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Those of you who have quit your job to play poker for a living know that your friends have one of two reactions. Half the friends think it is the coolest idea ever and want to tell everyone they know that you have become a “professional poker player.” The other half, probably like your parents, tell you that you should probably just “quit while you’re ahead.”
If you quit to play in underground poker games in New York City, you can add in another group though, those who are worried you are going to get arrested, robbed, or shot. I guess some of those concerns are not that unfounded…
I began feeling out my friends to see if they would want to buy a piece of my action for the World Series of Poker, and found limited success. Some friends wanted to but did not feel comfortable with it, others just did not have the money or were worried about losing their jobs so wanted to save everything they had. I did find some success though and sold off $3000 of the $7000 I was looking for.
Next I approached people I used to work with, particularly those I knew loved poker and had introduced me to the New York poker scene. There I hit pay dirt. Everyone wanted a piece of someone playing in the WSOP just on the off chance that I hit. Within a week of blasting out a couple emails I was oversubscribed and had to start turning down investors. I wished I’d sold my shares for a higher price, but once I brought on investors at $1.40 per buy-in dollar I felt I had to honor it. It’s been said over and over again, all you have in poker or any gambling industry is your word. Once that is bad you have nothing else.
$10,000 in hand I did what any good player would do, I used part of my bankroll to jump on to the online poker sites PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker and tried to win a seat to the main event so I could get free lodging, spending cash, and essentially freeroll the WSOP.
I have to apologize for the delay. After getting busted by the NYPD vice squad playing in midtown I took a little break. Not from playing, but from playing sketchy games… well, from playing SUPER sketchy poker games. And, in the interest of not being hassled, I took a break from posting here.
Since it is coming up on World Series of Poker time again I thought it a good time to fill you all in on what has been happening.
Shortly after the bust I packed up and went to Vegas to play in the World Series of Poker. Forget the Rounders cliches, if you’re anybody in poker, that is to say anyone who plays poker for a living, you go to Vegas in July and you play in the WSOP. Even if you’re a banking-industry castoff who is playing 1-2 and 2-5 no limit for a living you scrounge up a bankroll and you find $10,000 to buy in.
A rule of thumb in the poker world is to have about 50 buy-ins for a poker tournament. Numbers vary, but I think that is reasonable. To put it bluntly I do not have $500,000 to put into poker tournaments. That said, the WSOP main event is the biggest poker tournament in the world and I wanted to have as much of myself as possible in the event. I decided to put in $3000 myself and sell off the other $7000 for 50%.
For those of you who have never tried to sell pieces of yourself before, it is an odd process. We all have friends who have said “You play poker? If I give you $100 can you turn it into $200??” Remember how obnoxious that was? Well, now you have to go talk to those friends and convince them that you the expected value on their $100 is $300, but that they could lose it all if you get unlucky or play poorly.
You might think the first people you’d want to talk to are your parents, but think about that. Do you REALLY want your parents questioning your chosen profession again? Chances are they were not thrilled with your original chosen profession. Do you really want them to have 7000 new reasons to convince you to leave?
So the other option is your friends…
All of a sudden the monitors went black, the dealers sprinted from their seats in the box, trying to look like normal patrons, and the NYPD Vice Squad busted into the room screaming “Everybody! Hands up! Hands over your heads!”
We all froze, hands high in the air, nobody moving a muscle.
“Anybody have any weapons on them???”
Silence.
The cops searched the whole apartment, presumably for money, drugs, people, whatever they could find. Then, with the 20 of us still sitting there, hands over our heads, they took us into the back room one by one.
When it was my turn to go the officer had me put my hands against the wall while he patted me down and emptied my pockets. Then a barrage of questions: name, address, logistics about the game etc etc. Thankfully I had only been here a couple times before so I could truthfully answer “I don’t know.”
The cop explained to me that they were not here for the players, they were only here to get the people running the games. They didn’t even take the $300 cash he found while patting me down!
Then something truly inexplicable happened. The cop asked me if I ever play in Atlantic City. I told him I do, and even sometimes up in Foxwoods. He seemed to be hanging on to my every word, so I told him about a trip I had planned to go to Vegas soon for the 2009 World Series of Poker, and he got really excited. Started asking me all sorts of questions about Vegas and the WSOP ad generally just forgot about why we were in this back room together.
Finally the door opened and he came out of his reverie. It was time for me to go back out to the general populous.
I sat back down in the main room, this time with my hands down, and two hours after seeing the Vice Squad sprint up the stairs I was free to wander back out on to the streets… Minus the $1,000 I left on the table.
Last night was going great until the SWAT team busted down the door.
I’ll back up.
About a week ago I started going to a new game. A dealer friend of mine mentioned a new spot he was working and suggested I stop by. The game was old school NYC poker club. It was nicer than any I’d been in, had two tables running, and even had a full on security system. Cameras watched you from the second you buzzed the building’s front door all the up to the apartment on the 4th floor.
Not only did this spot have a unique knack of making a player feel safe, but it also seemed to attract some of the weakest fish I had ever seen.
So after a couple weekend nights playing this new game I decided to come in on a weekday and see what the action was like. Just as I got there last night people were sitting down in the second game to start playing. I bought in a little deep, $300 in a $1-2NL game, and sat down ready to grind.
About five hands into the night this hand came up. I raised in middle position with ThTc and got three callers. The flop came Ts5c2s. I bet about ¾ of the pot to force any flush or straight draws to pay. I got one caller, a notorious chaser. The turn was my gin card, the 5s. This card made my opponent’s flush, but also completed my full house. I checked to the villain and slowly called his bet. On the blank river I went all-in and was insta-called by his flush. Good game you.
After picking up a few little pots here and there I pulled almost the same exact stunt on another player who was sitting $400 deep, and got his whole stack. What a night. Only about 2hrs in and I’m already sitting on a $1,000 stack! This game was great, but unfortunately it was a must-move, which means as seats opened in the main game players had to move from my table. Unfortunately the main table was a terrible nitty game, so by the time I was next to move I figured I would just rack up and leave when it was my turn to push.
And the all hell broke loose.
All of a sudden the monitors lit up with cops in uniform sprinting up the building’s stairs with guns drawn…
I will post the rest of this story in the next few days.
When I left you I was on the bus to Atlantic City, recounting past adventures with colorful degenerates. So, I was on my way down to Caesar’s in AC to play the $340 buy-in WSOP Circuit event. The tournament gave plenty of chips to start and nice long levels, so there was no reason to bust out early.
I found my table and sat down in the 4-seat. Looking around, the table did not look too worrying. The guy immediately to my right was youngish & aggressive looking, while the rest were middle-aged to old and either looked uncomfortable at the table or looked entirely too confident. In the words of Quagmire from Family Guy, “Dear Diary, Jackpot.”
We played raise and take it for a while, followed by raise, continuation bet, and take it, which brought me up to about 6000 chips (from a starting stack of 4000). I had most of the table covered, with the exception of the 7-seat, who had been given a gift of a double-up by a guy making a move with 2nd pair. Then this hand came up. I was on the button, the 1-seat called, I raised with TsTh, the big blind called, and the 1 seat called. The flop came 2s5s7h. Big blind checked, 1-seat bet into me, I went all-in (having them both covered by about 2000 chips), big blind called, and 1-seat called. Big blind had a set of sevens and 1-seat had AcQc for the nut flush draw. Turn was a 9h and the river was the Tc. I rivered a set, but it made the 1-seat’s flush. Thankfully the big blind had more chips than the 1-seat, so I got a small rebate.
After raising or 3-betting a few hands, I worked my way up a little, and when I failed ot get paid off with the nut straight, I made my way back up to about 4000. Then came my rapid demise.
Blinds were 100-200, button was on the 9-seat, the 3-seat called, and I called with 99. The 6-seat threw in 2 chips, meaning to call, but actually throwing in a purple and a black for a raise to 600 (As soon as he realized his mistake he said “Crap, is that binding?? And the dealer declared a raise to 600). Knowing this, the 8-seat just called, everyone else folded, including the 3-seat, and I was put to a decision. With 1900 in the pot and 4000 behind, I thought there was a good chance I could just take the pot right here. The 6-seat will almost always fold to a raise, unless he is shooting an angle, and the 7-seat has to fold. His call has shown that he has something like KQ, QJ, or a pair, mostly likely 99 or worse. After the mistaken raise he would have re-raised with any decent hand. So I shoved.
The 6-seat insta-folded and the 7-seat thought for at least a few minutes. I had him covered by 200 chips, so he was calling 3800 chips to win 5700. After a few minutes, he finally calls… and rolls over KQ offsuit. We are off to the races. He rivers a Q on me and that is pretty much it for my tournament life. An interesting play, and one that really should have worked, but sometimes shit happens.
Busted from the tournament I stuck my tail back between my legs and grabbed the next bus back to the City. I could have sworn I saw the crotchety old dealer sitting in the back seat.
A lot of players will think I’m crazy, but I have always enjoyed playing tournaments. Granted, they are high variance and can take forever, but your payday can be huge, so what the heck I’ll play them every once in a while.
The WSOP Circuit was in town recently. By “in town” I actually mean Atlantic City, NJ, and although this blog is generally about playing the underground games in the city, occasionally you will have to indulge me on a trip to one of the dirtiest, most depressing places on earth, the land happily known by only its initials A & C.
The bus down to AC is a cheap easy jaunt, two hours, $15 when you clear your bonus at the casino, and some of the least enjoyable company you could imagine. Granted, not everyone is angry and depressed, but any random sample will likely find at least 70% with those two attributes. Indulge me in a story from my past:
A couple years ago, when I was playing poker seriously, but not professionally, I decided to make the trek to Atlantic city late one night. It was about midnight, one of the last busses for the night, and I had had a few too many drinks to be making rational decisions like “not going to AC”, but there was a big July 4th tournament at the Borgata the next day, so at the last minute I took a friend up on her offer of a free suite at Bally’s and bussed on out of the city.
The man sitting next to me was old and weathered looking. He looked, well, like he should be on a bus to Atlantic City at midnight on the Tuesday before 4th of July. He looked like a slot jockey, that beautiful creature who can sit for hours praying to its one-armed god – now more like its buttoned god. A creature who needs nothing more than a frequent player’s card, a lanyard, and a bucket full of quarters to find true happiness.
We are about 20 minutes into the ride when I turn to my companion and ask “So what are you going down to play” and his response surprised me.
“1-2 no limit at the Trop and 5-10 stud at the Taj” he grumbled.
A little surprised I asked what he did for a living and he muttered “That.”
Okay, at this point the old guy kind of surprised me, but I guess maybe he was some retiree eeking out a living between that and social security, or maybe he had a nice retirement fund to work with.
After another minute or two of small talk and short answers, yeah, I was prying, the guy says “I deal a game out of Queens too.” Okay, so the guy deals in Queens and plays in AC.
“What’d you do before that?”
“Before that?”
“Before you were dealing a game in Queens.”
“What do you mean before I was dealing a game in Queens? When I was growing up I ran a craps game for my dad, then I started dealing.”
Okay, there was my answer. A man who spent his life in the New York gambling world. When he was young it was craps, now at the age most men are retiring to the golf courses he has graduated to poker.
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Atlantic City.
By eight o’clock 4 other players, including Marciel, had arrived and we were ready to get playing. I remembered how crazy the last game was and decided that rather than playing relatively short stacked with only $200 in front of me, I would play with $300 and see what happened.
The game finally got going with me, Marciel, and the five others playing and Jaimo dealing. The two guys with Jaimo were all playing short stacked, they bought in for $100 a piece and the others all bought in for $300 to $600. Immediately the game started going a little crazy. I realized why the buddies were buying in for only $100 when both of them were all-in within the first ten minutes. Even stronger than that, they were both called when they pushed. One doubled up and the other rebought. Apparently the first game wasn’t a fluke.
The game was running pretty standard with Marciel raising every time it came to him and everyone else calling, with me trying to play solid / nitty when this hand came up. By this time we had a full 10-handed game. I had worked my way up to a little over $400 and most of the rest of the table had the same or more. I was under the gun and looked down at KK (suits didn’t matter in this hand). Knowing it was going to get raised and called I decided to limp in for $3. One other player called before Marciel raised to $30 and five other players called before it got back to me. With $190 in the pot I went all-in with my $400, figuring either I would take it down right there, or I would get a call with a medium pair who thought I was just trying to buy the pot. The next limper folded, as did Marciel and the following two players. Marciel’s third caller thought for about a minute before he shoved all his chips in the middle, about $600, and everyone else folded.
Now, in tournaments it is pretty standard that if you go all in and get called you have to turn over your hand. This is not the case in cash games, but in most casinos people will turn over their hands. Not so in this game. The board ran out 9572…J. He waited for me to show my hand, looked down at his, looked back up at mine, looked back down at his, and rolled over J9 for 2-pair…
Okay, sorry it has been so long between posts. I’ve been playing a ton of games and have been ridiculously busy. But, I’ve been keeping a journal and will be inputting from that some, and live updating some.
I decided to go back to the game down by Wall Street again last night. The game had not run in a few nights – I guess everyone was still recovering from the last game – but around 5PM yesterday I received a text from an unknown number “1-3NL 2nite 7pm xxx Xst.” Now this is how these games are advertised. Every night a game runs, the organizer (usually the dealer) sends out texts to everyone in his list letting them know when and where the game will run.
I set out for the game, this time without Jacob or anyone else I knew, just me heading into the New York night, a fold of 6 slightly worn hundred dollar bills lining my front left pocket. I felt almost invisible. I passed a police officer and he had no idea where I was going, but I did. I cockily winked at the NYU girl walking into Murray Hill. I was part of a New York that almost no one knew. I was a New York City underground poker player.
I got off the 6 train at Brooklyn Bridge and walked down towards Wall St. and the luxury building hosting our underground card room. I could have sworn the doorman gave me a slight nod as I passed, but I did not want to stay to find out. Into the elevator and up 5 floors I went, praying the young yuppie couple with their teacup poodle did not get out at the fifth floor. What would I do if they did? How would I explain where I was going? All of a sudden my cockiness was gone and I felt a sense of paranoia. Thankfully, my fear was short-lived. I got off at 5 and the couple kept going up.
I turned right and entered the door marked storage and… I was all alone. No other players, no large Puerto Rican, no chips, no cards. Just me. Well, upon a closer look, just me and a poker table in the back room. At least I was back at the right place.
Finally after waiting for half an hour Jaimo and his buddies walked in. They greeted me like they’d known me for years, rather than one night a few days ago, and apologized for being a little late. They try to get people there by seven, they explained, but often the games don’t get started until later.
When I left you in my last post I had just arrived at my first New York City underground poker game to find a game going seven-handed with $5000 on the table! If you haven’t read it yet, you can catch up here.
I sat down at the table and my body shivered. The hundreds of hours of poker I have played sitting in front of a computer and at various casinos were nothing compared to this.
Remember that seen in Rounders where Mike McDermott walks into KGB’s place and gets his stacks of high society? You can tell how nervous he is standing there covering his chips with his baseball cap. He’s nervous Knish will see what he’s doing. He’s nervous about the game he’s about to sit in. He’s nervous about what his life is about to turn into.
I can’t claim to be a Mike McDermott, but I’m pretty damn good, and I had my own Rounders moment here, sitting down at this table for the first time. I felt like my body was shaking so badly I would never be able to put a chip in the pot without knocking over the whole table. This was my Rounders moment. This is why I started playing cards. I wanted that feeling, that rush that you could not get from anything else. I wanted to live slightly on the edge of society, in a word apart from normal New York society. Here I was, ready to play cards.
With so much money on the table I knew there was no way I could not crush this game.
I only brought about $600 with me, so I bought in for $200 at first, figuring the game would play like any normal $1-2NL game I had ever played. Jaimo, a very large, very tattooed Puerto Rican man brought me my two stacks of red chips and wished me luck. I hunkered down to play some cards.
Immediately I am dealt AJ of diamonds and I raise from $3 to $15. Next to me, on my left is a middle-aged, slightly overweight, balding Dominican named Mani. Mani barely acknowledges me, barely looks at his own cards, and raises to $50. One other player calls and the rest fold. The action returns to me and I figure with such a strong raise and a call, I really must be in terrible shape, so I fold as well. As the action builds in this hand, so does the pot. Mani bets $100 on the flop and his opponent calls. On the turn Mani bets $250 and the opponent goes all-in for $750 total. Mani calls. After the river is dealt the two turned over their hands. Mani’s opponent won the pot with A7 for one pair of aces, and beating Mani’s A4! I could not believe what kind of game I just stumbled in to.
As the night wore on I continued to play, but had to completely reevaluate the way I played poker. There was no rhyme or reason to the plays my opponents were making. Mani, who sat immediately to my left raised every hand no matter what he had. I saw him get into $1000 pots with one pair, no pair, and the stone cold nuts. It was impossible to ever tell what he had, since he almost always put all his money in the middle.
I finished slightly behind on the night, but mostly just sat and watched the insanity.
Wow. Okay, that’s all I can say right now is wow… I went to my first game last night. Like I said in my first post, I don’t really have a lot of money right now. I expected to get a huge bonus, but the economy went down the shitter and I lost my job. Meanwhile I have been spending all my money on an apartment I cannot afford in a city I can no longer afford. So I am starting in the lowest stakes and working my way up.
Most casinos spread $1-2 no limit games, but in NYC the low limit games tend to all be $1-3 no limit. Also, at casinos you usually can only buy-in for about $300 in a $1-2NL game, but in the underground games you can generally buy in for whatever you want… and people do.
Jacob, my old boss (see last week’s post), met me at the old trading floor downtown last night around 8PM to take me to the game. We were walking north from Wall Street to play a game just around the corner. I’ve seen just about everything in poker, but really did not expect what I saw next.
We walked into one of the most luxury apartment buildings in that part of the city, right past the doorman (who I always thought was supposed to stop people like us from coming in unannounced). We went to the fifth floor, left the elevators, and turned right down the hallway. We walked into a door marked “Storage”, through the first room, and into a back room with only enough room for a poker table, 11 seats, and a television.
At 8PM the game was already in full swing. Seven players and a dealer at the table, plus a couple alternate dealers hanging around to change money and get drinks for everyone. I looked around the table and there was a range of people, New York City truly is a melting pot… I was the youngest here, which probably meant the smartest too, but there were a few white men in business casual dress who could not have been much older than I. There was one middle aged white man, and the rest were middle aged or older Dominicans and Puerto Ricans. I was not at all surprised it was all men.
What I WAS surprised about was the amount of money on the table. They were playing $1-3NL with 7 players and there was already about $5000 on the table! My mouth started to water thinking about how terrible these guys must be and how juicy this game looked!
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