad are all couples, but that is not the same as today's poker room couple teams.
The difference comes when the stakes change. Playing for matches or pennies at home is far from playing for real money with strangers in a cardroom.
Couple teams can be found wherever poker is being played. The popularity of poker has led more women into cardrooms today. Many go independently and enjoy the status of being single at the table. Others have learned poker because they did not want to be left at home while their husbands go out. Once they start playing, they really get into it and feel a sense of their own ability.
When two people share the same pocketbook and sit at the same table, it is natural that they will try to preserve and expand it. After all, it is costing them more to play than the rest of us.
Not much can be done to discourage husbands and wives from sitting at the same table. Dealers and floor managers cannot anticipate issues before they exist. The grey area of whether the couple is colluding, perhaps unintentionally, could not be proved without an outright violation.
Some couples are quiet and try to hide the fact they are together. Other unexperienced ones are "outed" when the husband glows with pride as he sees his wife call to the river and beat AA with her small straight.
In her book Poker Face, Katy Lederer wrote of the fierce competition among her Lederer family members over games when they were growing up. Howard and his sister Annie Duke are still at it which can be seen on national tv. Yet, Annie cried when she knocked Howard out of a major tournament a few years ago.
Emotions cannot be barred from any sporting or gaming event.
This is no suggestion to ban couples from playing at the same table. But couple teams, with or without a T-shirt advertising their union, may want to be aware how they are perceived by other players.
TABLE TANGO Linda Geenen, first poker blogger. http://table-tango.pokerworks.com/
Two famous quotes are Andy Warhol's "Fifteen Minutes of Fame" and Casablanca's "Of all the gin joints in all of the world, she walks into mine."
Today I thought of both of them when I read Linda Geenen's most recent blog post. Linda writes reviews of Las Vegas poker rooms. I was playing with her group of off-duty Bellagio dealers at the Monte Carlo poker room for several hours when she asked me if she could take my picture. Little did I know that she she would include me in a blog with a paragraph and picture of me. http://table-tango.pokerworks.com/2007/01/25/the-pan-games-play-monte-carlo/
The first quote relates to me in a tongue-in-cheek way. Recognition in a paragraph that takes 35 seconds to read is hardly fame, but it was fun to read her observations at the same poker table.
"Of all the (poker rooms) in all of the world---", I walked into the one where Linda was playing and sat down by her and Marie. What a coincidence. Or was it? Every day we meet people by chance who become a part of our lives.
You can read her entire blog on this subject at the above address. This is an excerpt from it.
"One of the true delights of the evening was Judy. She took the 1s and I knew that I knew her from either playing with or dealing to her at Bellagio. As the game progressed and Marie and her and I visited, I knew she was a ‘keeper’. If she lived in Vegas I’d have her on my ‘Pan Game Plays’ list. Not only did she step right into our circle of poker play and gabbing lifestyle, she knew how to play and had a lot of moxie. She’s also a blogger, although she feels she doesn’t fit into the ‘poker’ blogging mold, she’s a player and adds a nice dimension to all realities, including poker. Of course she hates this picture – but that’s the way most of man/womankind reacts when they are faced with their own image. I think she’s a beauty.On of the true delights of the evening was Judy. She took the 1s and I knew that I knew her from either playing with or dealing to her at Bellagio. As the game progressed and Marie and her and I visited, I knew she was a ‘keeper’. If she lived in Vegas I’d have her on my ‘Pan Game Plays’ list. Not only did she step right into our circle of poker play and gabbing lifestyle, she knew how to play and had a lot of moxie. She’s also a blogger, although she feels she doesn’t fit into the ‘poker’ blogging mold, she’s a player and adds a nice dimension to all realities, including poker. Of course she hates this picture – but that’s the way most of man/womankind reacts when they are faced with their own image. I think she’s a beauty."
http://table-tango.pokerworks.com/blog/2006.09/2007/monte_carlo/judy.jpg
And that is how I make new friends. Thanks, Linda."And what is the name of your blog?" Recently, I had an interesting experience which led me to believe there IS power in the blog.
I have played Texas Hold'em in a good, non-smoking poker room in Oklahoma just north of the Texas border since it opened. We Texans are forced to travel to neighboring states to find a legal game. Most of the time I make the one hour fifteen minute drive and come home the same day, but occasionally if it is late, I ask for a comped room. The managers of the poker room know me as do most of the dealers, and I consider them my "friends" if you know what I mean. (Poker friends are those people both at the table and on the floor who you go to an almost interpersonal level of communication with but never learn their last names.)
On a recent trip I asked for a comp room but was given the run-around. Instead of getting back to me with an answer, there was just no response. "No" would have been okay, but I became irritated that they kept passing the buck and avoiding giving me the answer. It was getting late in the day, and I needed to return home if there was no room in the inn. It seems that the man I asked about the comp did not know me and was working under the new rules from management to be very careful about giving too many comps. However, the Power of the Blog worked its magic.
Someone, I think one of the dealers, told another employee that I have a blog and just like in the old children's game "Gossip", the information changed as it went from employees' ear to ear. Pretty soon the manager took me aside, apologized for the lengthy wait, and said I could have a room. Then I went back into the room, and a floor person who knows me said, "Judy, what is the name of your blog? I would love to read it."
My reply was, "Why would you want to see my blog?"
He said, "Because we like to keep up with what the poker bloggers say about our poker room and how they rate it."
Hummmm, thought I. Should I tell him that my blog only has personal family pictures and events in my grandson's life?
Or should I run home and start one?
Oh, well, it was good for a room that day. As they say, there is money to be made online.
All the people I play with are good and interesting folks from various professions. I've met many people and made so many friends through poker. I just wish that the State of Texas and the good citizens of Texas would legalize a fabulous game which is challenging and fun. 
Halloween and Poker...what more could you want?
