According to Fox 4 and Mesquite police, Tracey Moore, 35, apparently the game’s host, was shot and killed while scuffling with the armed intruder at an apartment in the 5900 block of Northwest Dr, shortly after midnight yesterday.

Another player, Jerome Johnson, 34, carrying a licensed concealed handgun, shot back, killing the suspect, too. Police have not yet released the alleged robber’s identity. And though they say it appears to be a case of self-defense, a grand jury will decide whether or not Johnson will face any charges.

McDaniel.

Bosch.

James McDaniel gets sentenced today. McDaniel, of course, is the smooth-talking, purple-suit-wearing rogue Dallas underground-poker-room-operator/drug-dealer convicted in June for contributing to the overdose death of SMU coed Meaghan Bosch. Good money says he will go to prison for the rest of his life … as he was already on parole after serving 20 years for the murder of a former Dallas cop before he got into the underground poker scene. Jurors in the Bosch case were not told his past murder conviction, nor were they allowed to consider allegations from up to a dozen young women claiming they were drugged and raped inside his poker room, some of them apparently on video.

UPDATE: McDaniel did indeed get life. He is currently in custody at Seagoville’s federal prison, but will likely be sent to a less comfortable state prison to finish out his old murder sentence before being sent back to Seagoville for his time on Bosch’s death.

Oscarsson.

Meanwhile, Swedish police are still looking for clues around Europe in the murder of PokerListings founder Andreas Oscarsson. They’ve concluded that indeed his killing was carefully planned by a professional hitman — with his family home fully staked out, exits noted, etc. … allowing the killer to break into the house and fire six silenced shots into Oscarsson and then leave without waking his six family members also asleep in the house that night. And while no motive has been disclosed, apparently investigators have unearthed at least a few death threats against him. and possibly have ruled out some Latvians.

Click here and here for Google translations of the latest from Hungarian news reports.

Dean.

Urch.

And Daniel Dean will get a new trial in the death of fellow amateur poker player Mark Urch. The two players were involved in a drunken dispute over hands in an Australian amateur pub tourney, and when they took matters outside, Dean leveled Urch with a single punch to the head, a blow that caused his death a couple days later. Australian courts sentenced Dean to seven years for manslaughter (eligible for release in May 2011). However, an appeals court threw out the conviction last month and ordered a retrial, on the grounds that the judge may have misinformed the jury about provocation and self-defense matters of law.

There’s a Daniel Dean support group on Facebook.

Update from the Morning News:

Monday’s trial of the ex-con accused of causing the overdose death of Southern Methodist University student Meaghan Bosch has been postponed, the judge ordered Thursday.

James McDaniel’s defense attorney, Thomas Mills Jr., is ill, according to court documents. No new date has been set. McDaniel faces up to life in prison if convicted of charges that he supplied Bosch, 21, of McKinney, with drugs that caused her death. She was found dead May 14, 2007, in a portable toilet at a construction site near Waco. Her death followed two other fatal overdoses of SMU students, prompting criticism that the university was ignoring a severe drug problem.

Prosecutors say that McDaniel drugged and raped other female SMU students who attended his underground poker games near campus and that they plan to call some of them to testify. McDaniel also supplied students with drugs, prosecutors allege.

McDaniel, a convicted murderer and self-described professional poker player, has denied he caused Bosch’s death. He also denies selling drugs or committing sexual assaults.

This robbery does not appear to be the work of the homicidally notorious Dallas Poker Bandits, unless they drastically changed their MO. The unconfirmed word spreading around D-town is that a dealer had stepped outside to smoke some pot, and when one of the owners went looking for him (good help is hard to find), a couple black males jumped out (of some bushes?) and began “throwing down” … the owner ran off … and as two or three others came out of the poker room to investigate what was going on, they too were robbed, at which point the assailants took off on foot.

Though Pokerati hasn’t yet talked with police for an official report, the cops were supposedly all over it with multiple patrol cars and a helicopter.

No specifics, btw, on the robber’s (or robbers’) weaponry.

It had to just be too risky, robbing poker games in Dallas now … with a potential murder charge should they get caught. After all, the DPD has a pretty good idea who the gun-toting, ski-mask donning poker thugs are … rooms have been getting hit in similar fashions for about a year-and-a-half … or at least a short-list of primary suspects. And while that’s no guarantee that the string of robberies in Dallas is connected to the homicide at an Arlington apartment game … shit, even Pokerati knows of more similarities than just “two black guys” that would at least merit a look by law enforcement.

Or so I thought … From a Patrick the Pokerati commenter:

dan,

you hear about the same robbery bandits strike again. This time in an asian home game in Cedar Hill. Gated $500K homes community. Very bold. Same MO tall black and short black… guns.. police arrived just 2 mins too late…

Sigh … I had not heard about this, but now I have.

Not sure what to make of this — reliable sources, please feel free to share any info …

I know something doesn’t add up. See above. Really, the same bad guys can’t be back on the poker-room trail, can they? Too much heat! And copycats? I suppose maybe with the original and/or homicidal Dallas Poker Bandits laying low the market could be seen as untapped by aspiring violent criminals … but that would just be stupid, right? After all, we know how things work in Texas … even if you weren’t the killers, it’s at best a coinflip situation of having the Arlington homicide pinned on you, especially if you happen to be black.

UPDATE: The Cedar Hill robbery did happen — a couple days ago, in a place that supposedly sometimes hosts a higher stakes game. They were having a birthday party the night of the robbery, however, not “the big game” … so a lot more players/cars in the neighborhood than usual. The Cedar Hill Robbers reportedly got away with about $15,000.

IMPORTANT NOTE: While Patrick is hearing the Cedar Hill Robbers had the same MO and appearance as the Dallas Poker Bandits and Presumed Arlington Poker Killers … two other secondhand sources are saying the exact opposite … that these were not the same guys, right down to different skin color.

Interesting to note that the courts aren’t even claiming Delvalle pulled the trigger — and yet he still faces life in prison for being the leader of the robbery/homicide. Interesting to me because the poker robbers in Dallas likewise face a similar fate. Sure, laws are different, state-to-state … but not by that much. And without a doubt, though no arrests have been made in any Dallas poker robberies and there’s no certain connection between the latest in Arlington and others around the DFW area that were very similar … poker players in Dallas have a pretty good idea about the identities of at least a few people who have may or may not have donned ski masks and wielded weapons to rape a poker room. (And no, I’m not taking about the police SWAT teams who have done that recently, too — that’s a different story altogether.)

When the Ashton got robbed, I was a little dismissive of the finger-pointing (it was a bad time to be a black Dallas rounder). But now, four or five robberies later — +1 dropped cellphone, +recurring player presences, +1 dead — the reality in this sub-subculture is becoming clearer. Not to mention that police have had their own inside players in games since at least 2006 … we know this for a fact, and even who some of those guys are, but probably not all … but regardless, point being that whether it’s a year from now or not, it’s only a matter of time before we see the poker crooks and the law come to showdown.

SIGH/ADDENDUM: As much as i understand why police kinda had to start busting poker rooms, it’s sad that these robberies and related violence started only after the raids, upon games’ being driven deeper underground. These sorts of things just didn’t happen in the freewheelin’ days when poker rooms were virtually open-to-the-public.

The player who originally got up from the table to answer the knock (“John” is all I know of his name right now) got hit by at least three bullets … one in the shoulder, one in the leg, and one somewhere else … and he died last night from blood-related complications to his wounds.

To be clear, this was not your typical Dallas underground game — you know, the strip-mall and warehouse sort run by good and sometimes not-so-good people trying to provide a valuable albeit legally questionable service and good-clean-safe place to play. This was more like the under-underground, where almost no one went by their real name nor had a regular job … OK, not the place for blogger jokes … but the livelihoods and nicknames start to matter when what might look like any other poker game turns into the scene of a homicide …

It was an apartment game where some of the regulars were apparently of an extremely thuggish ilk — not the kind of place that sends out subscription emails or emissaries to Oklahoma searching for players and runs satellites to the WSOP. A few of the guys here may have stepped foot into the Dallas scene at times — but for the most part, they weren’t welcome in the more legitimate games around town, despite their intense desire to gamble-gamble-gamble with fatter-than-usual bankrolls.

So the apartment in Arlington became their home game — and reportedly it was more than just poker. No one set up a full casino or anything, but supposedly itwasn’t uncommon to see a player bust out some dice on the felt and roll for money between hands. The biggest sums wagered, however, were on XBox action, sources say.

At the time of the robbery they were playing an 8-handed game of 1-2 NLH … a big 1-2, with at least a few thousand-dollar stacks in play.

(Note to any non-poker media who might be reading this: Please know that 1-2 is not a “high stakes” game. It is low-stakes, believe it or not, even when there are thousands of dollars on the table. Give me a call and I’d be happy to explain to you in further detail.)

More TK on this, for sure. Naturally, speculation and rumors will abound — these sorts of things don’t happen in a vacuum, and there are already hints that the assailants may indeed be connected to the Dallas Poker Bandits who robbed The Office five months ago …

Related:
Guns and Poker Pose Difficult Decisions for Players [Apr 13, 2008]
Dallas Poker Bandits Strike Again [Apr 11, 2008]
Poker Robberies [tag]

UPDATE: Huh, wow … we are not going to name the game (yet) … because right, why would a regular Veterans club shut down after a robbery, right? Everything’s normal … nothing to see here. (And on a serious side, I may sound semi-mocking, but I haven’t forgotten that some of the people who work there are friends of mine whose livelihoods may or may not be in jeopardy.

An eye-witness guy who sat next to an eye-witness the next day put up his full report on Weston Poker. Am starting to think these aren’t the same Dallas Poker Bandits that robbed the Ashton, and then presumably The Office … but they do seem like the same guys who attempted to rob this room and failed (at least) once before. What went down late-late in the Wednesday a.m., shortly before sunrise, according to one second-hand source:

Hay guys,

Well a well known room in North Dallas, was robed at 5AM Wed morning. I’ve been going to this place a few times a week for three years, I’m glad I wasn’t there that night (although I’m never there that late). Anyway I was there last night and it was all the talk of course. As luck would have it, I happened to be sitting right next to a guy who was there and I got the full story.

1st my disclaimer, everyone was talking about it at the room, and there was a story on all 3 local networks 10pm news. So I don’t think I’m really talking out of school here.

Ok, so at about 5am the game was down to 1 table. When it’s that late and down to 1 table they cut the security guy loose, so there was no security (oops). Two players leave and when they get to the parking lot they get jumped by 4 guys wearing masks with guns. They are tied up, put in a car and told that one of them is going to go back and get them in are they’re going to kill them both. They wisely comply. Player 1 goes back to the door with the perps a little bit behind him. They have cameras, the brush saw the player and assumed he left his keys or something, so he went and opened the door.

All 4 perps are in the door immediately, the grab the brush and player 1 with guns to their heads and are in the main room fast. The player I was talking to was in the game, he said it happed so fast he didn’t know what was going on until there was a gun to his head. They made everyone get up and stand facing the wall, they then duct taped their hands. So the guy I was talking to was wearing sunglasses and they didn’t make him take them off, where they placed him facing the wall there is a framed poster on the wall and he could see what was going on through the reflection.

They went into the cage and took the money from the cage, then demanded the tape from the video. Unfortunately, they have no tape just video, they didn’t believe the brush on that one and roughed him up a bit.

They then robbed all the players and staff, took money, wallets, jewelry, watches, and everyone’s cell phones. And they made everyone take their pants off (they found them in the parking lot after it was over).

Not trying to start anything, rumor or otherwise … I just happened to notice a few visitors coming to us via Google searches overnight for “dallas poker robbery”. Not to give my secrets away, but monitoring Google traffic isn’t too different from the way night-shift journos used to listen to police radios back in the newspaper day … and when I’ve noticed a quick surge in such searches before (or more commonly, “dallas poker room raided”) it usually meant something was up. But other than this “hunch” I’ve got nothing.

UPDATE: Yep … VFW hall that screams poker room was popped last night:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26065611

VIDEO: http://video.nbc5i.com/player/?id=283511

UPDATE: Oh, dude, I recognize exactly where this is! One of the best and biggest games kinda-sorta but not really in Dallas. Have played there a handful of times, and always enjoyed the action. Interestingly enough, both cops and robbers have been here before. This was the place where the guys who just might be the Dallas Poker Bandits got their start …

It was a totally botched robbery about two years ago … where one (Michalski-trained) lovely boisterous lady dealer crawled inside a garbage bag to hide during the commotion. (We didn’t teach that in Lodge amateur dealer class, of course, but I applaud her creative thinking in the face of bad guys with guns.) I forget why the police were there like six months ago, but they did a walk-through and play was hardly halted. Then sometime earlier this summer (or maybe spring?) some robbers did show up and again were thwarted!

Previous to that I had been hearing from someone who supposedly had an inside connection with a cop that people might want to steer clear of this game because the Dallas police were finally all over it and just waiting for the right moment bust in and take it down.

With an investigatory explanation due out in a few days, Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet are merging to form a new site — now the third largest in the world — called “Cereus” — the name for a desert cactus that stands strong and stays prickly in even the harshest environments. A related species is the Cereus uruguayanus, which may or may not lend credence to Oliver’s prediction that very soon the WSOP will move to Montevideo we could see the WSOP in Punta del Este.

The name could also have been inspired by the night-blooming variety:

One of the strangest plants of the desert, the Night-bloomiing Cereus is a member of the Cactus Family that resembles nothing more than a dead bush most of the year. It is rarely seen in the wild because of its inconspicuousness. But for one midsummer’s night each year, its exquisitely scented flower opens as night falls, then closes forever with the first rays of the morning sun.

Aww, so sad, and yet so precious and sweet …

Another operation with a claim to the Cereus name is Bacillus Cereus:

an endemic, soil-dwelling, Gram-positive, rod-shaped, beta hemolytic bacteria that … is known to create heavy nausea, vomiting, and abdominal periods.

Supposedly, according to the first link in this post, this site is gonna be great — it’s the result of all sorts of innovative technology and customer service. The announcement says nothing about it being all cleaned up with the best security out there — and from a PR perspective can you blame them? — even though theoretically this company should have more knowledge than anyone else about how a site’s integrity can be compromised.

A fascinating (if not challenging) story that you can only presume would be of great interest to anyone in the online poker-room security biz, or anyone who wants to philosophize on the meaning of “good for poker”:

How I Built a Working Online Poker Bot, Part 3: The Million Dollar Pet Project

The programmer in question draws inspiration from Big Blue, the IBM supercomputer that challenged chess champ Gary Kasparov. And thus, at any given time online, here’s what you’re potentially up against:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Hurst police said they found two dozen people inside the home, which had tables, dealers and even a banker, and was set up to look like Las Vegas.

You know, Pokerati used to defend the police for just doing their jobs, and reminding poker players of that. But c’mon … SWAT teams? That’s so 2006. When you want to shut down a game next time … here’s a hint … try just knocking on the door(s). I know I know … I’m just a blogger and don’t understand police operations — so maybe you can explain to me how, using knowledge gained from your undercover, a knock on the door combined with a marked squad car in the driveway wouldn’t stop any poker crimes from being committed.

In fact, I’ll even give you the answer to this question: “Uh, duh, Mr. Know-it-All, because then there would be no money to confiscate for us to put toward other poker raids/the police “petty cash” fund.”

And while we’re bitchin’ about the money … yo local news media … when “dozens” of players gather with a sum total of a few thousand dollars … since you’re not going to really follow the money to look into what police are really up to with it, at least do the math and realize that this is not “high stakes.” You should be journalistically ashamed of yourselves for being so careless/sensational with your word choice.

For the rest of you, check out the comments on the Channel 5 story. At the time of this posting, they’re running 11-1 in favor of poker and against the police:

marty McFly
Fort Worth, TX
they should just make gambling legal in texas

Micheal
Fort Worth, TX
To use the taxpayers dollars to raid a card room where honest hard working are enjoying themselves on a Friday night is unbelieveable. Are they aware that poker is not gambling but a skill. It is worlds apart from pulling a laver on a slot machine. What a joke.

Micheal
Fort Worth, TX
And why does Hurst have a swat team anyway? To patrol the Abuelo’s parking lot?

What a Crime
Bedford, TX
Cooper and Catalytic Converter theft on the rise. Even gas theft on the rise. These are the things Police need to focus on, since they can’t seem to catch anyone doing it.

rabbitt
Dallas, TX
Oh thanks Hurst police department I feel so much safer now. This is a joke. They were gambling with their own money in privacy.

jcg
Grand Prairie, TX
I keep seeing all these poker raids in the news, All you here is they seize thousands of dollars in cash. Lets get real, are they seizing $2,000, or $80,000. The real question I have is How much does it cost to exucute one of these raids. I mean swat team, police, undercover narcotics unit. Maybe you can look into that.

joi
Irving, TX
I would hope this type of energy rush could be reserved for, oh I don’t know, violent criminals and predators.

The Id
Plano, TX
and they were hurting who?

Randy
Fort Worth, TX
Let me see if I’v got this right.( high stakes Las Vegas style poker game busted ) Sorry. my side hurts from laughing…… Swat team, Narcotics unit, under cover…
swat team had nothing to do.
Narcotics unit can’t seem to do what they are paid for.( catch dope dealers )
And the under cover guy, Yes Sr. I think I know who you are.
It’s a damn shame the working stiff guy can’t enjoy himself as to playing a little nickel and dime poker without being F with like that. I play alot of poker in Dallas and Ft. Worth. And yes, with police and fire fighters from every area………Guess I need to go to jail. Or at least get a ticket. Then again, maybe I should just start to play bingo.

The Id
Plano, TX
Did they also have the NSA zoom in the “Las Vegas style” house with their surveillance satellites to get a clear entry point and have snipers ready to fire if anyone tried to escape?

what a waste of tax-payers money

big bad John
North Richland Hills, TX
Micheal wrote:

To use the taxpayers dollars to raid a card room where honest hard working are enjoying themselves on a Friday night is unbelieveable. Are they aware that poker is not gambling but a skill. It is worlds apart from pulling a laver on a slot machine. What a joke.

My dear fellow stupid people all I ever hear nowdays is the police does this are that. The fact is they were doing there job and doing what they were told. Yes they have other certain units that go after the hard core crimnals. You trashy people get so mad when police officer,s are only doing there job. So shut up and stop your whinning and stop blaming the police department for doing there jobs you self rude moron.

Stacy
Bedford, TX
Ive worked and played @ many local rooms, no harm is done. People that think this is wrong are the ones who want taxes or their cut some way out of the earnings. Most of these players and employees are just killing time and having fun!!!! Life is so stressful, gas prices are getting higher everyday, most of us work 40 hours plus a week. Just leave us alone no harm is being done. Cant people just mind their own business now days, they seem to when they see a real crime!!!!!!!!!!

Channel 4 said it was a gambling club.
Channel 5 said it was a poker club.

Hmm, makes me wonder if ItsOverJonny may have been right when he suggested that a little extra poker ink tweaks the coppers into action. Not saying that Pokerati or a forthcoming poker documentary is to blame (the doc, after all, wouldn’t be coming out for a long while, and Pokerati generally prefers to pass on responsibility) … but there was apparently a big to-do in Dallas (again) over turning Reunion Arena into a casino … and boom, a few days later, perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, somebody in some police force decided they didn’t want to look like they were turning a blind eye to “gambling.”

BTW, The Dallas Morning News poll results to the question:

Would you support a casino in downtown Dallas?

So far …

85 percent yes
15 percent no

Another thing you can add if people are being hesitant to being interviewed or showing us their room, we have filmed in underground poker rooms in NYC. I don’t know how familiar you are with the scene in NY but a couple years ago a big bust broke up a lot of the more well known poker rooms in the city. About 6 months before these busts we were able to film in one of the clubs and interview the owner. Unfortunately since the big bust, its been hard to come by more games in the NYC Area.

One angle I’d love to take while in Dallas, it to interview someone who could talk about all the raids either as someone who was at one of the raids or someone who ran a room that got raided. Of course, if there is an issue of not given out the name of a room or the name of the person we are interviewing, we will abide in any way possible to make everyone comfortable.

I’m not sure how much I got into the extensiveness of our project but our goal is to make the most definitive and comprehensive film about poker in America. We’ve gone everywhere from Vegas to New Orleans to Saratoga Springs to Oklahoma. We’ve interviewed people within the poker community including Annie Duke, Jeffrey Pollack (Commissioner of the WSOP), Phil Hellmuth, Steve Lipscomb (CEO of WPT), Greg Raymer, Chris Moneymaker, amateur poker players, tournament directors, and poker room mangers from casinos across the US.

So there you have it … I wonder if the poker-room people they end up talking to will be “good” or “bad” gamerunners representing the Dallas scene.

I’ve talked with a lot of you before about doing something similar with local news crews — but perhaps not shockingly, ever since the first newscaster to sneak a hidden camera into the Dallas underground ended up getting engaged to the (already married) Chief of Dallas police around the same time her station got a sweeps-week exclusive showing SWAT teams busting up three games simultaneously, most of the “good guys” in the Dallas poker scene have been a little shy about opening their doors to the media … even with assurances that no one would give up any identifying info.

(Ahh, remember the good-ole-days when Stagecoach used to openly run its ballin’ website and pay little-ole poker websites for ads the Observer couldn’t run?)

Anyhow, so this outfit, 4th Row Films, is offering the same guarantees that they will protect identities and locations. Personally I think it would be a shame for this part of poker not to be seen. But I respect the fact people who run these games generally do so to support their gambling addictions families … so I’m not giving out any phone numbers or email addresses without any special OKs. I have, however, suggested they simply drive around to area strip malls looking for the telltale white, wireless doorbells — but that doesn’t seem to be giving them confidence as they fly their people and equipment to town. So if you happen to run a game in Dallas and would like your room to live on long after you die/get arrested and have to plea bargain down your misdemeanor … send me an email and I’ll be happy to put you in touch with the right people.

Anyhow, this post isn’t about robberies in Dallas or police raids in Houston — everybody wants the poker money, don’t they? … it’s about the April ’08 issue of Bluff. Though these articles aren’t online yet, three of the four they highlight are about Texans:

One is about how to be like Houstonian Sammy Farha. Another is about poker politics and ledes with a certain group of Dallas players wooing Congressman Pete Sessions to get behind pending poker legislation. And a third is about Gavin Griffin, a former Dallas underground dealer who became poker’s first “triple crown” winner.

Not only do I think that is Texas neato, but also I think it says something about the state’s continued super-relevance in the game. But hey, maybe I’m biased.

But still … guns were in play in last night’s robbery. Not just on the thugs who obviously come in not wanting to shoot anyone, but also on a player or three … At least one guy last night had a (legal) gun on him when being robbed. Afterwards, some apparently questioned his decision not to use it. The rub is that had he fired as robbers were kicking their way in through the wall, the ski-masked duo woulda turned right around and skeedaddled. True enough, but as liberal as Texas is when it comes to shooting people messin’ with your property, the nature of the venue might negate that defense. And what if it was the police?!? Yeow, shooting blindly at what may or may not be a SWAT team can never be good for a game. Hmm, Class C misdemeanor or Death Penalty … decisions decisions.

Clearly a good fold. In general I’d prefer loaded weapons to be in the hands of a rock more than a maniac.

The 15/30 Omaha game had just broken a little after 10 pm central and a full 2/5 NLH table was going strong when players heard Smash! Crash! “What the fuck?!?” one player screamed.

“I know what that is,” another player answered as he ran toward the back room and others followed. It sounded like a police raid — we all remember how the cops busted through the walls at Jackie’s on semi-live TV — only this time it was robbers. Two armed black males wearing ski masks and hoodies came busting through glass windows and sheet rock to enter through the smoking room. Players looked for an escape in the seconds that followed, but there was no back door. This game – located in an office building near the Galleria – was relatively new … had been open just a few months … and seemed plenty secure with a two-door entry system monitored by cameras.

“Where’s the fucking money at?” the lead thug shouted as he emerged from the smoking room into the main area and made his way to the gace.

“There are a couple 50s beneath the drawer,” on of the room operators said.

Four or five players had crammed into a supply closet in the back room and locked the door behind them. Huddling together in the dark, they scrambled to find places to hide their wallets. One player had wedged his in some plastic wrap behind a stack of plates just a few seconds before the robbers realized there were people in there and ordered them out. They were told to lay on the ground with their faces to the floor – all complied – at which point the other robber frisked them one-by-one for their valuables while his accomplice made a quick check of the closet but apparently found none of the stashed goods.

The whole robbery lasted just a few minutes … as of last night, no decision had been made about whether or not to call the police, which you can suspect whoever is behind this latest string of poker robberies is partially banking on.

In addition to what I was calling “Henser’s Game” (have since learned it might be “Gennser’s Game”), DC’s Poker House also got raided last week — Friday, I believe, about the same time as the robbery at the Ashton.

From a Pokerati citizen journalist on the ground:

Another game that got raided was DC’s POKER HOUSE in dallas off of shiloh & northwest highway. The cops single handedly busted that game because of money laundering. DC had about 40 slot machines in the building that caused his place to be shut down. I beleive what made DC’s place get so hot was when he pulled out a 9mm on one of the players who were getting a little out of hand.

Yikes, mix 8-Liners and 9-millimeters together and you kinda gotta expect some problems, no?

Also, maybe this is where the reports of a triple poker robicide came from … within a few days last week you had two busts and one robbery nearly simultaneously … and as we know in poker, it’s often difficult to distinguish between the two, because the action and results are usually pretty much the same.

UPDATE: Hmm, this is the second time that a robbery and police bust went down at two separate poker rooms nearly simultaneously. Strange coincidence? It’s possible that both sides make similar assessments when it comes to game selection — picking nights when they expect the most money to be in play.