A day in the life of a Colorado poker table

By Mark Lasser

Poker tables are like Colorado weather. They can change from warm and sunny to cold and frosty to violent and frightening in seconds. Well, maybe not seconds but certainly in hours. Sit at a table for 24 hours and you’ll see the progressions. All of these conditions can be profitable, but they all require different adjustments.

For example, if you’ve ever walked into a poker room around 7 or 8 in the morning you may have noticed an older crowd and sometimes even a box of doughnuts. Personally, I’m not much of a morning person, but on the occasions that I’ve wandered into card rooms at these hours and played, I’ve had a lot of fun. And I like doughnuts. Sometimes it’s cool to be the 30- or 40-year-old “kid” in the room. The old-timers generally don’t play an action game. They’re patient, tight and don’t mind sitting around for hours mucking bad starting cards as they socialize with the other regulars. Since they often don’t move much except to take a break we call them Rocks. There’s a lot to learn from them and their camaraderie can be a lot of fun. To beat them, you better have the walnuts, and don’t underestimate their ability to read you like a book.

By mid-afternoon, the crowd starts to shift. People cutting out of work early start showing up. Guys who work morning delivery shifts and others with the day off begin grabbing seats as the older folks call it a day. I think this is the most stable time to play. This is when you find serious players that tend to be somewhat rational. I favor a pretty straightforward playing style at these times. Bet when you got ‘em. Muck when you don’t. Figure most raises are genuine. There will be bluffs, but there won’t likely be lots of 22:1 chases. Good math skills help a lot here. You really want to understand pot and implied odds.

By dinner time, the “fun” crowd begins to arrive. This is when the casual players start to migrate in. Guys who play nickel and quarter games with their buddies can be found, as well as groups of friends up for the night from various Front Range cities. Regular working folk start arriving, as well as business owners with wads of Benjamins. This is when things start to get looser. If the Rocks typically have two to three folks seeing flops, the “fun” crowd may have five or six willing to take a shot at the pot, even if there’s been a raise.

The real insanity starts around 10 p.m. and is in full swing by midnight. By this time a few things have happened. The drinkers have had time to get a few brews in their bellies, wilder players stuck a few hundred bucks start to play every hand trying to get even, and otherwise good, patient players start to jones for some action. Now we start seeing eight or nine players in the hand and sometimes “family pots.”
This is also when the “maniacs” appear. Maniacs are crazy players. They like to see every flop regardless of their hole cards. They pride themselves on raising with 7-2 off suit. They raise often and bluff when they miss. Dealers could do without them because they can be abusive. Players could do without them, as well, because they can be loud, obnoxious and even worse, they can get lucky and win lots of money in the short term with rags, long odds and few outs. I’ve seen maniacs bet without ever looking at their cards. They repeatedly knock over their chips and taunt players on the other side of the table.

The good news is they are very beatable in the long run. First you need to tighten up when it gets pricey to see flops and loosen up when you can limp in. Second, you need to trap them by using their aggression against them. Maniacs will call your slow plays and your check raises. Lastly, you probably get more value out of straight and flush draws in wild games since the implied odds are often going to make it correct to bet and call. With this information, good luck and have fun.

~Mark B. Lasser is Denver writer and international poker player. He regularly plays in Colorado, Arizona, California, Missouri and Nevada. His work has appeared in Bikini Magazine, Blue Travel and Warp. Readers can send questions and comments to him at ColoradoPokerMark@comcast.net.