They just don't want to end up like the Largo Eight.
Haven't heard of the Largo Eight?
"They were a bunch of old guys like us," says Louie Alberto, 69, who sits on a lawn chair, watching the action on a recent afternoon. Most days, he doesn't play.
"I oversee arguments," he says.
Anyway, the Largo Eight got raided by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office back in 1982 for playing penny ante poker in a mobile home park. And Louie thinks it would really stink if that were the fate of the Down Under Gang, which is what you can call Mickey and Carlo and Jimmy et al., if you've got to call them something.
Of course, you could call Mickey Crider, 87, the bionic man. He'd like that.
"I have artificial knees in both legs," says the senior member of the gang, who works out for half an hour every morning at the YMCA before coming to the game. "I've had three operations on my belly, one on my ear, one on my hand . . ." He could go on and on.
But it's his turn to deal.
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Where you sit in relation to your turn to bet has an impact on your results. Being forced to be an early bettor in a hand is much less advantageous than being able to bet later in the round.
