February 19th, 2007
Ben Mackay

The smell of poker, what's that? You ask. Let's start first with poker props and see where this takes us...

Now when I talk about props I don't mean PROPosition betting as the gambling type love, but I may possibly leave that for another article. The props I'm talking about are the things people bring to the table to give them luck or intimidate other players. They bring it just to be up with the current poker fashion or maybe even just for the fun of it, who really knows? I guess everyone has their own intentions right? Lets have a look into a few things people wear or bring to the table...

Card Guard - One of the more subtle ones. It's main purpose is to cover you cards to stop them from flipping over accidentally. Now I've played poker quite a few times now, and when I play without a guard I've never found my cards catching a random gust of wind and blowing over for all to see. But do I still use them? Yeah why not, I know my cards aren't going to fly away, but I like using one every now and then just to change things up. I think most people use their card guards for luck, from what I've seen and heard anyway.

Hot tip:
How about you try this... Go buy a casino chip from a far away land (cheaper if you do it over the internet) and next time you're playing against a bunch of unknowns whip out your fancy new casino chip and use it as a card guard. But the clincher is that you tell 'em that you fly around the world chasing the big games, or probably not. note: This will not work with people you already know.

Sunglasses - Probably the most popular item on this list. Some people love them. Some people don't. I'm in between, I find I personally play my best game without them. I'm usually wearing some crazy pair in home games but when it get serious I find, it almost disorientates me when I'm at the table. I heard Phil Ivey once say "The last time I wore sunglasses at a table I misread my hand and lost a $250,000USD pot, after that I went to the bin and threw them out." To which his wife in another room retorted "So that's where those sunglasses went that I bought you? They were $3,000USD glasses!" Ivey then reminded his wife "honey, they made me lose a quarter of a million dollars!" That's fair I suppose. I would still like to know where that bin is though.
Body language experts will say there are many spots around your eyes which give away a lot of information and wearing sunglasses prevents giving away that information. Now the first time I sat down and hit the felt in a casino, the only guy in sunnies stared me down (at least I thought he did, I suppose I'll never really know if he was staring at me or some other good looking fella). I must say though, to a first timer it was intimidating. So I say make up your own mind on this one.

Hats - The common baseball cap is the most popular of these items at the table. Again people wear to conceal a little more of their face, so that people won't get a read on them. I know a bunch of people here in Sydney wear them at Star City Casino because they aren't allow to anywhere else (well not on the general casino floor anyway). But I like hats at the table, probably because I am too lazy to actually spend time on my hair making it look decent enough to wear out in public. But maybe because it just feels right for me. You'll recognize people such as Doyle Brunson, Chris 'Jesus' Ferguson and Kenna James amongst others who are famous for the ol' cowboy look, it's pretty much their signature accessory to their poker game.

There's hundreds of different things which people have picked up along the way, I guess its a poker fashion that's taking over. You've got your hockey, baseball and basketball jerseys along with ipods and other mp3 players. You've even got your book readers and people who will massage you all you like. It can be a bit overwhelming for any virgin to the game. People are spending money on these very things every single day from poker specific companies.

The Australian poker scene is yet to fully grasp the accessorizing nature of our northern friends. If you are familiar with the Australian poker scene however, especially the free pub style poker, you'll know all about the big craze hitting the tables at the moment. I like to call it 'the smell of poker'. Which simply put is a foul body odour that emits from a being who doesn't say it, but loves the environment. They obviously must be up to date with the news of our shortage of water us Australians are experiencing at the moment and therefore, doing their part, they will not touch a shower for weeks on end. Beer however even though it is 90% water does not count.

-BM

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