Goofy things you did as a rookie player

It does not have to be bet related but things you look back at now and think....WTF? I have two.

A) For the first couple weeks (playing roulette), I would always ask the dealer if it was okay if I went to the bathroom. Thinking, if I got up, I would lose my seat (lol).

B) I now use a 4x6 notebook for some methods but when I started out, I would bring in a 10.5x8 college notebook. (Everybody laughed)

Ken

As I wrote in my Poker For Roulette - History:

Not long after it opened, I was in Resorts Intertnational, the first casino in NJ. Back then the casino wasn't open 24 hours, and there was a dress code to get in. On the plus side, there were plenty of $2 blackjack tables. Armed with only a couple hundred bucks, a cursory understanding of the "pyramid betting system" (I now know it's called the Martingale system), and barely a beginner's understanding of blackjack, I tried my luck. It was a short evening.

Eventually the excitement of the craps table caught my attention. In the mid 1990's, I stepped up to a craps for the first time. I'd bet $10 on the pass line, with $10 odds when someone else was shooting. When it was my turn, I'd make that $25 and $25. After doing that a few times, the player next to me suggested I bet $10 on the pass line, and $40 odds. When it won, and I collected so much more than I had before, it was as if a new world of gambling had been opened.

My favorite was the first time I ever played live poker.

I was at CasinOmaha, outside Onawa, IA (where my grandma lived). BJ was $2 table mins but they only had one table open so it was quite crowded. They were offering a 2-10 spread limit game of Texas Holdem. This was right as the poker boom had started, so games were still hard to find and the casinos in Council Bluffs didn't have poker rooms (yet). I was playing a hand with a guy, and it was 2c something else (definitely not a great card).

The flop was three clubs. All I could think was that I had a flush draw. Another guy was betting the flop pretty heavily (the high side of the spread). I kept calling, turn was a brick, river was a club. He leads out and bets, I raise him the full amount. He just calls, and I turn over the 2c proudly that I hit my flush. He shows two pair and folds and swears very loudly. Looking back at it, I probably would have too.

I've told this story before, but I finally got the courage to walk up to a Craps table without first really learning the rules. Somehow I learned that the pass line was the basic bet and to put your money there. That was it! This was really before the internet; I guess I could have gone to a library, but I had no clue I should do so. When the dice were passed to me, the first two tosses I made caused a dealer to yell "no dice!". First I tossed the dice without making a bet; next I cupped the dice in two hands and threw. It was pretty embarrassing.

Another funny one I thought of reading the craps story on here...

When I first started playing, I didn't know about odds on the pass line. The casino I played at (Par-a-dice) had the terminology "No Call Bets" on the odds line. For the longest time, I wouldn't take odds because I thought you had to at least double the back, since you couldn't "call" the pass line (like in a poker bet). When it was a $10 table, I didn't want to put $20 on the back, and I thought you couldn't "call" the $10.