I Didn't Mess With Texas …

Last week, I was fortunate to end up on a business trip to Dallas, Texas. For most people, this isn't a major destination. But, I fortunately have been reading the poker journal of swolfe (which is kept at swolfe_poker these days) for about six months. There are not many strong poker players who keep online journals. It's sort of a tendency of strong players that they tend to keep journals early in their play, and taper off as they become particularly strong. However, Steve has kept his journal up quite a bit even as he's become, frankly, an extremely excellent player.

It was a rather funny thing to meet Steve in person. It was actually my first “Internet meetup” — a situation where I had met someone solely online and was going to meet them in person. I have to admit that I had some trepidation about this, but once I jumped into Steve's car in the parking lot of my hotel, and our conversation turned to poker, I was quite comfortable and not worried. He wasn't going to drive me to a ditch and kill me. :)

As we drove, Steve gave me the run-down of the Dallas poker scene. As it stands, they basically have more clubs than NYC, they just don't run every night, and are often one or two table affairs. In one case, two clubs are run by the same person, a fellow named F.J., and he has different clubs going on different nights.

Steve's primary game is $2/$5 NL HE, and the games usually have no maximum buy-in. I primarily play $1/$2, because the games are so easily beaten, but I occasionally take shots at $2/$5. Plus, given that the games Steve knew best were $2/$5, I was happy to take a shot with a somewhat short stack in a game that was a bit big for me.

So, less than an hour from pulling up in the Super Shuttle to my hotel (Steve ended up pulling into the parking lot right behind it), I was walking into the smaller of F.J.'s clubs.

The first thing that struck me was how large apartments are in Dallas. Most of the games are run out of upscale apartment space — but these places are so spacious and well-equipped, they would go easily for at least $10,000/month here in NYC. They've got full, open kitchens, with spacious living rooms and bedrooms and giant bathrooms. It may be cliché that things are bigger in Texas, but when it comes to apartments rented for the purpose of hosting underground poker clubs, there's some truth to it.

I had actually been preparing myself for something that it turns out I need not have worried about — I figured that all the clubs were very smokey. This is an annoyance that you just have to deal with as a non-smoking poker player; a lot of poker players smoke and clubs tend to have an indoor smoking room far too close to the tables. I actually had assumed that there was smoking at the tables in Dallas based on some of Steve's old posts, so I was delightfully surprised to find that there was no smoking anywhere near the table. Indeed, everyone was kind enough to go outside, and, not a club I visited in Dallas was any smokier than any of the NYC clubs I've been to.

So, I stood at our first stop, somewhat shocked when I saw the beautiful apartment and friendly people. In fact, that's what I'll never forget about Dallas poker — the people are so friendly, polite, and respectful. Sure, there was an occasional coffee-houser and table-chatterer, but there was a noticeable difference in demeanor when comparing the NYC players (actually, east coast players in general) to Dallas ones. I have never seen a table full of people take bad beats better, and the camaraderie and goodwill at the table was palpable. I go to NYC games and can't wait to get away from those jerks and take a shower. For example, I was a table the week before I left for Dallas and someone shouted at a dealer: You ass-ramming faggot, why did you put that queen up on the turn?. I couldn't even imagine any Dallas player I met during my week there acting this way toward a dealer or another player. Dallas poker is, in a phrase, classy all the way.

As for the games, they were amazing. I hope to make a post about each night's games, so for this post, I'll focus on the Monday game. This was at F.J.'s smaller club, which had only one table. We arrived at nearly 22:30, and the game was already in full swing with a few very large (over than $1,500) stacks.

I was somewhat nervous; flashing through my mind was the rule of thumb that you should actually always player lower than your regular stakes when you travel. I decided to buy in for $400 (after almost accidentally buying in for $500) and try to get doubled up. Steve had this look on his face worrying that he was leading me to my poker demise.

As it turned out, I was actually somewhat happy with the bad cards I got dealt — a constant series of 92, Q3, 83, and the like. The game was primarily loose-passive, and usually three or six players saw a flop, even for a small raise. I didn't see any point in playing these cards at stakes I was barely comfortable with against players I didn't know well. I got a chance to sit, relax, and see what Dallas NL HE is like.

While I did, I sat in awe of Steve's ability to drag every chip on the table his way. Now, Steve is an amazing player, but he did also get amazingly lucky this evening. I can't remember the count, but I actually believe he flopped six sets that night, and stacked someone on nearly every one! Part of this, I gather, was Steve cashing in on a very aggressive historical table image, but he was assisted in that nearly everyone the game thought any two pair holding was worth the backing their whole stack. Also, most of the players rarely folded top pair with some sort of reasonable kicker, unless the board got particularly complicated.

Every few rounds, there'd be some crazy three-way all-in where someone would decided to take a stand on a medium stack with some suited ace or middle pair and another two would come along for the ride. I kept hoping I'd get some sort of hand at these moments, but when I saw 94 for the sixth time, I figured I should toss it and wait for a better spot.

I played only one serious hand that night, where I flopped a nut flush draw with A 6 from the unraised big blind on Q 3 5. I semi-bluffed two streets, hoping to cash in on my tight image and get a pot. Sadly, C.S., a loose-passive regular, decided to call me down on both streets for pot-sized bets and I decided he either had a flush draw I had beat or he wasn't giving up some queen. (He wasn't really the type to bluff at the river when he missed, but would call if he made any pair most of the time, I figured I'd check and hope I was good in that case.) He showed Q 2 and I realized maybe I should have fired the last barrel when I missed the river, but I am not sure I could have gotten him off it.

We finally headed out around 02:00 and, as the valet brought his car, I asked Steve, wide-eyed, are the games always that loose? and he answered in his matter-of-fact way, Sure. I had work email to answer ,and then I was going to get only four hours of sleep before I had to go to a conference meeting the next day, but I was already figuring out a way I could get out again on Tuesday night to see some more clubs.

Oh, and of course I chuckled to myself a dozen times realizing that I had, for the first time in my life, played Texas Hold'em in the actual, real life Texas. Sure it's cheezy, but it's still darn cool. Maybe the next night, I would mess a bit with Texas. :)