Low-Stakes Poker

Just because it's low stakes doesn't mean it's low intensity.
-Matt

TUCKER, Ga. -- So the flop comes out and Matt throws out a few chips. I'm holding top pair and am a little suspicious at the bet, so I throw out a huge chunk of money in the center of the felt. It makes a loud thunk on the table.

OK. It's not a fistfull of $100 bills that Daniel Negreanu tosses out in High Stakes Poker. It's a $2 roll of nickels, a pretty large bet for Matt's $5 buy-in, $.10/.20 mixed game he's starting to have again on Tuesdays.

Matt thinks about it and folds.

Welcome to Low Stakes Poker, the baby fishbowl of my bankroll and Mark's. The place where nobody really gets hurt from the games and there's always plenty of action.

After watching episodes of High Stakes Poker, I convinced the crew to allow cash on the table -- but only in bundled form, like 50 pennies, or $2 in nickels, $5 in dimes. Those annoying half-dollar coins that you get at the Excalibur's small-stakes games also play. (Finally, a use for them!).

And just like how Negreanu comes to the Big Game with his money in his backpack, I have a mini-sized backpack the perfect size to fit rolls of coins.

The embarrassing thing is although I profited heavily last year in these games, this year I'm stuck $79. That's a lot of nickels and dimes. LOL.

But last night the bubble finally burst and I cashed out $36, mainly by aggressively pushing nut straight and flush draws in Omaha games. The mixed game format allows the dealer to select the game, so we play every kind of bracelet game, from hold'em to omaha to razz and stud. We even play the exotic games, like ace-to-five lowball and deuce-to-seven Triple Draw. And Badugi, of course.

That kind of experience is helpful -- during the blogger's weekend, Drew and Brandie both said they felt comfortable at the MGM's $2/4 HORSE game, as they should. We play those games all the time.

It may not be the Big Game, but for the crew, it's big enough for bragging rights. LOL.