New York City Underground Poker

At least once a week I get an email asking whether underground poker rooms are safe to play in, and frankly that is a really good question to ask before you go play in one of these.

When the poker boom began after Moneymaker won the World Series poker rooms began sprouting up all over city.  Rooms like Playstation and others were some of the best poker rooms in the country, with 3-5 tables in a room, great cocktail service, and plenty of fish to keep the games profitable, even with the insane rake.

After the initial glow wore off and a couple shootings occurred, however, the games had to go further and further underground.  I new things had changed forever when I played golf with a young NYPD officer who told me he no longer plays the underground games because he is too afraid of being busted.  Back in 2005 and 2006 the thought would not have even crossed a police officer’s mind.  Even if the cops showed up, they would not have cared about another officer being in the game.

Even though this comes up every time I play and every week by email, it is actually not something I think about much.  Years ago I decided that I was going to play in the games whether they get busted or robbed, and I moved on.  But this has come up again in the media recently due to a couple robberies in Texas, and has become the subject of a couple recent episodes of Poker Road Radio.

The closest I have ever been to a shooting in a poker room was back around the time this blog began.  I was playing a game downtown in the backroom of a chinese restaurant (I know, cliche right?).  Every night this gaunt older Dominican man showed up and lost a few hundred dollars and never seemed particularly happy about it.  One night we were playing 1-2 no limit and the smallest stack at the table was about $500.  One crazy player made his standard raise to $100 and got 2 callers, including the Dominican.  The flop was a rainbow J52 and it checked around.  On the K turn the Dominican bet $100 and the pre-flop raiser went all-in.  The Dominican sighed and muttered “You got it.”  Everyone kind of stared and he repeated more definitively “I said, you got it.”  The player who was all-in threw his cards in the muck face up showing a 67.  The Dominican stared and then said “I got a jack.”  We all stared again as we realized this guy thinks he won the pot!  WE ALL HEARD HIM FOLD.  As the dealer started to push the pot towards the raiser the Dominican guy stands up and says “I GOT A JACK.”  The dealer starts to explain to the guy and he puts his hand under his shirt into his waistband and says “I GOT A JACK!”  As we see the handle start to emerge the dealer stands up and another comes running in.

“Woah woah woah papi!  It’s okay it’s okay, we’ll take care of it!”

The Dominican guy stared and the dealer repeats “We will take care of you.  Johnny, got get some chips for him – $300.”

The Dominican stared at the dealer, then stared at the raiser and finally sat down slowly, $100 richer.

There is really no good way to say it, but shit happens.  Games will get robbed and people will get shot.  Sometimes it’s not even a robbery, but an irate player.  As long as there money in a room someone is going to try to take it.  When you start playing the game and getting money involved you know just have to know something could happen and you have to be prepared.  The best you can do, if you decide to play is not to worry about what might happen, but be prepared if it does.  If someone comes in and wants your money you give it to them.  You cannot control how others act, but you can do your best to protect yourself.

Most of the games are safe, there are security guards stopping the wrong people coming in, but you should always know what might happen and be ready for it.  If you are not, or if this concerns you too much all I can is find some friends to play with or stay home and jump into an online game (as I did for a few weeks after last year’s WSOP after I’d been in the busted game.

Hope this helps.  Be safe!