Slow Play

Earlier this week at one of my bar games I had an interesting thing happen. All the slow players ended up on one table and of course it was mine. A little back round. Starting chips were 7000 and blinds are 20 minutes for the first hour. Starting at 25-50. We take a break at one hour after the 75-150 blind level. At the first break we had played 18 hands not even twice around the table. In the first 11 hands four players had been knocked off the table. How does this happen. It starts with everyone at table limping in no matter what position and then someone makes a nice size raise with a hand and then everyone one that limped has to think about if they should play their junk hand or not. The first player then calls, so as more players call it increases the pot odds and make others call. In the first 18 hands aces were cracked twice and two other time they won, but were only raised preflop once. Of the players knocked out one was intoxicated, one had never played bar poker before and limped in and then made outrageous raises after the flop and one was a good player that got his aces cracked on the river because it was suited! In a strange way it was a fun table. Chips were flying around the table and all you needed was a big hand and you got paid off.

Here are a few Bar Poker etiquette rules.

1. Pay attention! Act when it is your turn. Blinds go quick in bar poker. If you have to be told more then once a time around the table "it's on you" you are not paying attention.

2. If you need time to think. Just say I may need a minute on this hand. This lets people know that you are paying attention and they will not be asking you to act.

3. If you don't know just ask. Some of you bar players are not mathematicians. If you need to know how much you need to call just ask someone will help you.

4. Don't be offended if someone calls clock on you. If you think for more then one minute you are using a substantial amount of time in a 15 minute blind level. Think about it, if every player took about a minute on a ten player table you would only get 1 1/2 hands per blind level.

The moral is be ready when it is your turn to act and if you have to think that hard and long you should have folded a long time ago.