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| | Poker The Old Fashioned Way | | |      |
By Mike PaulleI remember well my initial visit to a Las Vegas poker room.
This was longbefore 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 acasino.
I'd studied Edward O.
Thorpe's "Beat The Dealer" and was ready tomake my fortune.After being thrown out of two casinos for card counting, I was ready to goback 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.
Tryingto deceive a casino at their own game, by counting cards, didn't frighten meat 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 thoughtthese men must all be card sharks who fed on young whippersnappers likeme.I thought, surely, if I sat down in that game the men would take every pennyIhad.
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.
Itseemsodd, 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 acommon one.
Most people coming into a poker room for the first time arequiteintimidated.It's only after a few visits that a new player can learn to relax.
As thesaying 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 forthemselves.
Turn over the best hand and you win the money, no matter howlongyou'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 orany other cardroom.
They are "kitchen table" poker players, who play withfamily or in weekly home games with friends.Getting these players out to public games is the goal of the entire pokerindustry.
That's where the growth will come from.
Somehow, however, theintimidation that seems to come with one's first visit to a public cardroomwill 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 hopes to lessen the first time jitters.
Poker cardroommanagers want you to know that the "natives don't bite." You needn't befrightened.
You are welcome to come in and look around without playing.
Noone will hassle you.And in fact, if you decide to play, most of the players you will be upagainst don't play any better than your weird Uncle Harry who loses to youinthe annual Thanksgiving poker game with the family.With legal cardrooms springing up all over the country, it's easier thaneverto find a public game near your home.
Continue to read Poker andyouwill find a place to play that will try very hard to make your firstexperience a pleasant one.
They will show you that poker is still beingplayed the "Old Fashioned Way."Let me hear from you: PaullePoker. Please post them in our Poker.
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