Poker Articles

Pigeons, Pioneers and Pancakes
By David Hench
(All Rights Reserved)

I saw something you don't see just every day over at the Sunset Station last week. A guy had FIFTY racks of chips in front of him in a $6-$12 Omaha game. I say in front of him, actually they were stacked in front of him, beside him, behind him on a table, and he was resting his chin on 15 or 20 racks. I called him "Mr. Chin."

It was a straddle/cap bonanza, a showdown type of game. If any two runners would make you a hand, you drew to it. In other words, Omaha as it was meant to be played. And it was a white chip only game, so the pots swelled to outrageous proportions. It was about like playing $10-$20 with all whites. Every pot was three or four racks worth, and if you caught a rush it would take forever to stack such a heap of singles.

There were four Omaha games at the Station that night. I was at the table right next to the shootout game. About 1:00 in the morning, they combined our games and seated me right next to Mr. Chin. Motioning to the preposterous amount of racks all around him, I couldn't resist asking him how much of a winner he was. Wrong question, he was hooked. Damndest thing I have ever seen. The guy has $5,000 in front of him in a $6-$12 game, and he's $4,000 stuck.

Well, that's just the kind of thing I write articles about, so I started watching him closely. I wanted to get a line on his play. After a while, I had it figured out. He played every hand. Don't take that as a generalization, he played every single hand until the end, and then called all action on the end as well. It was a sight to behold, and worthy of some consideration as to what might be going on in his head.

And then I realized, it was just plain, old-fashioned gambling. He hadn't been reading any poker books, hadn't been in any poker chat rooms, hadn't been running any computer simulations at home. It was about betting, smoking, and drinking until the end of every hand, and then doing it all again the next hand. Maybe an impulse control problem or something. "Doesn't this guy know about all the new poker colleges and universities, and all the geniuses that run them?" I asked myself. "Doesn't he know you can have a 'guaranteed income for life by using the advanced concepts' and can average one and a half big bets per hour by playing the nuts?"

I started studying his hands to see if he had any subtle tells in his game. Sure enough, he did. Whenever it was on him, he either bet at the pot or raised it. That was tell enough. One time he checked in the dark. "Keepin 'em honest," he nudged me, "Gotta mix it up."

I wanted so bad to tell him "Hey man, this is a scientific game now. There's all kinds of resources out there to study up on." But I could tell that wasn't his game plan. His game wasn't about pot odds, position, game theory, discipline. It wasn't about intuition versus logic. And money management was out the window. I mean, it's not like you go to a $6-$12 game thinking "Okay, I'm only going to invest $9,000 in this spot, test the waters a little."

No, his game was straight out of the old days. It was about gambling, drinking, and smoking until the hand was over. If you fold, you're not getting your money's worth - that type of thing. I couldn't help feeling a longing for the days when such a game was predominant in the poker world. Being a whippersnapper, I wasn't there to see them. But I can see now what made the poker world go round in the 50's and 60's. I can see how Texas Dolly, Amarillo Slim, Sailor, Johnny Moss, Puggy, Treetop, Titanic, and all of them became the rich and the famous. A little less gambling, a little less drinking, a little less investing $9,000 in a $6-$12 spot. In short, a clue. A plan that would relieve the gambler/drinker/smoker of his chips, devised right on the seat of their pants. A plan they didn't learn at poker school; they invented it.

I've often wished I could have sat in on some of those post-game breakfasts. The legends didn't reveal much while they played - lessons were extra in those days - but it's safe to assume they bandied their evolving strategies about over pancakes and coffee afterwards. From those breakfasts came the concepts that would bust a generation of gamblers. It wasn't gambling that was being discussed, but the medicine for it. Pot odds, position play, over-the-top moves, semi-bluffs, free cards, ante stealing, betting for value, reading hands, tells, sandbagging, misdirection, smooth calls, daredevil cold bluffs, table image, game theory - and the rest of it. All because people like to drink, smoke, and gamble; and someone else wondered how they could turn that to their advantage. That "someone else" was the legends, and take your hat off when you say their names. They were the pioneers in getting the best of it. But tip your cap to Mr. Chin too. That kind of gambling deserves its own wall in the Hall of Fame. I'm talking about the guys who will get up in there with the worst of it and don't care. That's a scary individual. Put their picture on the wall right next to Doyle and Puggy. They're all men of respect.