Mine was at Hollywood Casino in Tunica, Mississippi. December 2004.
I checked into the Grand Casino RV Park and caught a shuttle to the Hollywood Casino. I heard the poker room was the best. It was that night. I won about ??K over the course of the night.
I sat down at a 4/8 LH table with $200. I had gotten that up to $600 and drew pocket 77. Everyone was folding but a lady at the end of the table did a Max raise. I called. The flop was 778. Same lady, max bet. I called. Turn junk. Same lady max bet. I max raised her and she called. River A. She max bet and I max raised her and she raised back. We were both all in. She turned over pocket 8's. I showed and the dealer pushed the stack over to me.
She started yelling and told the dealer to hold on until she could absorb it. Then she started calling me a cheater and the dealer a cheater and started yelling and pushing chairs around and standing up shaking her fists. The pit boss called security and they escorted her out of the poker room. I was shaking. The dealer was shaking. The boss halted play until they could look at the video. After 30 minutes the Boss pushed the stack to my spot and told me "Good Hand!" My $200 was now $1600.
I took a break to smoke and started playing a $5 Three Hand Jacks or Better slot machine right out side the card room. Second play I lined up 4 aces with a two on the bottom row. Hold all, hit deal and won 6K. 2K each line.
Went back in and sat in on a 10/20 NL with a $1000 buy-in. I hit everything I played for 11 hands. Then I coasted when it cooled off. There was one player with a bigger stack than me and I tangled with him a couple times until he shook his finger at me and said "I am staying away from you." He was a gruff looking player with a thick Brooklyn accent. Very aggressive. Several hands later a player complained openly about his play. He said OK and asked the boss to come to the table. He told the boss to move that player to another table because the player didn't like his play. The other player was moved.
We took a break and the Brooklyn player stepped out for a smoke. A SWAT team of some kind took the guy down and put him in handcuffs and took him away. A guy in a suit came up to the table and put the guy's belongings in a bag and took them away. I never found out why. My winnings were now over 10K Cash and a 6K coupon.
The table broke up and I stepped out to smoke at my favorite slot machine. I was loaded the bets up and I hit a 9 high straight club flush on the bottom row. Press Hold all, press deal, 8K per row. 24K over all. I put the coupon in my pocket.
I went back to the card room and sat down at a 100/200 NLH and did real well but noticed I was faltering. I was drinking and I think I reached my limit. :) I noticed it was 2 AM so I cashed out my coupons at the Cashier and pocketed close to 50K. This had never happened before. I had some good nights at casinos in general but this was my best night ever.
I went to the front of the casino and found out my shuttle back to the RV park was gone and did not run the rest of the night. I asked a Concierge about getting a ride back to the Park and he said he couldn't help me there.
So, there I was with all that cash in my pocket. I was standing in the atrium and the room started spinning. I started noticing people hiding behind the columns out front. I saw people crouching behind the bushes and I remembered that woman from the earlier table and I freaked out.
I ran to the hotel desk and asked if they had a room and told them what was going on....I gave them my players card and they comped me a suite and had security escort me up to it.
I put my winnings in the room safe and passed out on the bed. I woke up to the front desk calling my room to ask if I wanted to stay another night because it was check out time and an RV shuttle was down stairs.
I grabbed my money from the safe and checked out. I took a shower when I got back to the RV and started it up and headed to Biloxi, Mississippi. I heard there was a great tournament there that weekend. :)
I spread some of my winnings out to close friends for Christmas then I coasted on the rest until I caught a Software gig in the PNW about May 2005.
I haven't topped that yet and I'm now 67.
submitted by I have a ton of stories from my days of dealing in the underground clubs in New York. I now live in Vegas and work here full time in the poker industry. I often get asked by the players here in Vegas to tell some stories of my club days. Maybe
poker will find it interesting as well.
This all started in 2006.
Fox's Club - 1.1 A bit of some background about me -- I basically grew up in the poker world. My grandmother was a playedealer decades ago (her boyfriend ran a large club in Queens, NY) and she started teaching me 7 Stud, 5-Card Draw Hi, and NL Hold'Em starting when I was 6 years old. We would play with a cheap Hoyle chipset she had purchased from the local grocery store. Occasionally, I even beat her — I’ll never be sure to this day if she let me win, but I’ll always hold those memories close. Poker was something we always did together and did often. It would be unusual to see my Grandma without a deck of cards on her.
As I got older, my whole family would play together. When I reached middle and high school, I would host multi-table $20-$50 buy-in tournaments at my house and there would be about 40-50 of us at my house playing poker, socializing, eating, and doing what kids do. We were all terrible and had no idea what we were doing, but we were all having fun and little did I know it, but I was getting a taste of what was to come in terms of my career later on in life.
When I hit 16 years old, a friend of mine from high school — Joey — who had gone off to college in Queens at St. John’s had come back home for the summer. He had been introduced to a very large and popular underground club in College Point, NY. At the time, he was making a regular income from playing small stakes MTT’s on Full Tilt instead of having a regular job during college, and naturally found his way into live poker. This was my first introduction to the underground poker world. In addition to playing online with him, I accompanied him and a couple of his college buddies one night to play $1/$3 NL at a live underground club. I was able to play because I had made some substantial money from running and eventually selling my own web hosting business while in high school. My other passion that I had started learning from a very young age was computer programming. I was coding in Visual Basic by 11 years old because a friend of my father’s, who was a software developer, had decided that I had shown some aptitude for the field and took an interest in mentoring me. I was lucky to have been given the opportunity of his time, teachings, books, etc. Anyway, off we went to Fox’s Club — Fox was the connected mob guy who owned the club. The game was protected and everyone knew it. It was a very social place.
If you’ve ever been to an underground club, then you know that the quality of the customer service and experience can vary greatly from game to game. Fox’s game was the creme of the crop, it was absolutely top notch. It ran everyday, night and day.
It was located in a large, multi-story industrial lot which sat right near a main intersection, which meant lots of traffic — a very good thing because the traffic to and from the game just blended in with the usual activity.
When you pulled in, you could park anywhere you wanted out of the tens of dozens of spots. It didn’t matter where you parked anyway — I’ll get to why in a minute. Then, you would walk upstairs to the 2nd story to come stop in front of a giant steel door with a buzzer and several cameras positioned in front.
When you rang the bell, they’d ask you who you were, you’d tell them how and who invited you, and in a minute or two you’d be buzzed in through the first steel door. After entering, you’d come to a second steel door with another camera positioned in front, which only opened from the inside.
When you finally entered the room, it was gorgeous — clean, large, comfortable, and was equipped with everything you wanted in a club. A full-sized kitchen, multiple clean bathrooms (one even had a shower), a lounge area, a high limit room, waitresses, a bunch of large flat screen TV’s, and a smoking room among other things. The first thing you’d notice was that they had 6 high-quality poker tables paired with executive chairs, not including the one in the high-limit room. This club was spacious.
As you walked in, a valet would ask for your keys and he would go fetch your vehicle and park it in an organized fashion amongst the others. You’d then make your way over to the podium and tell the floor which game you wanted to play — they usually had at least several games going — $1/$3, $2/$5, and $5/$10 NL and higher when it ran, but the much higher games were much more private.
Strapped with $1,000 in cash on me, I request a seat in the $1/$3 game and eventually make my way onto the table. The max buy-in was $500, which I opted for because most stacks at the table were deep. It didn’t really matter anyway — this was my first time playing in an underground poker club and I was nervous as hell. I didn’t know how to act, was totally naive to my safety, I was 16 years old and I was clearly “the kid” in the club.
I remember winning one of my first pots, and a mid-30’s Asian guy sitting next to me taps me on the shoulder.
“Aren’t you going to tip the dealer?”
“What do you mean? Are we supposed to do that?”
“Of course, they work on tips. When you win a pot, toss them a buck, if it’s a big pot then maybe a redbird or two.”
“Oh, uh… I see… I’m sorry, I didn’t know…” and I toss the dealer a buck.
Over the course of the summer and playing there a dozen or so times, I began to take notice how much these dealers were making. Back then, in this particular club, dealers were well taken care of and I managed figure out that they were pulling in at least $1,000 per shift depending on their duties and how long they spent in the box. Some guys had multiple roles, would often spend time on the phone with players, some would work the cage area, some would floor other times, etc.
The questioned then dawned upon me — why am I risking my money playing this game, when I could learn how to deal it and be guaranteed to make money without any risk?
That was when I started to become friendly with Big Mike — one of the regular dealers. I wanted to deal and I wanted a job there… How was I going to make this happen? How could I pass up learning how to make $1k a night at a job that looked like it could be a lot of fun?
To be continued…
Fox’s Club — 1.2 Thinking about it now, the thought of a 16 year old kid wanting to learn how to deal poker in an underground club and actually turning out to be good at it… is just plain hilarious. But, I was determined to learn this skill, and even though I was a little naive about it, I made a promise to myself that I was going to study poker and poker dealing.
When you’re that young, the problem is that your brain is not yet fully developed and no matter how mature and intelligent someone of that age can be, the fact remains that they have yet to gain “wisdom” — the kind which can only be acquired through time. I say this because I grossly underestimated the amount of time on the felt it really takes to become a solid, “A”-Dealer. But again, I had drive and determination to learn how to deal.
I became friendly with Big Mike, got his phone number, and would text him whenever I wanted to come down to the club. I let him know that I wanted to learn how to deal and asked him how he learned. He told me that he had went to dealer school. I didn’t know such a thing existed. He wasn’t too enthusiastic about me learning how to deal, he said I was too young and didn’t know the game well enough yet. I came to the conclusion that Big Mike wasn’t going to help me, and sure enough, he never did in that regard. I kept him as a poker contact and would eventually be invited to other games and clubs by him, something that could be really helpful later on.
With Big Mike not wanting to teach me, my plan was to go to Fox’s to play, and when I wasn’t in a hand I was going to study what the dealer was doing — what he did with his hands, how he shuffled, what he said, what he was constantly doing with the chips in his rack? This was how I discovered rake, by the way. I didn’t even know what rake was.
At Fox’s, everybody paid $5 per half when the dealers would make their push. I thought that that was how they were making their money. What I didn’t know was that they were also taking a rake. There wasn’t a gator or dropbox for the rake. It didn’t sit out openly in front of the players as it does in casino card rooms. The dealer would quickly take out chips from the pot and they would go right into the well. Every half, the dealer that was pushing in would replace the well with the one they were carrying.
The first time I saw the rake being taken, I was puzzled by what was happening and didn’t know what was going on. No-one else at the table ever seemed to say anything or even acknowledge it so I figured it must be okay. When I saw Big Mike go into the smoking lounge for his break, I got up from the table and went inside to ask him about it. He then educated me about rake and what it was. I was dumbfounded. This place must be making a sh*tload of money. 10% of the pot up to $25? I started to do the math on all the tables running, the time being taken every half hour, an average pot size for an average rake amount, and came up with an impressive number. Damn, what a lucrative business to be in.
During the time I spent watching the dealer, I picked up lots of little things here and there, but ultimately just watching was not enough. I needed some proper instruction. I also knew I needed to learn how to “deal” the cards the way Big Mike did with that flick of his fingers — not knowing at the time that it was called “pitching the cards”.
All of this information. All of these techniques. There must be some resources and information on poker dealing on the internet, right? I mean, if Big Mike went to a school that teaches how to deal poker, then there must be some info on where to go. I’d later on make a discovery that would make a huge impact on my life.
So, I decided that moving forward, I was going to focus on getting better at the game while I spent my time at Fox’s. Maybe Big Mike was right. Maybe I didn’t know the game well enough yet. Instead of trying to learn how to deal there, I’ll just play the game and try and win as much money as I can.
This didn’t turn out so well, however, as I was not yet a competent player. I had no live experience — I was very easy to read, made the mistake of engaging in table talk and failing at every verbal jousting I took part in, and I hadn’t yet been a real student of the game. I was learning the hard way through trial and error, which of course cost me tons of money.
I didn’t always lose, because I wasn’t an idiot and was intelligent enough to realize that there actually is a skill component to this game. The Asian guy (from Part 1) in his mid 30’s, the one who politely taught me about tipping dealers, turned out to be a pretty cool guy.
His name was Andy. When we first officially met, he asked me about which college I was going to and what major I was studying.
“So, you in college? What are you studying?”
“Actually, I’m still in high school. I haven’t decided yet which school I want to go to. I still have a couple of years left.”
“What? How old are you, buddy?”
“I’m 16, I’ll be 17 after the summer.”
“So you can’t even drive, yet? Is that why you always come by with a friend?”
“Yeah, I’m still saving up for a car. I think I’m gonna buy a used Mazda 6.”
He was curious about where I was getting all of this money I had to play with at the tables. I told him about my computer background and web hosting business. He was impressed and I had earned his respect. He told me that he had initially thought that I was just another one of the college kids that came by to play — money from their parents, or playing with the extra college loan money that was left over and sent out as a check to students who got loans.
We developed a kind of student-teacher relationship. He smoked a ton of cigarettes, and every time he did, I would join him in the smoking lounge and he would tell me his thoughts on how I played certain hands, point out mistakes I made, give me positive reinforcement on things I was doing correctly, pull me off the table when I would start to tilt, and overall just looked out for me. Andy was a very good player as well, judging by the fact that he consistently won and could always give me a logical reason and argument to why I should do things a certain way.
Other people who tried to teach me the game would say things like “You should have raised on the turn”, and when I asked “Why?”, I would always get the same response — “Because you lost the hand”. That made no sense at all to me. That’s not an answer, it doesn’t answer the question at all. That’s just another way of saying that if I was a psychic and could predict the future, the way I could have won the hand was by knowing what the outcome was and making the right play.
Andy would say things like “You should have raised on the turn”, and when I asked, “Why?” He would say things like “Well, why did you decide to call instead of raise? Did you even consider raising at all? Did you consider folding? What did you think he was betting into you with? You had a set of 9’s on a board that had one broadway card and two flush draws”. That was when I realized that I wasn’t even thinking much about what the other guys had, I was just playing my own cards and when I didn’t make hands, I would try and bluff, sometimes successfully and sometimes not so much. I was starting to learn the game from a thinking player’s perspective.
Andy had been playing poker for a long time already and was an underground grinder. After graduating from college with a degree in finance, he got a job at some firm but eventually left to pursue poker. Between his investments and playing poker full time, that was how he made his income. He played in tons of games and clubs all around New York and was what you would call an underground pro.
At the time, if you were a competent player, it was quite easy to make money in those games. There were tons of fish and people who would literally donate money. In the beginning, I was one of them. So were Joey and his college buddies. Joey was a decent online MTT player — skilled enough to consistently cash in small tournaments — but he wasn’t very good at playing cash games. Especially live cash games. He was too easy to read. So was I — absolutely awful at hiding tells, let alone knowing what those tells were.
I remember one particular session at Fox’s where I was running like God. I had turned $500 into nearly $4,000. I was getting super lucky, super quickly. I’ll never forget this session as it was the first time I walked out of Fox’s with a huge wad of cash in my pocket. And it started off with the first hand I played that night.
I always waited to play until I was in the big blind, something Andy advised me to do, as you couldn’t come in for free behind the button, not that I even knew what that was at the time. Forgive my recollection of this hand, it’s rough at best, it was over a decade ago, but it was the first time I saw how brutal poker could be.
There was a raise to $15, a re-raise to $50, a call, another call, and I look down in the big blind at T9ss. I was still superstitious at the time and always played my first hand, no matter what it was. So I called and the original raiser called as well. 5 players.
The flop comes TT9 with two clubs, and I check. There’s a bet of $150, then the next guy jams, the next guy also jams, another all-in, and at this point I remember thinking to myself — holy sh*t — I quickly call, so does the guy in front of me. I then turn my hand over. What does it matter? Everybody is all in, give me the money baby!
Everyone else follows suit, and tables their holdings wondering what the hell is going on here. We’ve got a 5-way all-in, something I’d never seen before — AK of clubs, pocket aces, pocket 9’s, and QJ, which I’m fairly sure was suited.
I’d be lying if I told you what happened after this point. My body was overflowing with adrenaline. The dealer does his work and the next thing I know I have $2.5k in front of me and some really pissed off people sitting next to me.
As the session continues, within the next few orbits I manage to pick up pocket aces and pocket kings, stack two players, and it was at this point that I had around $4,000 in front of me.
Like I said, running like God. Then, it happened.
Thinking I was invincible, I re-raise a guy with 64o. The flop comes A44. The guy bets and I just go all-in, not knowing what else I could do. He then tanks for a minute, and says to me, “You’re really that lucky huh? You got that 4 don’t you?”
I remember just smiling like a teenager who had just lost his virginity.
“I don’t know what to tell you man, but yeah, I do. I have 64”, as I shook my head “yes”.
“I believe you.” And the guy open mucks AK. I show him the 64.
I get shipped the pot, and then Andy says to come join him in the smoking lounge. I didn’t smoke, but my Mother had for years so it didn’t bother me much.
“Why in the hell did you tell that guy what you had? You need to learn how to act composed at the table.”
“I didn’t know what else to do. It didn’t feel right lying to the guy.”
“That’s because you’re a good kid. This is poker, buddy. You can’t ever feel bad about taking someone’s chips, or else you’ll never succeed at this game.”
“Well what should I have done then? What should I have said?”
“For now, the next time that happens, don’t say a word. Just stare at the board until the other player makes a decision. You’re clearly not capable of table talk, yet. If you feel like you have to respond and can’t ignore the other player any longer, then just use my line and then tell him it’s on him.”
“What’s your line?”
“Well, I can’t lose if you fold.”
And I’ll never forget that line. I still use it sometimes to this day. You have to understand that this happened back when you could actually engage your opponent verbally when it was heads up. Now, you can’t discuss the contents of your hand whatsoever. That era has ended and table talk is not what it once was. In my opinion, I firmly believe that this particular change in poker was not a positive one. It made poker really fun and really interesting. It was a large contributor to the social element of the game. And it felt really, really, good when you would successfully talk your opponent into making the move you wanted them to make.
Andy continued smoking his cigarette while telling me I should cash out and go home with a huge win.
“How much more money do you really expect to make? You’re way too deep now in this game where everyone is going to start shoving on you. Trust me, cash out and hang out until your friend is done playing so you can go home.”
“What else am I supposed to do? Isn’t everyone going to get mad that I’m leaving?”
“Who cares? Sit at the table and fold everything except Aces or Kings for the next hour. If you pick up one of those hands, just go all-in. Trust me, you have nothing more to gain and only something to lose if you continue playing. For the next hour, just watch everyone else and how they play and what they showdown. You might learn something.”
And that’s exactly what I did. I folded every hand for the next hour, then cashed out.
While I was hanging out and railing Andy and my friend who I came with, I realized that I needed to buy a poker table and the same type of cards they were using at Fox’s — they used KEM bridge size, jumbo index. Something I had learned about from picking Big Mike’s brain. I figured this would be a perfect time to invest in a real poker table, considering that I just cashed out $4k.
Maybe I could start having cash games at my house with my friends and deal the game to practice? I already hosted tournaments at my house regularly, but never thought about hosting a cash game. Would my friends even want to play a cash game? What stakes would it be? I still need to figure out how I’m going to learn how to deal.
Hmm, I’ve got some thinking to do.
To be continued…
Next:
Inside Underground NY Poker #2 submitted by 2nd trip ever to casino to play, only play in home game tournaments every now and then and am breakeven on 0.02/.0.5 and 0.05/0.10 NL on ignition. Playing 1/3 at Harrahs New Orleans, folded first two orbits to get a feel of the table, only played my pocked pairs for minimum return until this hand. Sitting 9 handed.
Preflop: folds around to CO, CO limps to H in SB. Look down to A♠️3♠️. Stack of $230, Raise to $10. Villain in BB calls with about $1200 behind, CO calls with about $350 behind. Pot $30.
Flop: K ♠️ 5 ❤️ 3 ♦️ Hero checks. Button bets $10. CO calls. Hero calls. Pot $60.
Turn: K ♠️ 5 ❤️ 3♦️ 5 ♠️ Hero checks, button bets $30, CO folds, hero calls with intent to fold on river if no Ace or Spade.
River: K ♠️ 5 ❤️ 3 ♦️ 5 ♠️ 8 ♠️ Hero bets $20, V raises to $40. I think he’s got 5x suited or maybe a boat, and don’t want to jam/raise and V come over the top, so I just call. V shows a 5 for trips and I take down the pot.
Looking back I think I should’ve raised/jammed but V had a strong image at the table from what I had seen and didn’t want to bust out so early. Thoughts?
submitted by Previous:
Inside Underground NY Poker #2
Spades — 1.2 Every poker player knows that feeling —when you get the itch to play. I had just made $200 for dealing the bar poker league tournament. My girlfriend, Jennifer, was surely sleeping, and here I had Gary telling me to come down to play with $100 bonus. Surely, this had to be +EV. I was about to scratch that itch.
Being cognizant of the rake now, I text Gary back, asking him what the rake is and he replies, telling me it’s 10% up to $10. This sounded pretty reasonable to me, but I wanted some confirmation. Back in 2007, texting had not yet become the preferred medium of communication and although it was popular, a phone call was more often used. I decided to give Andy a call. No answer. I immediately received a text back, telling me that he’ll call me back in a minute.
I was driving on the Long Island Expressway and was a bit tired. I often stayed up late anyway, and was not much of a morning person. It was already late at night, so I decided to take an exit that had a gas station nearby. I pulled into a Valero, went inside, and purchased a sugar-free Monster energy drink. As I was walking back to my car, my phone rang — it was Andy.
“What’s up, buddy? I’m in the middle of a session, try and make it quick.”
“Hey man, I’m about to go play cards at this new spot. The rake is 10% up to $10, stakes are $1/$2 NL. Is this good?”
“That’s incredibly good. The lowest I’ve ever heard of, in fact. Where is this place?”
“It’s in Long Island, it’s a club called Spades.”
“I’ve heard about Spades. I didn’t know the rake was that low, though. Do you have to pay time, too?”
“I dunno. I just got an invite from another dealer I met while dealing a bar league tournament. He also offered me a $100 bonus for being a new player. That’s all I know.”
“New player bonus too, huh? Sounds very enticing. I might have to come by with you and play one of these days. Good luck, buddy. Let me know how it goes.”
I asked Andy how his session was going and we talked for a few more minutes.
“I’ve gotta go, I have to get back to the table. Word of advice — the first time I ever play in a new game, I’m never there to really play. I suggest that if you go, buy in for the average stack size and don’t rebuy if you get felted.”
“Why?” — Being the inquisitive type, I always asked questions.
“You need to make sure the game is clean. Watch the rake and keep track of the pot size. Play super tight. Cash out and leave if you don’t feel safe or if any of the players seem too problematic.”
“Thanks, man. Good luck in your sesh, I’ll see you soon.”
“You too buddy, gimme a call afterwards and let me know how it goes.”
With Andy’s input, I made the decision to text Gary back and give the place a shot. He texted me the address with some directions, and some instructions on how to get inside.
I was horrific with directions, though. I had purchased a Garmin GPS unit from Best Buy when I had bought my car, knowing that I would need it to get to Fox’s. I wasn’t familiar at all with Queens or Suffolk County. It was about the size of a small cantaloupe and stuck to the windshield using a suction cup. It was slow calculating directions, but it was accurate and always got me where I needed to go. I punched in the address that Gary had given me on the insensitive touch screen, and waited for it to start navigating.
20 minutes or so later, I had arrived. The GPS had brought me to large Chinese restaurant that had certainly closed for the night. It was located on a main road and was in a multi-story building with other retail stores in the same unit. I sent Gary a text, letting him know that I was there and he told me to pull into the back of the building to park.
I put my car into park and exited the vehicle. The instructions in the text Gary had provided me with directed me to ring the bell on the door that had a security camera with a red light on. I started walking up to the building and saw only one door with an active security camera. The lights were off, but the back parking lot had at least 15 cars sitting there, so I knew the game had to be going. I rang the bell and waited. Two minutes later, I see a guy who looked to be in his mid-twenties, approaching from the inside and the glass door opens.
“Can I help you?”
“Yeah, Gary sent me. We met at the bar poker league earlier tonight.”
“Come on in, follow me.”
I entered the building and walked up a flight of stairs to be met with, sure enough, a steel door with a security camera mounted to the top right corner. The guy gave it a knock and 15 seconds later it was opened.
As I walked inside, I took notice of the place. There was one main room, which was quite large, that housed two tables, the podium, and a tall Craftsman locking toolbox. On either side of the main room, there was a short hallway that led to another room which also had two tables inside. Both of the other rooms had a plexiglass sheet on the wall, which made it possible to see what was going on inside.
A rather tall, very muscular guy, waves me over to the podium.
“What’s up, mo? Who sent you, James?”
Not realizing it at the time, this was a simple test. He wanted to make sure I wasn’t lying about who had invited me.
“No, Gary sent me. I met him at the bar poker league tonight. He told me to come down to play and that there was a $100 new player bonus?”
“Gotcha. Sure. You get the $100 after two hours of play at the table. The game’s full right now, but you’re first up. Have a seat over there and make yourself comfortable. Drinks and snacks are in the back, the bathroom and smoking room are down the right hall. Let me get your name and number so I can put you on the text list.”
I give him my number and we exchanged names. Vinny was a tall and muscular gentleman who looked to be in his 40’s. He appeared to be very physically fit with slicked back, jet black hair. He clearly filled the role of both floorman and security. His personality was very direct and he looked you dead in the eyes when he spoke to you.
With my stomach growling and heart pumping from the Monster I had drank a little while earlier, I walk into the back to take a leak and grab a snack. I hadn’t eaten anything all night, the bar league didn’t provide any food. Only two options were available, individual bags of Wise chips or Famous Amos cookies. I opt for the cookies and head back into the main room, hovering over the full table to watch the action as I munch on my bag of processed carbs.
A couple of hands go by, and I could tell that my hovering over the table was making a few of the players uncomfortable. I was new, nobody knew me, and I didn’t want to be impolite so I took a seat at the empty table and waited for an open seat.
About a half hour passes and Vinny calls me for the open seat. He asks me how much I want and I tell him $200. He unlocks a tall, Craftsman toolbox and opens one of the drawers to reveal racks of chips inside. He hands me a rack with $200 in chips, and I sit down at the table to be greeted by the dealer.
“Welcome to the game. Would you like to post or wait for the big blind?”
“Thanks. I’ll wait for the big blind.”
Half a rotation later and I’m in the game. I took Andy’s advice and played super tight. 45 minutes go by and I open my first hand — pocket tens. I get no action, which I was not expecting. I drag in the blinds and toss the dealer a buck, not wanting to appear cheap so that I’m welcomed back.
There’s some chatter going on at the table in between hands, but no conversations that interest me. I’m starting to get bored. Music was playing in the background, and a song comes on that catches my ear.
“Anyone know what song this is?”
The player seated to my right answers me, an older Italian man who was very short in stature with a high-pitched voice and thick Brooklyn accent.
“Trooper With an Attitude, by 38 Special.”
“Thanks. You know you kind of remind me of Joe Pesci? Anyone ever tell you that?”
The room went dead silent, all that could be heard was the song playing in the background. The action came to a halt.
For what seemed like an eternity, everybody at the table was staring at me. I could tell by the Italian guy’s reaction that I had made a fatal mistake. Foot — meet mouth.
The Italian guy puts his hand on my shoulder, and with a firm grip, turns his chair, almost using my shoulder as a pivot point. He gives me a death stare, and finally the silence is broken.
“Watch your mouth, kid.”
I realized that he had taken extreme offense to my comment. I didn’t understand why, I had meant it as a compliment. I had recently seen the movie “Casino” for the first time and loved Joe Pesci’s performance. Regardless, the table was perceiving me as being in the wrong.
“I apologize. Won’t happen again.”
The action resumes and the Italian guy takes his hand off of my shoulder. I later learned that this guy was extremely connected and to never make him feel as if he was being disrespected. Evidently, his short stature and high-pitched voice made him feel insecure — it was not something to ever be pointed out.
A few more orbits go by, and I look at my stack. I’m down about $60. I hadn’t played any meaningful hands and I was card-dead. I had seen multiple players show down hands like Ace high or bottom pair for the winner, and came to the realization that I was highly outmatched. Most of the players at the table were really solid. They were constantly putting each other to the test, and applying pressure in spots they knew would make for a tough decision. I wasn’t going to make any money in this game unless I got lucky.
I see Vinny start to walk over to the table, holding a rack with a couple of chips in it. He stops at my seat and puts 4 green chips onto my stack.
“Here’s your bonus, good luck.”
I look down at my stack again to give it a count. With the addition of the bonus, I’m up $50. I felt a little trapped, because I didn’t want to look bad trying to cash out as soon as I got the bonus. I toss the dealer two greenbirds and get up to grab a rack.
I definitely wanted to come back. The level of play was much higher than I had ever seen, and I noticed that they were much more strict on the rules here. This interested me, because poker is one of the few games without a universal set of rules. I wanted to learn more about the rules of poker, feeling as if I should be well educated in the subject, considering I wanted to improve my skills as a dealer.
I head over to Vinny at the podium to cash out. He quickly counts up my chips, totaling $200, and hands me two, crisp $100 bills. It was no more than a few hours until the Sunday’s sun would rise.
“Thanks for coming. We’re having a $75 tournament later on at 3PM if you feel like playing. We usually get about 50-60 players.”
“Yeah, that sounds good. I’ll be here.”
I pocket the cash and make my way over to the steel door. I leave the room, walk down the stairs, and head for the exit.
I get into my car and start driving home. I hop onto the expressway and take out my phone to give Andy a call.
“WOOP WOOP”, I hear the sound of the siren as I look into my rear-view mirror and see a cop flashing his lights, singling me to pull over.
Great, just what I need — I had never been pulled over before.
To be continued…
Next:
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