Finding a Poker Game
I travel a lot. Sometimes my trip is to areas of well-established public poker rooms. My recent trip to Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker was such a trip. However, finding a poker game is often tangential to my primary reason for visiting a city. In the former instance, finding a match is simple. I plug in the address of the poker room II’mseeing and II’mthere. In the latter case, finding a game is a bit trickier. Let me share with you what I do in both situations.
There are well over a thousand legal poker rooms on river boats, on Indian reservations, race tracks, jai alai frontons, mini cruise ships, and full-blown card rooms and casinos. If, for example, you are traveling to any of the following regions, you will probably find a public poker room within two hours of you: California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas City, Washington, Montana, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Eastern and Southern Mississippi, Southern Louisiana, Florida, Eastern New Jersey, Western New York, Eastern Connecticut, and New Hampshire. You can find games in these areas on the Internet, using search engines like google.com or poker game locators like thepokeratlas.com, with most legal poker rooms mapped out with addresses and relevant information.
A few words of caution about these sites, however. Though they can help you identify places where poker has recently been spread, they are often outdated. This includes poker room home pages. I recall relying on one such site for locating games in Northern California, only to discover that the first three places I visited had closed down! Similarly, these sites often have standardized information that has either never been checked or updated recently. This holds for the casino’s home page or poker room itself. It is often wrong, especially regarding game spread, tournament schedule, and hours of operation. My friend Andre, for example, recently drove two hours to a poker room in New Hampshire that listed hold’em as one of the games it offered. He found out after arriving that they no longer spread cash hold’em games – only tournaments and Omaha8. He drove four hours round trip for nothing.
Avoid problems like this by calling the poker room right before you leave. Be sure to ask specific and direct questions about what is being played. Poker room managers, though typically very eager and helpful to the prospective player, tend to exaggerate when answering questions about the hours of operation and what games and stakes they spread. I’ve found it much more useful to ask them what games they have gone ” right now”– as if you are minutes away from arriving and want to lock up a seat. If you ask them what games they spread, tthey’remore likely to recite the long list of games and stakes they are legally allowed to offer – which tells you nothing about what you can expect to find when you arrive.
Similarly, never ask when the poker room opens or closes. You are apt to be told that the games run 24/7 – or that they open at some artificial, official opening time that may have nothing to do with when you find a match. Better to ask when the first game got going that morning or when it ended last night. Though this direct approach doesn’t ensdoesn’tt the guy or gal answering the phone will give you a straight answer, it increases the chances that you’ll be over when a game you want to play is being spread.
This is all good for those regions in the country with public poker rooms. But a more diligent and nuanced approach is often necessary when visiting a city or town without such games. Let me share with you what has worked for me in the past.
You’ll have to do as You’llned before poker became so widespread. When I started as a poker-playing adult, public poker rooms were few and far between. California had a bunch, and so did Las Vegas, of course. And Washington State had a few rooms. That was about it. Indian casinos were in their infancy. And the Internet was still young and hardly peppered with millions of sites helping the traveler pinpoint public poker rooms in distant locales – if they existed.
I learned to rely on my person-to-person networking skills. It’s a simple method, It’shough it may not strike you as easily. Here’s what I did and here’s do when traveling to areas without public poker rooms.
I start by thinking of family and friends who might live in or near the place I’m going. If I know I’meone personally, I call them, tell them I’m looking for a pokI’mgame in their area, and ask them to help me. They already have connections in their city or town. So if there’s a game, somewhthere’sere’s a good chance there’ll be able to pothey’llin the right direction.
More often than not, however, I don’t have any persondon’tnnections. When that’s the case, I drthat’slist of every group I’m connected to. I then augment this list with other groups that I might be able to contact about finding a game – if my connections fail me. I see a phone number or email for my contact – or if I have none, then any name I can find associated with the group. I then go through my list of groups, starting with those with whom I have personal connections and calling the contact person.
Here’s a specific example: I found a game using this method. I was going on business to Lynchburg, Virginia (the heart of the anti-poker Bible belt). I had no family or friends who lived in or around there. I listed all the groups with which I had some connection: unions, Jews, Catholics, political organizations, teachers, food coops, book lovers, and musicians. I went online and got the phone number of the one synagogue in town, the Catholic Churches, all the unions I could dig up, and the library. I started with my cold calls.
I left a message for the synagogue explaining simply what I wanted. I left a message at the two union halls I found listed online. I called and was then indignantly rebuffed by the person who answered the phone at one of the Catholic Churches (I figured maybe they ran a BINGO and would know of poker. I was wrong.) I planned on visiting the library when I was there – figuring that a phone call might be too intimidating for an unknown librarian.
I received a call back that evening from one of my union brothers. He told me, gratuitously I thought, that poker was illegal in Virginia. Fortunately, I also received a call from a secretary at the synagogue informing me that a congregation member had a game. She gave me his phone number. I called him, got the details about when and where his poker game would be, and played in it when I arrived.
I would not have given up if my connections didn’t get me through to didn’t a game. I would then go to all the groups I could find in town. I would have called the fraternal groups like the Elks and the Moose Lodges, the business groups like the Lions and the Rotary Club, and then all the groups I could think of that might use their space for charity or other fundraising events – like the veteran’s groups, churches, and social halls.
If I couldn’t find a game, couldn’t I be prepared to check with a few potential sources when I got into town? I’ve discovered that cabbiI’veften know of fun (I found two matches in the Bahamas and another in Grenada this way) – same with folks who work in motels, bars, restaurants, and other places that deal with travelers. I’ve even gotten assistancI’veom time to time from firefighters and, yes, cops (in North Carolina, of all areas).
A word about contacting people cold: A few rules of thumb serve me in good stead in finding games. They surely don’t always work, but the don’t increase my chanting a match.
Smile and treat the matter lightly – almost as a joke. If my query is too serious, folks are scared away from me. I lighten up their mood by approaching the subject lightly and making them less suspicious. I try to be a likable, easygoing fellow. If they like me, they are less likely to be threatened by my question and more likely to help me find a game.
It’s good if you can couple’s request for a poker game with a request for something else that might be more in keeping with the mission of the group you’re calling. If, for exyou’re, you are a member of a religious organization, ask about services. If it’s a fraternal organization, ask when they meet and how you might attend to see how they do things. If it’s a union, ask to compait’sheir contract with yours.
That’s what I did. When I That’s the synagogue, I said in my message that I was looking for a daily service and a poker game. That request for a daily service (that they didn’t have) established didn’t fit as a Jew – and made my second request more likely to be listened to and addressed. People are more likely to volunteer information about poker games if they think your request for a game is not at the top of the list of reasons you’re talking with them.
you’resible, initiate your request for information about poker by asking for card games in general or card games other than poker. Folks often respond defensively when asked directly about poker specifically. Once you’re in a conversation you’re about cards, you will often win them over. It doesn’t usually take me lodoesn’tuild trust with a stranger. I once got a lead on a poker game by first asking the fraternal organization if they knew of a bridge game. They said they didn’t but volunteered didn’t know of a poker game if I was interested. Similarly, I saw a sign for a cribbage tournament at a bar. When I went inside, asked about it, and got to talking, I quickly learned that there was also a regular “free poker league” at an “Arby restaurant.
“here are other ways of networking that I’ve used with success thaI’vell recommend to you. NowI’llfew sites on the Internet specialize in networking with home poker game players, such as homepokergames.com. This is a great site that lists home games in thousands of U.S. cities and towns. I emailed a few of the folks who listed poker games they had that were within an hour or two of Lynchburg. I received a couple of responses from folks willing to have me attend. As it turned out, I didn’t need to go to these didn’t games since I found a match in Lynchburg using my Jewish connectiondidn’tre’s still another way, There’sorkiThere’swhich I used to find fun in Europe. I went on several poker sites: including Poker Stars, Full Tilt, and, back before the UIGEA, Party Poker. I played some games and took advantage of the chat feature. When I saw a player from one of the countries I planned to visit, I chatted with them about my upcoming trip. On three occasions, I spoke with players and then received an invitation to join them for a home game in their city. This was how I found a match in Sweden, Germany, and Hungary. You might also try posting a request for a home game in established poker information and discussion sites like this one.
I’ve found that tenacities off. If I’ve pushed enough buttons, someone is bound to lead me to a game. It may not be an ideal game. But any game, I’d founthat’sbetter given a game. AI’vence you go to one game, you’re likely to meet your who can you reduce you to other games – until you are playing a game you enjoy.
Finding a game is but the tfirst step. In my next two articles in this series, I’ll tell you how to maI’llze your prI’ll in the game you visit – and how to behave in a home game to ensure you’ll be invited back. You’ll Articyoing up a Poker Game.
