What game is this?

Matt Matros, in his Card Player column for the July 14 issue, writes about his starting table at a limit hold'em tournament, event #12 of this year's World Series of Poker:

Another player was upset because at the 75-150 limit [Level 2], his opponent had bet the "max" of 150 and forced him to fold. "So, 150 is the max, right? I'm not allowed to raise him or anything?"

(To come slightly--but only slightly--to his defense, I've long thought that the terminology of "limits" for fixed betting amounts was both wrong and potentially misleading. But this is the first I've heard of somebody actually verbalizing a misunderstanding of the concept.)

This reminds me of all the times I've seen a player sit down at a table and not know what the game is. There are, of course, occasional instances of somebody trying to get to one particular game, hitting the wrong table, and quickly realizing his mistake. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about players who sit down with the right kind and number of chips, play for a while, and then eventually ask something mind-boggling, such as, "Is this limit or no-limit?"

Several times I have jotted down a note to myself to write a blog post about these airheads, but then I get home and can't think of anything appropriate or funny or insightful to say about such situations. In fact, I still can't. I'm just completely dumbfounded that people can buy hundreds of dollars in chips, sit down at the table, play for an orbit or two, and then still not know what game they're playing. Indeed, what can one say about such people, beyond that they are moronic?

Still, gotta give Matros credit for one-upping me on such tales. Buying into a World Series of Poker tournament and not knowing even the basics of the game's structure and rules is a level of mental opacity well beyond sitting ignorantly in a cash game for a while. I remember a couple of years ago there was a guy in a WSOP razz event who apparently thought it was straight stud--or at least played as if did, going for high hands instead of low hands--baffling and/or amusing everybody watching. (Sorry, I can't quickly find the write-ups of his antics.)

I am frequently reminded that people are capable of whole orders of magnitude of stupidity beyond what I expect. As I have said before, the First Law of Stupidity states that there is always more stupidity in the world than you think. The Second Law of Stupidity states that, even after you take the First Law of Stupidity into account, there is still always more stupidity in the world than you think.