Poker Articles

Poker The "Old Fashioned Way"
By Mike Paulle

I remember well my initial visit to a Las Vegas poker room. This was long before poker came to the Internet; it was poker the "Old Fashioned Way."

It was 1967. I was 21 and in town to play blackjack for the first time in a casino. I'd studied Edward O. Thorpe's "Beat The Dealer" and was ready to make my fortune.

After being thrown out of two casinos for card counting, I was ready to go back home. My fortune, I didn't know then, would never come.

It's odd what you are afraid of, and unafraid of, when you are young. Trying to deceive a casino at their own game, by counting cards, didn't frighten me at all. But the sight of a table full of "old" guys (they were probably an "ancient" group of 40 and 50-year-olds, which seemed old to me at the time) playing $1-$3 Stud in a Las Vegas Casino's cardroom terrified me. I thought these men must all be card sharks who fed on young whippersnappers like me.

I thought, surely, if I sat down in that game the men would take every penny I had. How they would do that in such a low-limit game, I didn't comprehend. That's the nature of irrational fear. It's unfounded, by definition. It seems odd, now, but that's how I felt at the time.

It wasn't until many years later that I found out that my experience was a common one. Most people coming into a poker room for the first time are quite intimidated.

It's only after a few visits that a new player can learn to relax. As the saying goes, all poker players "put their pants on one leg at a time."

Once you realize you are not going to be cheated, the cards speak for themselves. Turn over the best hand and you win the money, no matter how long you've been playing.

There are an estimated 65 Million poker players in the United States alone. The majority of these players have NEVER played in a Las Vegas cardroom or any other cardroom. They are "kitchen table" poker players, who play with family or in weekly home games with friends.

Getting these players out to public games is the goal of the entire poker industry. That's where the growth will come from. Somehow, however, the intimidation that seems to come with one's first visit to a public cardroom will have to be lessened in order for that growth to come about.

By letting players know in advance what to expect in a cardroom, Poker Pages hopes to lessen the first time jitters. Poker cardroom managers want you to know that the "natives don't bite." You needn't be frightened. You are welcome to come in and look around without playing. No one will hassle you.

And in fact, if you decide to play, most of the players you will be up against don't play any better than your weird Uncle Harry who loses to you in the annual Thanksgiving poker game with the family.

With legal cardrooms springing up all over the country, it's easier than ever to find a public game near your home. Continue to read Poker Pages and you will find a place to play that will try very hard to make your first experience a pleasant one. They will show you that poker is still being played the "Old Fashioned Way."