Altercations at the table

These people have drivers

I'll provide some balance in this thread by posting a strange but positive scene I witnessed earlier today at the Bellagio.

A new 200-400 Ace-to-Five lowball game was starting in the elevated high stakes section.

I heard the U.S. national anthem playing on one of the player's phones. The players and dealer were all standing for the song. At the end, they applauded like at a sporting event.

Has anybody seen that in a poker room before?

Someone stabbed another player in the face with a fork, and they didn't even throw him out?? I can't imagine why the police wouldn't have been called! Seriously wondering what kinds of places you guys are playing.

My banker tells me I'm wealthy and yet I will still get up at 6 AM and go thru the drive through at Macs to get my breakfast. In fact I think I will go right now! 😃

But if you use the drive through, you're not mixing with the poor people!

I'd say you're both on it. Gzesh is correct that you can find all walks of life at other such places like the DMV or the airport. It's not unique to a poker room.

But more philosophically, I like 5thStreet's observation. Unlike the DMV or the airport, I'm far more likely to strike up a random conversation with someone at my poker table than I am with a person waiting for a mobile order in a McD's. And that's the difference: the interaction.

Then again, I would assume the stakes matter. I'm a low-stakes guy who plays $3/6 or $4/8 limit or as small as $1/3 no-limit. So while there might be a huge range of people in the room, the scope of those in my "social proximity" is narrower.

I'm glad you mentioned the courtroom, as I find jury duty to be another one of these environments. While I'm not as likely to converse with a stranger on a one-to-one basis, the nature of the process is that many of the potential jurors are instructed to reveal parts of their background. This is something that does not happen at, say, O'Hare Terminal 5. Discovering the vastness of this one sample of your community is pretty eye-opening, especially if you live in an area that is not that large (my county has about 200K people).

There was an upper middle class white guy who used to be a regular (donator) in the higher stakes games at one particular casino. He had some sort of well-paid tech job, but was overall miserable about his life. He used to make rude comments all the time when someone would beat him in a pot, but the winning players tolerated him and even invited him to private games because he was a big loser at the poker table.

Anyway one night he made a comment to the wrong guy at the casino, and within seconds the guy had his arms around his neck choking him out. Security got there fairly quickly, pried the choker off of him and escorted the choker out with a lifetime ban.

The chokee was uninjured other than a bloody lip from the melee. I will never forget the stunned and terrified look on his face though. Getting choked out over a rude comment was clearly something he had never even considered could happen, given his past experiences.

He was much nicer to play with after that. Hahaha.

Happened yesterday, this guy sits down and immediately I know there is a high likelihood of something popping off because this guy is one of the most antagonistic players I've ever seen. It's like he thinks poker is all about intimidation and **** talking. Very heavy bravado and egotistical, always wanting the last word.

Anyways he bluffs off his whole stack in the first hand in the most punting type of way and gets snapped off by third pair all the way and then starts trying to verbally bully everyone else at the table and one of the older gentlemen finally says F you and F off and they trade a whole bunch of F bombs back and forth and threats to fight and what not. Floor gets called and he gets a final warning to calm down and he just can't help himself and keeps backtalking the floor so he gets kicked out and then he accuses the floor of favoring the regulars (he comes in fairly often so not sure what he meant by that) and he starts threatening people some more lol

The Taj Mahal in AC used to be the Wild West.

There were always stories about people being stabbed over seat change buttons, robbed in the bathroom, etc.

The worst incident that i personally witnessed was (7 card stud was pretty much the only game back then):

Guy loses a 7 stud hand when he's dealt AAA, first 3 cards.

On 7th street, he knows he's beat but he calls anyway.

He turns bright red, dealer says "don't do it" "don't do it"

He proceeds to rip the 3 Aces in half and throw them at the dealer (back then the cards were easier to rip).

His punishment? 24 hr. ban. LOL

I'm pretty much entirely non-violent these days (barring an extreme provocation), but in my younger days had the privilege of breaking a couple FAFO-cherry's from dudes who hadobviously lived lives where they acted a certain way, but had been mostly insulated from the types of people who would belt them for it and I kinda prided myself on being 'that guy'.

Honestly, its rewarding and you get why some people don't hesitate to serve up the smoke in those spots, but you can't really keep doing that once you have assets to seize.

This was a pretty entertaining video a few months ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E915AkRO...

Is that Conor McGregor? LOL

Lesson learned, don't **** with a guy that knows Jiu Jitsu

lmao "I will **** your mom in front of you." 😃

There was a Redditor who described being in the room when Larry Ellison (of Oracle) was served an immaculate Big Mac and Fries on a fancy plate with a silver cloche/dome thing.

That's funny. I guess he didn't need to go into the restaurant.

Maurice the scammer?

Back when the Flamingo had a poker room (RIP) they had a tournament going on at the far end if their room (furthest from the front desk). They had that short wall running around the room. One of the guys playing in the tournament had three really large (6'4"+, 230lbs+) friends railbirding him just on the other side of the wall.

The table was a bit rowdy with everyone yelling, laughing and generally having a good time.

All of a sudden this short 5'6"(???) Older guy stands up and starts yelling at another player at the table. He runs around the table and open hand hitting another player. He wasn't hitting him in the head though. And he wasn't hitting him hard. He was open hand hitting the guy in the arm, chest, and shoulder area. So while I am sure it mildly hurt, it wasn't damaging. The guy getting hit just sort of sat there stunned not knowing what to do. He was stunned from surprise, not from pain because as mentioned it wasn't that damaging.

This goes on for a few seconds. Finally, one of the huge railbirders steps over the short wall behind the crazy guys back and puts his arms beneath the crazy guys arms and then interlocks his arms behind the guys head and lifts him up. Basically immobilized him.

They crazy guy flails about but can't really move. The big guy just holds him. Security is called. Eventually a front line low level security guard shows up (one of the security guards who is more of a direction giver and not armed beyond a walkie talkie). He looks at the big guy and the big guy carefully and calmly explains what happened and that he is just trying to keep the peace. The security guard tells him the let the other guy go. The big guy says that the crazy guy will just go off as soon as he is released. He releases him and sure enough the crazy guy turns around and starts open hand slapping the big guy in the chest and arms.

The security guard tries to get the crazy guy to stop, butbis having no effect. The big guy openly laughs and then grabs the crazy guy in a bear hug, lifts him up and gently puts him on the floor facedown, grabs his arms and holds them behind his back.

The security guard calls real security on his walkie talkie. Everyone stands around casually talking while the crazy guy flails around on the floor.

A couple of security guards with guns and cuffs show up. They tell the big guy to get off the crazy guy. He points out that he is just trying to keep the peace and as soon as he gets off the crazy guy the crazy guy will go off. The security guards just repeat their order to get off the crazy guy. The bug guy gets up and the crazy guy immediately jumps up and starts randomly open hand slapping everyone around him in the arms and chest.

The two new security guards are a bit stunned and hesitate. The big guy ends up behind the crazy guy so he once again puts him in a bear hug immobilized him.

The two security guards gather their wits and put a pair of handcuffs on one arm of the crazy guy, they grab his other arm and tell the big guy to let him go. He does and they slap the cuffs on his other arm.

One of the security guards takes the crazy guy away. The other security guard then tries to 86 the big guy. The big guy keeps asking what for and the security guard says that he was fighting. The big guys says he wasn't fighting, he was simply immobilizing the guy to stop him from fighting. He said he did nothing out of anger, he was just stopping one person from trying to hurt another.

The security guard says it doesn't matter, he was involved in a physical altercation so he needed to go. Every spectator around starts defending the big guy. Eventually the security guard figures out he he needs to pause. He calls his boss. His boss arrives and eventually the bosses boss is called. Finally the casino manager shows up. Literally the highest, most important person on the property.

By this time everyone in the room has rallied around the big guy because he had done nothing wrong and the Flamingo was trying to 86 him.

The casino manager sees everyone defending this guy and gives in and let's the big guy stay.

One night at Ameristar in Hammond Indiana in 2008 a single, plain clothes gaming official accosted a African American gentleman asking him to come with him. The guy politely told him that he would if he showed him some identification. The GO said he didn't need to show him a badge and started to grab his arm as to make him stand up. Stand up this guy did as he double leg scooped the GO, legs replacing where his head just was and slammed him to the floor exclaiming "show me your badge!!!". The GO was not a small gentleman yet was stifled in his attempt to do his job in anyway possible. The guy says to him "I would have came with you but your can't just grab me for no reason...." as the backup troops arrive and tackle the guy and haul him away. Everybody was kinda frozen but as the scene cleared we were all siding with the guy and asking why the GO didn't just show him his badge.
About 5 min later they made a announcement apologizing for the incident and that the guy was a positive id of a suspect in the Layne Bryant store murder of 5 women recently in the Chicagoland area.

There was a older Asian lady sitting next to me and she leans in and says "if that guy is innocent, they should give him the Gaming Officials' job because he sucked at it"

The Layne Bryant murders remain unsolved.

It is not advisable to refuse directions from security (or police). It is not advisable to refuse directions from armed security (or police). No ifs, no buts, no excuses.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lane_Bry....

Okay that’s awesome. More stories like these please!

Thank you. Another great story!

I remember those Lane Bryant murders. I lived in Tinley Park at the time (where they happened).

Geez.

The one time I was sort of involved physically in an altercation at a table I wasn't really involved physically.

Growing up I was always a very good athlete. Very good. I played in all sorts of sports. So I had been involved in more than my share of disagreements. Furthermore, I was not your stereotypical athlete. I was average height and probably lighter weight than most. I also wore glasses. That just hide my strength and toughness. I don't mean that as a brag, more as an explanation. I was the person that if two teams were going to have an altercation on a playing field, opponents would seek me out because they would see an average height, lightweight who wore glasses as an easy mark. If you were reluctant to get in a fight backing up your friends, you would choose me as an opponent. I totally get that.

However I punched above my weight so to speak. I had dabbled in boxing when I was younger and I was an extremely good athlete. I had regular experience dealing with opponents who were bigger than me.

Again, not a brag. I totally see why people would think they could intimidate me physically, yet I have surprised lots of people. Just setting the mood. I would never resort to violence, but I wasn't going to be afraid of it either.

I was playing at the Flamingo (RIP...). I was playing at the table just to the right of the cash cage against the brick, outside wall. I was in seat 5 with ny back against the wall.

I raised preflop with a bullshit hand. An obnoxiously drunk big blind in seat 9 min reraised me. Of course I call. Flop hits me perfectly. I proceed to call the big blind down on the flop on turn, where I raise all in on the river. He calls. I show my monster, he shows aces. The dealer pushes me the pot and I start to stack my chips. A stupid poker hand, but whatever. He played bad and got stacked.

He starts to talk ****. Whatever.

My usual reaction to a player talking smack after losing is to ignore it. I don't care. Talk doesn't matter.

The fact that I am ignoring him pisses him off (he is drunk). So he escalates the trash talk. He threatens to kick my ass. Again I act like he isn't there. The dealer reprimands him and says he cannot verbally attack another player.

I look at the dealer (who I know fairly well) and tell her that I don't mind him talking ****. I am ok with it. I tell her to do whatever she should do, but not to so it on my behalf.

This (obviously) sets the drunk off even more. He sees me as someone he can physically intimidate. He threatens me even more. I ignore him but being ignored just sets him off more.

He stands up and says he is going to kick my ass. The dealer immediately calls the floor. He starts to come around the table to kick my ass. He is drunk enough that as he gets up and starts to come around the table, his foot catches on the chair of seat 7. He faceplants directly onto the brick wall. Knocks himself out. I started to stand up to defend myself.

As he faceplants into the brick wall, I sit back down. He isn't getting up. There is literal blood on the wall. He is out. The floor comes over and calls security/medical.

They evaluate him and call an ambulance.

My first and only fight at a poker table was short lived. No punches thrown. I survived.