Austin Arboretum Game Gets Pinched
AUSTIN–Had a fun, legal home-game tourney with April, Amy, Scott, and a few others today/yesterday. I didn’t do particularly well — but hey, it was April’s 30th birthday, so the Tuaca was flowing and she made one or two brilliant bad calls that caused me to lose.
Such is how poker apparently works in Austin.
Also learned that one of the underground games here got busted recently — “the Arboretum Room.” That sucks, of course …
The details are a little hazy, as I got this info second- and third-hand. But I don’t think it was like the Aces raid in Dallas with an armored SWAT team, TV cameras, and machine guns … and I’m pretty sure no one got arrested or even ticketed. (Can anyone out there provide confirmation or further info?) From what I understand, the cops simply became aware of the game when residents noticed a lot of foot traffic in and out of the first-floor, two-bedroom pad … and, fearing the occupants were drug dealers, alerted the cops. Two (?) APD officers showed up one day (last week? the week before?), knocked on the door, and had a chat with the proprietors — telling them it was time to shut down. Simple enough … and very little paperwork.
I remember the Arboretum game well — a couple nice house guys running a friendly possibly-for-profit “home game” in a large, semi-upscale apartment complex. Three tables, acceptable chips, decent snack foods, and a generally lighthearted, jovial, donkey-rockin’ atmosphere complete with free wi-fi. On my first visit I somehow lost $580 playing $1/$2 NL.
Really, I played great … made spot-on reads and laid beautiful traps while thinking, “sorry boys, that shit just don’t fly up in Dallas,” only to lose to a variety of less-than-four-outers to a bunch of drinky Asians. Like seriously, about five hands that night had me leaving Austin with vehement hatred for the entire Orient … so much so that I could hardly talk to that Kim Jong-il sympathizer Sang upon returning home. The second time I played there I won a few hundred dollars despite the presence of a female hottie with a healthy chip rack at the table. (The room operators really just wanted everyone to have fun — so they hardly enforced the no-trays-on-the-table-for-more-than-a-few-hands rule, and a few others.)
Will let you know more if I learn more. About the bust I mean. Not poker itself, which clearly is still in high demand, legal or otherwise.
Austin Pete says:
October 29th, 2006 at 9:50 am
Thanks for calling while you were in town dick.
DanM says:
October 30th, 2006 at 7:43 am
Peter, I was taking care of very important business and bummed not to see you at Jimmy’s big important party … for which you supposedly RSVP’d. Nice.
Austin Pete says:
October 30th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
Good point. Nice to see you two talking again.
Justin West says:
November 4th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
Interesting. I played / dealt at an Arboretum game a few years ago, did not know there was a new one that cropped up.