Read This First　

Recently I was telling my girlfriend how I had taken great pleasure in busting a geek wearing a three-piece suit, a tie, cufflinks and, to top it all off, was listening to an iPod. "Why was he listening to music at the poker table?" she asked innocently. Now, she knows nothing about poker, but even so, she could plainly intuit that you are giving up a huge amount of information by taking one of your senses and part of your brain out of the equation. Perhaps she remembered me telling her that poker is a game of information and decision-making that is more about people than cards.

I explained to her that I would never play for serious money while giving up the nuances of conversation, voice tone, inflection, etc., not to mention learning about your opponents through friendly talk. That information is huge to the experienced player. That said, I added that I could understand how some lower-limit grinders playing unimaginative ABC poker ten or 12 hours a day might try to make their pathetic time go by faster with a little music.

Soon after our talk, this bizarre incident at the WPT’s Brunson Classic at Bellagio really made the whole iPod debate hit home. On the final-table bubble, John Juanda moved all-in from the button, verbalizing his all-in without touching his chips. The dealer called out the all-in, then waited for young online pro Chad Batista to act. Batista, decked out in today’s "uniform" of headphones and hoodie, finally noticed the eyes on him and asked the dealer if the action was on him. The dealer said it was and Batista announced all-in, apparently trying to steal from the shorter-stacked Scotty Nguyen in the big blind. But you can’t steal if there has already been an all-in, and Batista – because of his hip cocoon – didn’t realize Juanda had shoved.

Then Scotty, who often plays without all his senses firing at 100 percent himself, in any case recognized Batista’s goof and began laughing at him. Now, as anyone who follows the game knows, Scotty can be very nice, or he can be very, very un-nice. And like a lot of established pros, he doesn’t much like young guys with attitude. After all, if anyone has the right to an attitude, it is a tough, proven old pro. Instead, these days you often find that young, flash-in-the-pan players and wannabes are sporting all the ego, while the old pros have become smart enough to keep their egos well away from their table personas.

But Scotty is no innocent in the ego department either, so it’s no surprise that he and a visibly upset Batista traded words as the floorperson was summoned. While Nguyen chortled, the tournament director ruled that verbal declarations are binding, so Chad’s headphones had done him in. Scotty then applied the coup de grâce and to his great delight turned over pocket aces, which held up. Juanda (A-6) was eliminated and a distraught Batista (pocket deuces) was now short-stacked, and busted soon after.

Maybe this proves once and for all that the last thing you want to do at the poker table is go into a shell. Even my girlfriend knows that.