The Case of the Missing ID

I think most of the people on a poker forum have at one point or another in their lives tried to get into a casino underage. It’s not as though we aren’t all interested in the glitz and glamour of it all. We are a demographic that is naturally attracted to these high profile and high roller destinations. That’s not to suggest this is a bad desire. If anything, people that are serious poker players have an advantage being in the center of the ring and not letting the bright lights blind them. Well every now and then there is someone who tries to push the boundaries and get into the limelight a little too early and when caught it makes for some awkward moments. I was treated to one such instance a few weeks ago.

Let’s set the stage a little bit. I’ve been playing in the particular 1/2NL game for around 7 hours now. For most of the time, the table has been rather jovial. There are a few characters, myself included, enjoying some friendly ribbing back and forth. A few regulars have come and gone but everyone has been enjoying their time playing “for the wonder of it all.” As time passes in the poker room, new players will inevitably enter the fray as seats open up. Over the past half hour or so we’ve had two new additions to our table. There is a gentleman who is in his late 40s to early 50s that has nested himself nicely in the two seat. I’ve seen him since this night but I don’t remember having any prior history with him leading up to him sitting at my table on this night. Our other contestant is a younger player who has set up shop in the three seat. He has clearly never been to a casino before, or at the very most this is his second or third time. He’s clearly excited to be there and is a little awkward and clunky at the table. He didn’t really speak much and wasn’t intentionally being offensive, but his awkwardness was leading to some friction. He was slowing up the game a little, nothing substantial but enough that it was noticeable. He was having some trouble stacking chips and wasn’t stacking them in any sort of organized fashion. Finally, our older gentleman had had enough.

Our two newcomers got involved in a hand. The action leading up to the hand isn’t relevant to the story (also I wasn’t paying particular attention to these two during this particular hand). We get to the river and the board reads:

3T73X (with no flush possible)

The older gentleman bets out for $70 on the river, which looked like roughly a pot sized bet, and was tank called by our young savant. The older gentleman showed down J3o while the younger player breathed a HUGE sigh of relief and tabled A3o. After a few of us at the table said nice hand, the pot was pushed to our young friend here and in his excitement he patted the player to his right on the back. He meant nothing by it, he was just overly happy to win a good sized pot. The only problem is that the player to his right was the older gentleman he had beaten in the hand. That was the final straw for him. With a smile on his face the older gentleman said to the table, “OK, somebody card this kid.” We all laughed because we finally thought that this guy was getting into the spirit of the table and just having some fun. When the laughter died down a bit he said, “No seriously call the floor over.” The young player through up his arms in disbelief as the floor was called over to the table. As it turns out he did not have an ID on him and he was told he either needed to get it or leave the poker room. He simply grabbed his chips and walked out.

Personally, I didn’t think the guy was underage but the evidence now seems stacked against him being legally capable of playing in a 21+ venue. A caveat to this story, the older gentleman that got the kid kicked out turned out to be a real jerk. He berated some players after getting felted a few times and even found the time to blurt out some racial slurs. In his defense he wasn’t directing them at anyone but those are just things you don’t say in public where someone could take offense. I can’t really fault him for getting the kid carded if he thought he was there illegally, particularly because there is a bad beat jackpot in the Foxwoods poker room and we wouldn’t want to have it negated with an underage player present. That said, just as a point of principal, I don’t think I would wait until the hand right after the kid beat me in a big pot to call the floor over and complain about how you should get your money back. That just comes across as a little bitter to me.

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