MotorCity Mafia

When you play poker in a casino, you need to know the rules.

The House Rules are posted in plain view.

Read them before you play in a card room for the first time. It will save you money and heartache.

This week alone, I saw four blunders that cost each player involved their hard earned money.

Rules vary from casino to casino. What is acceptable in one is forbidden in another.

Here is what happened this week:

Monday

A player is first to act in three-way action. He bets $100 after the flop and shows one card.

The dealer scoops the $100 into the pot and mucks the player’s hand.

The remaining two players did not have to act on the bet.

The rule is, to avoid collusion, cards cannot be exposed in multi-way action.

When you do this, you just declared your hand dead.

Tuesday

A player sitting across from the dealer did not protect his cards by placing a chip on top.

One of the first rules in any card room is it is the PLAYER’S RESPONSIBILITY to PROTECT their hand at ALL times.

Long story short, this player did not protect his hand, and after investing $300 in a hand by the turn, the dealer thought he was folding on the river and took his cards. Once they hit the muck, it is a dead hand.

He claims to of had A-A, which would have been the winning hand.

Instead of taking a $1000 pot home, he took the bus home.

Wednesday

This scenario happened twice on this day: A player checks the winning hand on the river, declares what he has, and I show the losing hand.

The player then mucks his hand and waits for the pot.

Since he mucked and I showed, I win the pot.

Hee haw.

Thursday

A player was on his cell phone when the cards came out.

The dealer warned him twice to get off the phone.

This player had A-A and ignored the dealer.

The dealer waited a good 30 seconds to deal the flop.

Floor management happened to be standing at the table.

The dealer had no choice but to warn the player a third time and deal the flop.

Once the flop hit, the player bet $100.

Instead of getting off his phone, he got off the hand.

The dealer grabbed his cards and mucked them.

The cards and the money were gone in a flash.

Know the rules.

Casinos have a universal rule against string bets in cash games. A string bet happens under two conditions.

The most frequent version is when someone does not announce raise or the bet amount, but silently pushes chips in with two or more motions.

When this happens, either the first stack of chips or a minimum bet is all that gets in the pot.

The other style of string bet is when someone says “I see your bet and raise you”. You hear this in the movies and see it in home games all the time.

Hell, I saw it twice within 10 minutes at the casino recently. Here is what happened:

Some ex-military guy says “I call your bet and raise you $100.” I was not in the hand and the dealer let it go. After the hand, I told the dealer that was a verbal string bet. He agreed in retrospect.

Two hands later we have a new dealer. I flop quad 4s with one person behind me. He is also an ex-military guy. Long story short, we get down to the river and my opponent made his hand: nut flush.

I bet and he says “I call your bet and raise you all-in.”

Before I could say “call”, the dealer tells him it was a string bet.

That cost me a bunch of money.

In a casino cash game, poker players need to speak before they act physically. The only words to be spoken are “call”, “raise”, and “fold”. If you are betting or raising, declare the amount before acting.