Monday, March 21, 2005
"The Warehouse"
So this group of guys that I play hold'em with a few times a week play in this other pot limit game every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday at the "warehouse". They've been trying to convince me to come along for a couple months now but there's just something about playing in a "warehouse" that sounds a little too much like I'm gonna get shot up leaving the place for my taste. And yet, I finally gave in and went over there one night. I ride along with my buddy Motown since no one can really give me directions to this place. We end up over in this industrial section near an area where at least five bodies have been found over the last year or so. Great start.
So we roll up to the (illegal) card game and go behind these two buildings into a secluded parking lot. Card game is in the building on the left and a cop shop is in the building on the right. So suddenly I'm having flashes of Rounders in my head. Motown and I get a little too hot with the cards and suddenly people are asking about mechanic's grips and I'm getting the shit beat out of me and driving back to the city to face Grandma... but I digress.
We have to get buzzed in the security door, go up to the third floor and walk into this room of about thirty or so people. Three tables are running, fully stocked refrigerator with anything you could want to drink and dealers. I feel like I might as well be sitting down in the Phillip Morris plant as much smoke as is hanging in this place.
I ask my buddy who we need to buy in from, he tells me Rob and kind of nods over his shoulder. I turn around to look, and no shit, Rob is a dead ringer for Teddy KGB. So this place is basically Rounders melded into Boiler Room. A bunch of local high school and college kids gambling with their parents' money, a few random guys in their mid-twenties (not that there's anything wrong with that) and then a bunch of 30 and 40 year olds. Just when I thought this city was pretty stale, something comes along and changes my mind.
For the next couple hours I proceed to get decent cards with three handed action that generally go a little something like this:
Everyone's in for $.50, then someone pot raises and two or three other people are in. If I'm in a hand I've got A10, K10, Q10 or J10. And every single time the flop comes 10 high rainbow, with like a 73 or 62 with it. After a couple big lead outs, or pot size raises I'm just about all in on the turn were I'm getting busted up by a bunch of damn maniacs playing 73 or 62, which is called the Simpkins. I'm not sure I like playing in a card game where 62 offsuit actually has a name for its successful use. I'm more than happy to accept the proper use and place of the Hammer but this is ridiculous.
Then I realize that I've walked into a game much like the one my friends and I play. A place where smart poker is not allowed to show its face because everyone knows how everyone else plays. So you have to play crazy cards to make any kind of headway. Meanwhile on the table Motown is sitting, people who know him are still playing right into his spade flush draws and J5 flops.
Net result: Motown leaves up $40, I leave down $110. I played A10 suited and he played J5 offsuit into raises. Somehow life just doesn't seem fair...
So we roll up to the (illegal) card game and go behind these two buildings into a secluded parking lot. Card game is in the building on the left and a cop shop is in the building on the right. So suddenly I'm having flashes of Rounders in my head. Motown and I get a little too hot with the cards and suddenly people are asking about mechanic's grips and I'm getting the shit beat out of me and driving back to the city to face Grandma... but I digress.
We have to get buzzed in the security door, go up to the third floor and walk into this room of about thirty or so people. Three tables are running, fully stocked refrigerator with anything you could want to drink and dealers. I feel like I might as well be sitting down in the Phillip Morris plant as much smoke as is hanging in this place.
I ask my buddy who we need to buy in from, he tells me Rob and kind of nods over his shoulder. I turn around to look, and no shit, Rob is a dead ringer for Teddy KGB. So this place is basically Rounders melded into Boiler Room. A bunch of local high school and college kids gambling with their parents' money, a few random guys in their mid-twenties (not that there's anything wrong with that) and then a bunch of 30 and 40 year olds. Just when I thought this city was pretty stale, something comes along and changes my mind.
For the next couple hours I proceed to get decent cards with three handed action that generally go a little something like this:
Everyone's in for $.50, then someone pot raises and two or three other people are in. If I'm in a hand I've got A10, K10, Q10 or J10. And every single time the flop comes 10 high rainbow, with like a 73 or 62 with it. After a couple big lead outs, or pot size raises I'm just about all in on the turn were I'm getting busted up by a bunch of damn maniacs playing 73 or 62, which is called the Simpkins. I'm not sure I like playing in a card game where 62 offsuit actually has a name for its successful use. I'm more than happy to accept the proper use and place of the Hammer but this is ridiculous.
Then I realize that I've walked into a game much like the one my friends and I play. A place where smart poker is not allowed to show its face because everyone knows how everyone else plays. So you have to play crazy cards to make any kind of headway. Meanwhile on the table Motown is sitting, people who know him are still playing right into his spade flush draws and J5 flops.
Net result: Motown leaves up $40, I leave down $110. I played A10 suited and he played J5 offsuit into raises. Somehow life just doesn't seem fair...
