Playing favorites bad for the game

By Mark Lasser

Poker is not a game lacking emotion. A table of 10 people confronting each other for money and proof of skill is bound to draw out our competitive spirits and that’s a positive thing.

Sometimes we internalize emotions and that can manifest itself as tilt or become the cause of inflated egos. Other times, players externalize emotions and that can also influence the game.

I have to say, I don’t envy the job of the poker room supervisors who have to balance many things in running their rooms. While a pit boss or table game supervisor has to control an occasional player who’s had a few too many drinks or a problem gambler, the altercations are rarely between players. In a card room, they are usually between players.

Some rooms are low key and professional, while others seem to give considerable leeway to loud outbursts and obnoxious players. I have to give a thumb’s-up to most of the casinos in Colorado for running warm and hospitable rooms, even with many regulars in their games.

One common problem in card rooms is the favoritism shown to regular players. While it is certainly important to take care of regular customers, it is very bad for the game and for business to do so at the expense of new or unfamiliar players. I was part of such an event last weekend and it’s unfortunate. Just the Friday before I had recommended this room to a new player that called into The Player’s Lounge radio show. But after my experience, I’d have to direct new players to other rooms due to what I consider cronyism and a hostile playing environment for non-regular players.

At a midnight break, the table of eight players was very close to evenly stacked and had discussed chopping a pot that was already not very big. It seemed like at least six players were interested. (We’ll write more on chopping prize pools in a future column). The big stack, who was only marginally ahead, was the main holdout despite being offered 20-percent more of the share. He is a regular player and we’ll call him Mr. Blue. He claimed he didn’t care about the money and only wanted to play. Hmm. OK. I found this insincere, but no one can be forced to chop and it was his right to play on. I said nothing as we resumed play.

On the very next hand he raised from a weak position and I put him on a huge range. Cards were folded to me in the cutoff position and I shoved with AK. He called with his Ace 4 of hearts and neither of us paired, so I doubled up and he became a short stack. That’s when all hell broke loose.

Now he wanted to know if I wanted to chop, and I said, “Sure, but you’d get only $100 now.” He replied by dropping an f-bomb on me. The dealer, only at my provocation, issued Mr. Blue a warning. Despite the warning, the name calling and personal insults continued for the next four or five hands. The dealer, understanding Mr. Blue to be a regular, did nothing to stop the assault. I asked for the supervisor to be called, and the supervisor, continuing to hear the new insults and assaults, simply asked him to stop. Mr. Blue just continued. As an unrecognized player, I wasn’t even asked to chime in. Mr. Blue amusingly apologized to me in front of the supervisor, and then, as if the weight of the apology was to much to bear, promptly hurled another insult and another profanity.

Had this been a live game, I’d have changed tables or gone to a different card room. In an online game, I’d turn off the chat feature or block the player or report him, but since we were in a tournament, my choices were to continue to bear the brunt of his boorish and ugly behavior or forfeit the tournament myself.

I understand the guy had an outburst, but the favoritism displayed by the card room management is inexcusable. Mr. Blue, undeterred by several warnings, should have been disqualified from the tournament suspended from the casino for at least a short period of time. Management’s discretion was to support the regular over the new player despite witnessing this behavior.

I have to say, this problem didn’t seem to be occurring only at my table. One of the other tables seemed to be getting to the point of having a physical altercation break out between players, and yet another was getting very loud as several young rail birds that were friends with a seated player got involved with the action on the table.

Card rooms can either take a position of tolerance for this sort of thing or they can bounce these types of players to other card rooms and make them someone else’s problem. When I lived and played full-time in Vegas, the Bellagio and Mirage would routinely suspend or even ban misbehaving regulars and these players would eventually concentrate in certain “bad” card rooms (often on the outskirts of town).

I hope this casino can tighten things up. It’s a nice room. Food at the snack bar is decent and reasonably priced, there are a lot of tables and some of Black Hawk’s best dealers. On my way out, an anonymous employee of the room pulled me aside and mentioned that things had become very loose there lately. He seemed to be embarrassed by what he had witnessed and how things had been handled. I’ll take a break from that room for awhile and will check back in during the summer to see if things have improved.

Mark B. Lasser is Denver writer and international poker player. He regularly plays in Colorado, Arizona, California, Missouri and Nevada. You can hear him talk about gambling and casinos every Friday at 5 PM on KEZW AM 1430. Readers can send questions and comments to him at ColoradoPokerMark@comcast.net.