Getting Robbed Playing Underground Poker in New Jersey
After all these posts about online poker it’s about time I wrote about actually playing poker again… or maybe not quite playing, but why I had to stop playing last week…
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you know that I mostly play in underground games around NYC, but every once in a while I hear about a juicy game outside the city that just seems oh so worthwhile. That was the case last week… I’d been hearing about this poker game in Jersey City, NJ (just across the river from Manhattan) at a little mini underground New Jersey casino. Just a few poker tables, a couple craps tables and a roulette wheel. Like I said, mini.
So, I’d been hearing about this game for a while. It’s not a huge game, just 2-5 no limit, but it plays MUCH bigger. In your normal 2-5NL game in a casino most guys have about $250-$1,000 on the table. In this game everyone starts with about $500, but the reloads come fast and furious. I made sure to get there nice and early to start the game, but within an hour EVERYONE had over $2,500 on the table… DAMN.
I’d had to reload once after getting coolered, but then ran my stack up to $3,200. Just another day in paradise! Except…
“EVERYBODY DOWN! GET THE FUCK DOWN!”
Oh crap… I’d been busted by the NYPD vice squad before, but this didn’t sound like the New Jersey police coming after us…
“I SAID GET THE FUCK DOWN!”
Damn. Hit the floor. I’ll be totally honest when I say I didn’t even look up. From what I could tell there were three of them. And I saw a big ass gun, but they were in and out so fast I barely knew what was happening (except that I couldn’t stop shaking for about 24hrs…). All in all the guys who robbed our game got away with about $50,000. Not bad for 5 minutes “work”. Ugh. I just don’t want to be there when the game’s owner finds the robbers..
Needless to say, our game was done at that point. Luckily they left me my metrocards, so I waited about 10 minutes then wandered out into the ice and cold, took the PATH train back to NYC and vowed never to play underground in New Jersey ever again…
