Introduction to poker in a Casino Poker Room

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Be Kind To The Dealer

Some dealers have a hard time reaching the ends of the table. Give them an assist by pushing bets forward when the betting round is complete.

While the occasional curse after losing a hand is understandable, excessive cursing or berating the dealer for making you lose is not tolerated and can get you removed.

Dealers live off tips. It is traditional to tip the dealer after winning a pot. However, most players will not tip if the pot was small. On the other hand, some players will tip even if their small raise has chased everyone out of the pot, netting them a mere $3 win. A $1 tip is typical unless the pot is large.

Dealers are human and do sometimes make mistakes. Try to be observant to help correct mistakes, but do not berate a dealer when a mistake is discovered.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

I'm going to eliminate (or greatly reduce) the section about Straddles. Possibly other sections too.

Quote: cardshark

Your article makes the casino game look way more complicated and difficult to learn than it actually is. ....

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Note that this article is probably a lot longer than it needs to be. A true student of the game would immerse himself in these details before going to a poker room. The intended audience of this article is a more casual player who may become familiar with some of these details, and return here to review some of the situations that may have popped up after their first experience.

Quote: WizardofEngland

I like to have as many chips as possible, so getting 8 $1 chips in change has gained me 7 more chips than I had before the hand, having a larger stack looks more intimidating when you shove all-in, its not going to intimidate a pro, but your playing $1/2! A novice will see the shear number of chips and insta fold a marginal hand without considering that your 3 stacks of white chips are actually just 6 of his red chips.

There is also the situation where a novice (or someone like you, no offence intended) isnt paying attention, sees the $10 and assumes its a raise, and folds, where he might of called a $2 flat call, not the outcome you want if you have a big hand, but then you wouldnt make this move if you actually want a call.

Quote: AcesAndEights

One thing I have read about on other sites is spread limit games; would they warrant a section next to fixed limit/NL/PL? I'm assuming they are less common since you don't mention them, but the local casino where I play blackjack offers a spread limit game (in fact I think it's the default game running at their poker table).

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If you need to take a smoke / bathroom / food / whatever break, and intend on returning to that table, you must leave all your chips where they are. If you are uncomfortable with leaving the chips there, you should count it out, and alert the dealer and the players on each side how much it is. Usually, there is no reason to be nervous. While Poker is a game of taking money from the other people at the table, outright theft is very rare.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Inspired by Nareed's inquiry about tournaments, I updated the article in the original post, to include some specific tourny details.