by Yancy Howard.

If you’ve read the editorial, you know that the “Maddog” has been run over.  He’s been wounded.  He’s limping around.  His tail is between his legs. There is no medical procedure that can be prescribed.  His pain is mental and financial rather than physical.  The vehicles involved sustained no damage.  As a matter of fact, once he made his move, the collision was unavoidable.  The vehicles we are speaking of here are the local pros.¹⁾In the early days of his blackjack and poker playing days, Michael Dalton earned the nickname of Maddog.  The editorial mentioned is from the Winter 1996 issue of Blackjack Review Magazine.

When you sit down in a seven stud hi-low pot limit game in a casino for the first time, you have to feel a little wary.  You don’t know any of the players or anything of their expertise.  One thing you can assume though, is that they probably have more experience at this game than you do at these limits.  We’ve all heard the saying “when you sit down in a poker game and can’t figure who the live one is, you are probably it!”  So what do you do?  Do you just never take a shot?  Of course you do!

Anyone that wishes to extract significant amounts of money from a game is not going to do it playing $5 and $10 limit poker.  These are the limits that Mike has cut his teeth on in the last three years, and has finally gotten to a stage where can hold his own.  As a matter of fact, he is now in the black, and that is saying something considering the competition he has been up against, mostly solid, tight but aggressive players.  The same people each time, over a period of hundreds of hours.  These players have lots of experience.  Some play in three or four other games each week.  None have jobs other than Mike and me, and the lady in our group. Almost all games that we spread, are structured the same as games played in casinos.

“When you sit down in a poker
game and can’t figure who
the live one is, you are probably it!”

This is a tough game to beat, and no one is going to consistently take down a lot of money.  It has been good training ground for a person eager to obtain the practical application phase of their poker education and willing to risk money at those limits to do it.

Many people wouldn’t have done that, but the Maddog has risen to the challenge.  For quite sometime he was the “live one” in the game, made mistakes that were always taken advantage of, but he’s much wiser from the experience and we, and the Maddog, are now looking for someone else to take advantage of.

“Anyone that wishes to extract
significant amounts of money
from a game is not going
to do it playing $5 and
$10 limit poker.”

I liken this scenario to the person that graduates from college but can’t obtain employment due to the fact that he has no experience.  The only way to get the experience of moving up to a bigger game, is to take a shot!  That’s what he did, and I’m glad he had the confidence in himself to make that decision.

If you remember a few articles back, I spoke of game selection.  I didn’t have to tell the Maddog his game selection was poor. He stated that in his editorial.  I do take exception with the second paragraph stating that “unfortunately, I found the poker games I was looking for…”  If, in fact, he had found the game that he was looking for, he would have found himself sitting in a pot limit game that was not short-handed, and stocked with a few of those fish he alluded to in his last paragraph.  

“We, and the Maddog, are now
looking for someone else
to take advantage of.”

So Maddog, as you are healing at home, while on furlough²⁾In 1996, the United States government shut down federal operations for a while over Congressional funding issues.  This was a perfect time for the Maddog, who was a federal employee at the time, to explore Las Vegas in detail., try to find another “new player” to bring to the game Monday night, cause while you’re licking your wounds, we’re licking our chops.

EDITOR NOTE:  Yancy Howard is a dear friend of mine and the individual most responsible for leading me on the right path to winning poker.  This article was written after I told him that my recent (in 1996) poker trip to Las Vegas was not optimal.  Actually, the local pros ate me alive as I gave it a shot in the higher limit Omaha 10/20/30 (8 or better) high-low and Seven Card Stud high-low pot limit games.  What is ironic is that I made good money playing blackjack on this trip. 

IMAGE CREDIT: Michael Dalton – From the Club 52 poker room in Melbourne, Florida

[ Copyright © 1996 – 2023 All Rights Reserved ]
[ This article was originally published in the Winter 1996 issue of Blackjack Review magazine. ]

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