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First Time Poker At Casino

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The First Time I Played Poker in a Las Vegas Casino Author: Robbie Strazynski February 13, 2013 Every so often I think back to the first time I anted up at the felt, for real, in a Las Vegas casino. The scene: the upstairs poker room at the then smoky Lady Luck Casino in Black Hawk, Colorado. I’m playing $2-$10 spread limit hold’em (in which your bet can be anywhere from $2 to $10 per bet). Some casinos also have catwalks in the ceiling above the casino floor, which allow surveillance personnel to look directly down, through one way glass, on the activities at the tables and slot machines. When it opened in 1989, The Mirage was the first casino to use cameras full-time. How to play poker at a casino for the first timeEven though poker is a tough how to play poker at a casino for the first time game to play, it becomes very easy once you master the skills How to play poker at a casino for the first timeIf you are sitting down at a poker game in a casino or card room for the first time, tell the dealer that it is your first time and ask them to please keep an eye on you to make how to play poker at a casino for the first time. First Time Poker At Casino enjoy poker within our Online Casino and our Video Poker software. These are the same poker games you will find in real casinos around First Time Poker At Casino the world.

Dear reader: I wrote this in 2003 about an event from 1986.

The first time I played poker in a casino, I was scared spitless. It was the same feeling I got the first time I teed off on a real golf course and the same as the first time I drove a car. It wasn’t that I was afraid of whiffing the ball or wrecking the car. I was intimidated because everyone else knew all of the procedures, and I didn’t.

The people involved can make all the difference. The first time I golfed, my typical shot sent the ball 10 yards farther than my divot. My kind cousins, Anthony and George, offered patient encouragement. The first time I drove a car, I had a teacher whose lack of worry rubbed off. At poker, a big cheerful woman took me under wing. I’ll call her Jo.

Flashback to the early 1980’s. Our little poker gang back home played on one of those octagonal tables with a vinyl top and a wooden border with a trough in front of each player to hold money and spilled beer. We had just discovered hold’em and other board games. We played them straight $1 limit, without chips or blinds. The betting was “bet or get.” That meant there was no checking, and first-to-act moved one seat to the left on every street. Yeah, I know, it was crazy. But that’s how we played. And it was hardly a preparation for casino poker.

I was in Vegas for a friend’s wedding so I figured I might as well check out a real hold’em game with an honest-to-gosh dealer and everything. I went to the Stardust in the wee hours. Two tables were going. No one was talking. Everyone looked so serious. Heads turned and I sensed they were murmuring about me. I had no idea that they all knew each other and that they were hoping I was a slaughterhouse lamb. Looking back, having seen this scene from the butcher’s vantage, I’m sure this was the case.

I took a seat next to the dealer in the $4-8 limit hold’em game. The dealer spoke to me in a foreign language about blinds and posting and such. I was numbstruck by the setting, lingo, stakes, and pace. It must have been so obvious that I was clueless, just like when I carried my golf bag onto the green, just like when I used both feet on the brakes, just like when I was behind the gym with Marci Johnson and I asked her if …

(My buddy Alex suggested that I add sex to the examples of first-time fears. I said that sex doesn’t quite fit because typically there is no crowd, and because, well, what would really be scary is knowing when it was the last time.)

I was still trying to figure out what’s up with the white hockey puck when Jo flashed me a welcomed smile and said, “C’mon over here, hon. Sit next to me. She touched the chair on her left. ‘It’ll be all right.”

And it was. In the absence of physical danger, I can’t recall such a quick shift from terrified to relieved. I moved next to Jo and she taught me about the blinds and the button. She suggested that I keep some chips in piles of four. She told me to watch her and not to bet or check until after she did.

I made a Call of the Wild with nine-five. My full house was good so I reached out and scooped in the pot. The dealer sternly told me that from now on he’d push the pot. (You’re a pot pusher?) Players were giving me nasty looks and making snide remarks, probably for being slow, or for making stringy bets, or just for being so na’ve. Unbearable pressure, strong enough to push me out the door, if not for Jo. She was my champion, defending me against all comers. It didn’t take long until the looks and comments stopped because if you had something to say to me, you had to go through Jo. I was safe, and it really felt good.

Naive means “lack of experience or informed judgment.” Like when a child wonders how come the toilet handle makes the shower water heat up. But we do not expect informed judgment from children and that’s why children do not fear their own naivete. That’s something adults do. The fear of looking stupid can discourage us from toughing it out in unfamiliar settings. Thing is, with poker and so many other things, there’s no way to learn how to swim without getting wet. Jo offered me a towel, and I took it, and I still have it, and I still use it when I see a na’ve player drowning in fear. Sure, it might cost me a bet here and there, but it’s worth that and more when I recall how relieved I was to see a friendly face in such a harsh environment.

Some would say that poker is pure justice and that we all take our lumps during initiation. They would say that poker is ruthless, like war, and that compassion just gets in the way. And I’d agree; a bleeding heart won’t pump hard enough to take full advantage of the weak. But for the gentle majority, a social game offers a variety of pleasures and challenges. Beating the game is merely one. When I see a procedurally confused player, I don’t go to the extremes Jo did. But I do try to remember that I wasn’t born knowing what a flop is.

Every so often I think back to the first time I anted up at the felt, for real, in a Las Vegas casino. Growing up in Los Angeles, my parents used to take the family to Vegas about 5–6 times a year. They had promised me that they’d take me to gamble along with them for my 21st birthday. Though that didn’t end up panning out, I was able to make my first visit to Vegas as a legal adult back in 2004, when I was 23 years old. In the immediate wake of the prior year’s Moneymaker poker boom, I was determined to “follow in his footsteps” as it were, and play poker at Binion’s Horseshoe, the then-home of the World Series of Poker.

But before heading off to the “big stage”, I felt the need to “test out the waters”, so I headed over to the Excalibur poker room, of all random places. This was back when Excalibur had a poker room, and it was stocked full of real tables, not the electronic PokerTek tables. Like I said, this was WAY back when in the wake of the burgeoning poker boom every Las Vegas casino wanted a slice of the action.

Sometimes, Even the Best Laid Plans…

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Upon entering the room I noticed that a free poker lesson was about to begin, after which a real cash game would commence among the participants. With a grand total of about 1.5 years of sporadic home game experience under my belt at the time, I figured that I could bide my time sitting through the lesson for half an hour and pretend not to understand the game at all, ask stupid questions, etc. Then, when the cash game would start, I planned on “flipping the switch” and taking everyone’s money. I remember feeling absolutely 100% confident that my scheme would work.

As an aside, I remember feeling exactly the same way, 100% confident that I’d win the first time I pulled a slot machine lever, because I’d read a couple books on how to “beat the casino”. Naturally, I was completely wrong about the slots, losing my $20 roll of quarters at Wheel of Fortune (this was before Ticket In/Ticket our technology really took hold).

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Anyhow, as you probably guessed, I was totally off regarding my “post-lesson plans” for the poker table as well. I got wiped clean of my initial $50 buy-in in just under an hour.

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Reexamining My First Vegas Casino Poker Session in Retrospect

Looking back, it’s likely that half of the other people sitting through that free poker lesson had the same “brilliant idea” as I had and were far more skilled and experienced than I was. I might of course be exaggerating, but it’s possible that many of them were even locals who woke up each morning licking their chops at how they were going to suck dry the bankrolls of unsuspecting recreational players taking poker vacations like me.

Of course, nearly a decade later, I realize how silly and absurd my “plan” was. But you’ve got to remember, this was 2004, an eternity ago as far as poker is concerned. “Know-it-alls” like me saw poker on TV and thought it was easy; fish were a dime a dozen, and practically nobody sitting around the felt in those days had done any sort of serious studying of the game.

My, what anyone playing the game today, even recreationally, would give to be transported back in time to those golden years of the poker boom, but armed with a decade of poker knowledge and experience… It’s practically a shoe-in that even if you wouldn’t make it as a star, you could at the very least grind out a pretty darn nice bankroll in a relatively short amount of time.

Oh well…

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All these years later, it’s fun to laugh at myself when reminiscing about my first live poker session in Vegas. At least I sustained just a $50 loss. Plus I got a really quick, painful lesson in humility that I’ll never forget.

Oh, and as for my poker session at the Horseshoe, that’s a story that’ll have to wait for another time…

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Did you experience something similar in your first foray into a Las Vegas poker room? Share your memories with us in the comments section below or on our Facebook page.