Things to do while playing poker at a casino?

[MicroBob]

Obviously for a player who got into the game via online 4+ tabling it can be an adjustment to the slower-pace of live play.

But if you've never played before you can learn to read tells on players. Watching for how a player might shake a little bit when he has a big hand is incredibly interesting to me.


I used to kind of auto-pilot when I would kill time live and even considered bringing headphones or reading a magazine or something.


But then I had the opportunity to play with a couple really good players at the WSOP last year. In two different events I played a few hours each with Huck Seed and Johnny Chan.

Just by watching these guys, and chatting with them a little bit, it seemed clear to me that they were far more aware of what was going on at the table than anyone else there.

Huck was chatting with me a bit because the guy on the other side of him was wearing headphones and I don't think spoke much english.
Huck had thoughts on almost every hand that was played it seemed and shared some of those thoughts or asked my opinion on a few of them.
Just little stuff like seeing a big bet and him whispering to me, "I think he has top set here. Don't you think?" Something like that.

Then I would fake my way through a response because after I had folded my cards I had lost track of the hand and was day-dreaming or looking for my waiter with my coffee or something.


One player (me) day-dreams when not involved in a hand.

Another player (Huck or Johnny) would follow the hand with great interest and try to figure out what each player was holding.


Pretty easy to figure out which one is the internet-auto-pilot-donk and which one is the multi WSOP-bracelet winner.