[ba-poker] learning by doing

["Uncle Roger" <rogerc22(deleted the rest)>]

I played briefly in the $100 buyin baby NL at the Excalibur recently.

A new player from South America sat down and said
this was the first time he had played poker.  He had to be
prompted to do everything, but he didn't waste much time and
seemed to be enjoying himself. He picked up a couple of pots early on
from players who tried to run over him, but after we realized he was
going to stay to the river every time, we just took turns going
against him with the best hand.  He still won occasionally when he
happened to pick up a better one, but basically he was burning
$100 bills.  It didn't seem to bother him.

Now, I know you are all saying that you've seen lots of calling
stations yourself in bigger games than that,  but the thing that
marks this player out is that he didn't understand folding.  That is,
he didn't know about the CONCEPT of folding.  He thought that
when the dealer said "25 to you," that meant he was required to
put in 25 more. When we figured this out, we asked the dealer to explain the 
game to him,
but the dealer disclaimed any authority to do so.

A Spanish-speaking player   joined the table and  finally the new player  
did get
a basic poker lesson.  They had a five-minute conversation about
call, fold and raise in Spanish (the other players were good-natured
tourists, and nobody yelled "English only"). When the novice player learned 
of
his right to fold,  his face lit up and he thanked us profusely.  After
that he did fold a couple of times on the river.  I don't know how he
knew which hands to fold, but either he intuited that hands without
pairs or high cards were bad, or he had been playing video poker.

Welcome to the new faces. But they would be well advised to take one of the 
free "poker lessons" from a casino before sitting down.  I wonder why the 
card clubs here don't give them. I guess they depend on online poker rooms 
to break people in.

Roger