by pinback » Sun Jan 31, 2021 1:17 pm
The year was 1999. The world was still reeling from the death of Stanley Kubrick. I was on my own in Vancouver, Washington, the city everyone lived in who worked in Portland but didn't want to pay sales tax. The entire town smelled like the local paper mill. These were magical times.
My first time playing actual hold 'em, player real poker for real money with real players was in a nasty old backwoods cardroom in the woods of Vancouver.
I probably did other things, but my memories of that time were that every single night, I would knock off work, go to the Red Robin for a burger and many beers, and then drive to the cardroom with Tool's "Aenima" blasting on my car stereo.
I was a young, vibrant man with decent paychecks and no responsibilities, so every night I was able to buy a "rack" ($100) and play the game. Again, probably other things happened, but my memory is that for the first month or so, I lost my "rack" every single night, and then went defeated up to the bar to commiserate with the craggy old losers who had probably been going there decades before I was.
The game was $3/$6 Limit, which is not what you see on TV. It means in the first two rounds (pre-flop and post-flop), you can only bet or raise three dollars. Then on the turn and river (the last two cards), you can only bet or raise $6. It was comfortable. It was hard to lose a lot at once, and the revelation that poker was a game where on most hands, when you're not in "the blinds", you can just fold and not bet any money at all, made it very appealing. It's more appealing in Vegas or the like, where you can sit there folding and get free drinks at the same time, but in backwoods Vancouver, they weren't giving anything away.
My only memory from the post-defeat bar was an old (redundant, since the average age there was death-plus-ten) dude who noticed I was reading a poker strategy book, and he said, "The books won't help you, son (they did, very much). Just remember, Ten-Jack offsuit (two different suits) is the best hand." This was ridiculous at the outset. AA is the best hand, no matter what planet you're from, but it stuck with me that he mentioned off-suit. I'm sure he had a reason. His reason was bad. He was an idiot. Everyone is terrible at this game. And he's probably dead now. Shows him.
Anyway, one day I actually left with more than I came in with, which was a great moment. I kept at it and became what I would call a player good enough to have fun at the game. I win sometimes, I lose sometimes, but I no longer have to drop a rack a day to learn what I'm doing. I don't "calculate pot odds" to the number, I just have a general sense of what to do, and it's good enough that I have a fighting chance if I'm just playing a bunch of other casuals. I do pretty well on pokernow.club, which is a small enough site that people there generally take the game seriously, and the ones who don't, you meet often enough to know that they're not serious, but more importantly, how they're not serious.
One time I spent an entire night in an Atlantic City cardroom playing $3/$6 with what appeared to be a group of Italian fellows. As the night turned into morning, I noticed more and more of them coming up to this one large fellow and speaking with him. It was Italians and me, until the breakfast buffet opened up. I saw them giving him gifts and money. Eventually it dawned on me that I was playing poker with the east coast mob. I played from about 10 PM to 7 AM, and came out even. The casino comped me a breakfast buffet. I got up from my mob friends and enjoyed my free breakfast. I believe at the time it was the Trump Taj Mahal.
I mean, what's better than that?
At least I got a free breakfast out of that fat fuck.
The year was 1999. The world was still reeling from the death of Stanley Kubrick. I was on my own in Vancouver, Washington, the city everyone lived in who worked in Portland but didn't want to pay sales tax. The entire town smelled like the local paper mill. These were magical times.
My first time playing actual hold 'em, player real poker for real money with real players was in a nasty old backwoods cardroom in the woods of Vancouver.
I probably did other things, but my memories of that time were that every single night, I would knock off work, go to the Red Robin for a burger and many beers, and then drive to the cardroom with Tool's "Aenima" blasting on my car stereo.
I was a young, vibrant man with decent paychecks and no responsibilities, so every night I was able to buy a "rack" ($100) and play the game. Again, probably other things happened, but my memory is that for the first month or so, I lost my "rack" every single night, and then went defeated up to the bar to commiserate with the craggy old losers who had probably been going there decades before I was.
The game was $3/$6 Limit, which is not what you see on TV. It means in the first two rounds (pre-flop and post-flop), you can only bet or raise three dollars. Then on the turn and river (the last two cards), you can only bet or raise $6. It was comfortable. It was hard to lose a lot at once, and the revelation that poker was a game where on most hands, when you're not in "the blinds", you can just fold and not bet any money at all, made it very appealing. It's more appealing in Vegas or the like, where you can sit there folding and get free drinks at the same time, but in backwoods Vancouver, they weren't giving anything away.
My only memory from the post-defeat bar was an old (redundant, since the average age there was death-plus-ten) dude who noticed I was reading a poker strategy book, and he said, "The books won't help you, son (they did, very much). Just remember, Ten-Jack offsuit (two different suits) is the best hand." This was ridiculous at the outset. AA is the best hand, no matter what planet you're from, but it stuck with me that he mentioned [i]off-suit[/i]. I'm sure he had a reason. His reason was bad. He was an idiot. Everyone is terrible at this game. And he's probably dead now. Shows him.
Anyway, one day I actually left with more than I came in with, which was a great moment. I kept at it and became what I would call a player good enough to have fun at the game. I win sometimes, I lose sometimes, but I no longer have to drop a rack a day to learn what I'm doing. I don't "calculate pot odds" to the number, I just have a general sense of what to do, and it's good enough that I have a fighting chance if I'm just playing a bunch of other casuals. I do pretty well on pokernow.club, which is a small enough site that people there generally take the game seriously, and the ones who don't, you meet often enough to know that they're not serious, but more importantly, [i]how[/i] they're not serious.
One time I spent an entire night in an Atlantic City cardroom playing $3/$6 with what appeared to be a group of Italian fellows. As the night turned into morning, I noticed more and more of them coming up to this one large fellow and speaking with him. It was Italians and me, until the breakfast buffet opened up. I saw them giving him gifts and money. Eventually it dawned on me that I was playing poker with the east coast mob. I played from about 10 PM to 7 AM, and came out even. The casino comped me a breakfast buffet. I got up from my mob friends and enjoyed my free breakfast. I believe at the time it was the Trump Taj Mahal.
I mean, what's better than that?
At least I got a free breakfast out of that fat fuck.