If You Want Danger, You KNow Where to Find It

[shipitfish]

An email I received on Monday afternoon:

To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: Poker Player Paradise
From: "Name Redacted" <redacted@example.com>
Date: Mon, 5 May 2008 13:04:52 -0400

This is Name Redacted from the old Q. Club in New York City. I have a nice game twice a week in [A NYC Borough]. The stakes rang from 1-2 no limit to 5-5 no limit & we also have pot limit Omaha. I keep this game sort of private and only twice a week to minimize any problems with authority. Our next game will be this Tuesday and our security is top notch. If this game interests you please reply back with a cell phone # and I will personally text you all the info. Not to mention there are a lot of fishes in this sea of players and there's plenty of money to be made.

Now, the Q. Club was the place that was robbed multiple times and where a poker player was shot to death in early November 2007. Name Redacted, was, I think, present at the shooting. Someone must be either stupid or pretty pathetic (or both) to continue in the club business after that sort of experience.

I'm amazed that I ever played in these places. It was a matter of time before danger found them, because too much money changes hands — even in a 1/2 game, let alone 5/5 — for criminals to ignore them. I'm sure that the only possibly “safe” illegal cash games to play in here in NYC are at least a $10,000 buy-in, where real security costs can be raked away without players noticing.

I'm glad I realized that I was making a mistake playing in these places. It's tough to imagine any of these games where the hourly rate is worth the personal danger.

This is just one of many such emails. W.D. or I get an email once every few weeks about new clubs opening, declaring them a “safe environment”. If they are so safe, why do the same people keep closing old clubs and opening new ones?

I have frequent flier miles. If I'm in the mood to play poker, I'll fly to Las Vegas. For now, I'm pretty sure I've wasted enough of my life check-raising tourists and taking huge pots off them.