Interacting With Folks on Different Levels of the Poker 'Food Chain'

Just about everyone is able to recognize that there is a food chain in poker, although many people have a badly mistaken view of where they belong on it, and an even more misplaced notion of how people who exist at other points along the poker food chain should be treated.

In an effort to rectify that, let's take a look at some of the more common poker characters, and I'll make some suggestions that not only may improve your results, but might actually improve how you treat your fellow human beings (and in turn might earn you some more of that mythical poker justice I warned you about last issue). I know lots of poker players don't care about becoming better human beings, but given that this issue of Card Player is coming out near Christmas, maybe they'll make an exception.

Weaker players: Before you call them "idiots" (indeed, before you even think of them that way), remember that everyone has to start somewhere, and there was a time when you didn't know very much about poker, either. Lots of people also make conscious choices to spend their time on worthy pursuits, like being doctors, and therefore don't have the accumulated poker experience that you do. I play in a game with an M.D. and have heard other players (whom I know to frequently be broke and to have virtually no job skills outside poker) call him an idiot when he makes a weak play. Who's really the idiot there?

If a player has considerable experience and still plays badly, he might be an idiot, but what do you gain by insulting him? If the player really is weak, the last thing you want to do is insult him. He might leave, focus more, or work hard on improving, and none of these results is good for your bankroll. There is a small chance that calling him an idiot will put him on tilt, thus making him easier to beat, but if he's really an idiot, he should be easy to beat anyway. With a few exceptions, whenever I hear someone deliver a withering blast at someone else's play, I know the person delivering the insult is a frustrated and mediocre player.

The last time I thought of an opponent as an idiot, I thought it about a capable player whose invectives had just driven away an opponent who might as well have been wearing a cap that said, "Goose who lays golden eggs." I didn't lecture him about how he'd just cost us a supply of golden eggs because there were a couple of other "egg layers" at the table, but sure enough, someone else lectured him, and the other donors left shortly thereafter. Do you want the strong players to think of you as frustrated and mediocre? Is a game without donors what you want?

Stronger players: Before you start changing your entire style to emulate an apparent long-term winner's approach, make sure he's not just on a hot streak. I've seen many one-gear, superaggressive players run over games for weeks, and gain reputations as poker savants, only to have their luck run out.

Even if it isn't luck but is actually a skill edge, be careful about trying to win via a "monkey see, monkey do" approach. You may think you know why the stronger player is winning, but he may be winning for entirely different reasons. Observe and learn what you can, and ask questions (away from the table) if the player is cooperative enough to answer. Unless you know why the stronger player is winning, you could easily be emulating some irrelevant characteristic.

Finally, while there's nothing wrong with playing in a game that contains a few stronger players, if there aren't also a few weaker targets, you're paying far too much for your education. I'll write more about how to find good games in the next issue.

Novice players: They are similar to "weaker players," but they have an excuse. Without new money, most decent games dry up as the weak players go broke. Be kind to novices, and when you need to explain something like how folding out of turn can affect the action, pretend (inwardly only!) that the novice is someone you want to date (or borrow money from, if you're hetero and the novice is your sex). You'll be surprised at the number of kind and friendly ways you'll discover to explain something.

New faces: It never fails to amaze me how mediocre players assume that a new face must be a bad player. In the days before Card Player, the Detroit Free Press, and casino.com made my face somewhat well-known, I used to make all kinds of money going to poker rooms for the first time and watching all of the mediocre players try amazingly predictable intimidation tactics on me. A good player doesn't make assumptions about a new face; he just observes and makes judgments based on those observations.

Dealers: Here's a shocker for you: Dealers are human beings. That means they have feelings and don't really enjoy being blamed for your mistakes or having cards thrown in their faces. Just because a dealer managed to put the sole card in the deck that could beat you onto the board on the river doesn't make him a bad person.

I believe in tipping dealers, but I have a somewhat controversial take on how and when it should be done. I don't go along with that "$1 on every pot, maybe more if the pot is really big" approach. I like to tip dealers who are really working hard at running the game and staying focused on what they are doing much more heavily than someone who isn't really into it. I still tip those people, but I undertip them, by industry standards. In other words, I like to reward effort and competence. I don't completely stiff weak dealers, because I figure they might be learning or having a bad day.

Floorpeople: These folks solve disputes, lock up your seat in games, and (when performing their jobs well) supervise dealers. In other words, it's in your best interest to be nice to them, which means not just words, but tips, too. Your tips aren't big enough to be bribes, so you aren't buying yourself a favorable ruling, but you might be buying yourself a chance to be heard, at least if you're polite when trying to be heard. You also might buy yourself a slightly longer grace period when you're on the list for a game.

The tipping issues aside, also please try to remember that when a dealer makes a mistake and you have to call a floorperson over, there's no need to be nasty to the floorperson. He isn't the one who made the mistake.

Because the floor job is in some ways the casino equivalent of the "complaint department," floorpeople really appreciate it when someone goes out of his way to say something nice. If I approach a floorperson and ask if I can have a minute, and then use that minute to say something nice about a dealer or some other employee, the floorperson is inevitably shocked. He's used to "Do you have a minute?" being a code phrase for "I want to bitch about something."

Food service/chip runners/valets: Yeah, I know, it cuts into your precious "hourly rate" if you tip folks in these categories. Maybe your hourly rate would improve if you improved your karma a bit and treated these hardworking folks a little nicer. More to the point, if you can achieve an acceptable hourly rate only by stiffing hardworking people, you're not someone who's going to making a living playing poker, because you'll start losing when you move up to the next higher limit.

These jobs are mostly thankless, with nothing said if everything goes perfectly and lots of screaming if a mistake happens. While the nature of the services they render often makes it difficult to deliver a meaningful thank you ("You brought those chips to the table like a real pro, Paul"), you can demonstrate that you know they are working for a living by tipping.

Besides, someday you might drop your wallet or ring on the ground, and people who have reputations as good tippers seem, by some weird coincidence, to have better records at getting these possessions returned to them. Good luck getting your cell phone back from a cab driver you stiffed!

Your friends: I'm all in favor of friendly conversation at the table. Not only does it tend to make games looser (and hence better), it also improves the quality of the time spent playing. But just be careful that your banter isn't so nonstop as to drive the losers crazy.

Also recognize that friends or not, you have a duty to play hard against everyone at the table. If you can extract an extra bet from a friend with a value bet or check-raise on the end, go for it. Friends should understand that playing hard is part of the game. If you fail to do it, you'll probably convince some new face that you and your friend are colluding, and he might leave.

I can't count the number of times I've seen two regulars raise, reraise, and reraise when there's a third person in the pot, only to check it down blind once he gets out. Although probably a few of these incidents were actual collusion off a common bankroll, in the great majority of cases, I know it's just a policy that two friends have of not playing hard against one another once heads up. That's a bad policy, and could easily cost the poker world that new face forever, as he returns to his home game convinced that cardrooms are full of guys playing in teams.

Your enemies: Enemies? It's just a game. Why should you have enemies? Usually (not always, but usually), it takes two to create a truly inimical relationship. If you find that you have lots of "poker enemies," you should probably take a long, hard look at the way you act in cardrooms.

There are several people in the game of poker whom I consider to be enemies of poker, rather than personal enemies: cheaters, angle shooters, rude/obnoxious folks, bigots, those who intentionally try to put others on tilt, people who don't repay debts, and people who make untrue and slanderous remarks about others (double penalty if they do it behind a person's back).

Life is too short to have "personal" enemies, at least if you have any choice in the matter, but that doesn't mean you have to hang around with poker's seamier element. If you have your choice of two or more otherwise equal games, pick the one that has fewer "enemies of poker" in it. Otherwise, you run the risk of having these folks distract you from your mission, winning, and your mission's pleasant by-product, enjoying spending time with people who share your interest in the game.

It's not always possible to have that choice, of course, but next issue we'll look at some of the ways you can figure out if two games are created equal.

---