While Winning is Wonderful...(Part 2)

Things, as I said, were getting loose.

At a standard poker table, the dealer sits in the middle of one of the long sides of the oval. In order to allow the dealer to reach as far across the table as possible (to gather chips and cards) a notch is cut into the table in front of the dealer, resulting in the dealer sitting a few inches forward of the players in the #1 seat (on the dealer's left) and the #9 or #10 seat (on the dealers right). As a result players on either side of the dealer can't see each other very well at all.

All this is to explain a strange hand I witnessed at the time the table was loosening up. A new player joined our table at seat 1, bringing the maximum buy in of $300 with him. After a couple of hands the player in the seat to the right of dealer (a guy I call Dr.Detroit) opened the betting with $10 and newbie raised it to $20. It folded all the way back to Dr.Detroit, who announced all in. Just saying "all in" is enough - you don't have to push all your chips forward. This speeds things up, as moving big stacks back and forth takes up valuable time. Still a player needs to put some chips forward so that the security cameras can see a bet was indeed made. After announcing all-in, the dealer then asked Dr.Detroit to move some chips forward. Dr.Detroit had about $800, but he just moved one stack of $100 over the betting line. The Newbie, who could not see Dr.Detroit's chips, assumed this $100 was the remainder of the stack and he called, turning over JJ. Detroit had AK, flopped a king, and won the hand. Only when the dealer asked the newbie to put forward all of his chips did the Newbie realize what had happened - he had called a $300 bet when he thought he was calling only $100. He went ballistic, blaming the dealer for not making it clear to him the size of the bet. But I think Newbie had no one to blame but himself. I hoped if I was ever in the same position as the newbie, that I would not make that same mistake.

I had just over $500 in front of me when I was dealt pocket aces in middle position. There was a double-straddle on and two players made the $10 limp-in when it got to me. I almost always raise in this position, but this table had become so aggressive I thought it was likely someone behind me would raise, so I limped in for $10. Two more guys called and then the guy in the big blind raised it to $55. Hallelujah! One guy called (thank you!) and I thought it over for five seconds before announcing all-in. It folded back to the big blind, who anguished over his decision (or pretended to) before folding. The remaining player had only $200 left. "I shouldn't make this call," he said - and then he made the call. With no more action the dealer quickly dealt the flop, turn and river. My opponent didn't show any reaction to any of the cards, and when I showed my aces he just nodded like that was what he expected and threw his hand in the muck.

I had about $900 now.