UN-OFFICIAL GUIDELINES FOR POKE

Zuni frog fetish card protector

It is common for all Las Vegas visitors who sit down at a poker table to notice the card protectors that other players use to protect their cards. These symbolic ornaments serve both a common as well as diabolical purpose. But first, for those of you who don’t know why these card protectors are in use in the first place, a brief digression. When you decide to play a hand in a card room, players are often urged by dealers to place a chip on top of their hole cards. That way, while your mind wonders around the room, the dealer does not steal your cards. The chip tells the dealer that you are not, in fact, asleep, but rather thinking and thus require a gentile nudge instead of “unceremoniously folding my cards for me”. This is known as “protecting your cards” or “hey dealer, get off my lawn.” If you do not protect your cards, the dealer will treat them as Eve treated the Apple. Oh so tempting. As poker playing progressed, players felt the need to associate themselves with personal objects at the table, much like a telemarketer decorates their cubicle. Over time, players began to replace the act of placing a chip on their hole cards with placing a personal object on their hole cards. Often times, this is a chip like token with some expression of how cool poker is. But more recently has ventured into the more eclectic like a pewter frog or a tiny idol.

A Zuni fetish will not only protect your cards but your spirit as well

There is extra value in these personalized tokens that a mere chip can not duplicate. That is one of association. You are supplying other players at the table a mnemonic or memory association to aid their brain in remembering all the times you bet and made them fold. You can thus “craft an image” at the table for that player, making it easier to trap him when you have a big hand. If you always bet after the flop, “he will remember that the ‘pewter frog’ always bets after the flop”. When you know what he knows, you have an advantage you can exploit. (I leave that part up to you. Enjoy.) Here are some generally accepted guidelines for card protectors:

Should be smaller than the actual cards (so the dealer can tell you are in the hand). You would think this would go without saying. Please do not place a boom-box on your hole cards.

Small enough that chips cant hide behind them. This may end up causing a ruckus and casinos do not like anything with the word “ruckus” in it.

Personal enough that you are tagged with an image.

Should not be based on the occult. So, next time you are heading to Vegas, remember to take you new special friend, the card protector.