OK Poker
THACKERVILLE, Okla.–Made my first journey to the much ballyhooed WinStar poker room yesterday. Some of you may or may not know this (Great Uncle Frank’s long-kept family secret) but I am pretty sure I have some WinStar blood in me. It’s time for us to be proud of our Native American roots! The WinStar tribe gave so much to this country before they had their land commandeered by Christopher Columbus and Microtel.
Anyhow, so WinStar Casino … Dallas’ nearest legal poker room, some 80 miles from downtown up a presumably booming corridor of Far North I-35 … in a monstrous industrial-strength circus fort with 15 tables set amid faux Roman architectural elements. Sat down for some 11 a.m. $1/$2 NL hold’em at a fresh table that I found very playable for about three hours.
Buy-in: $100
Cash out: $1,083
Net: +$983
Good cards, good flops, easy folds … Decent coffee and $2 Red Bulls.
Only two unusual things … one was how the dealer pulls in the small blind before the pre-flop action is complete (an extra rake for Oklahoma schoolchildren?) — a guaranteed certainty every hand, so no chopping … the other might have been just a statistical anomaly: so many high hands for a single room. The WinStar gives away a $100 high-hand bonus every hour. As they were calling out the first winner (a full house), I hit quad 5s. Woo-hoo, that should hold up! But nope, 15 seconds later someone else gets quad aces (king kicker). During the next hour, I play smart/dodge a bullet by not doubling up a guy with quad 10s … and 10 minutes later someone on another table hits a royal flush. Holy big cards. Maybe because bonus-eligible high hands in the Chickisaw Nation don’t have to show down or even see a turn?
Also, props to a high-quality (trained, licensed) dealer who politely insisted I bet $80 when I crossed the line with a stack of chips that I meant to bet $75 with. He wouldn’t explain why … “after the hand. Just put in five more dollars, please … ” OK, whatever. I had AK and the flop had come K-K-A … “If you had aces and he had kings, we’d have a bad beat,” he later explained. “Pulling back that extra $5 would’ve been enough for them [nods at security camera] to negate the jackpot, and I wouldn’t want to see that happen.” Indeed. Thank you, sir. The next dealer couldn’t land two cards on top of each other to save his life.
Oh well.
Fro says:
October 22nd, 2006 at 2:54pm
The dealers there are very good at keeping players from screwing up a jackpot.
The pizza is ok, too.
Ed says:
October 22nd, 2006 at 9:41pm
Still enjoyed my visit to Choctaw more and it took just as long to get there.
Ed
Karridy says:
October 23rd, 2006 at 11:52pm
Thank you, Dan, for not mentioning how much of that 4 figure cash came via yours truly.
jeh says:
October 24th, 2006 at 6:28pm
The only thing that’s really keeping me from going up there and scooping up my share of pots is the no-drinky drinky. My game is so much more +EV when everybody else is drinking. And I’m funnier too. Not to mention better looking.
DanM says:
October 24th, 2006 at 7:49pm
Really? No booze? I didn’t notice that. But then again, I was there at 11 in the morning … and Karridy (+$30) was already drunk.
on tilt says:
October 27th, 2006 at 5:40pm
nice score for three hours of work