Meet Sharron, the new tourney director at The Lodge.
There are lots of amateur poker leagues out there, and with all due respect, we don’t pay as much attention to them as we used to unless there’s allegations of grift and/or a plot to kill the guy running it with snakes. However, the Lodge Amateur Poker League has always been near and dear to Pokerati’s heart.
Back in the early boom days, All In magazine called it “The best amateur tournament in America!” Ahh, we were having some good after-church strip-club times every Sunday, with more and more players getting better each week … in pursuit of not just gift certificates and lap-dance coupons, but also, and believe it or not more important than seeing boobs for most, a seat in a $1,500 WSOP event (travel expenses included, of course).
But like so much in poker, after Dan left it eventually lost its way. The tournament carried on, but allegations of chip dumping and cheating (yes, in an amateur tourney) made it lose its luster. Then came the Texas sin tax that made this “free” tournament a $0+5 NLH — with that whole $5 going to the State — and field sizes continued to dwindle.
Courts have since ruled that tax unconstitutional, so the game is free again … and now the Lodge — named Best Strip Club in America at the 2008 Exotic Dancer Awards in Las Vegas, btw — has renewed its commitment to making its weekly amateur poker tournament not just the best in Texas, but tops anywhere. The new TD cracking the poker whip: Sharron Nix.
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(L to R) Veteran Lodge amateurs John Manby, Aaron Autry, and Fubu … still tearing it up on not-so-faded felts harkening back to the old-old days of Pokerati.com.
As those of you following @Pokerati on twitter are well-aware, I ended up at my old stomping grounds at The Lodge last night, totally not realizing that, being a Sunday night, there was an amateur poker tourney going on.
Not only did I get a reminder of why it’s good to be the Phil Hellmuth, or at least the Former Jeffrey Pollack of Dallas Amateur Sunday Strip-Club Poker … they snuck me into the tourney somewhere around level 5, and even gave me a nicer chair … but I had a really good time en route to making the final table and quickly giving my chips away once the Tuaca shots started flowing.
Anyhow, that is all … the tournament we started back in, um, yikes, 2003 is still going strong, drawing five tables of action weekly. They’ve changed the prize structure and point system … the tables are a bit beat up … you can’t smoke at’em any more … and we won’t even talk about the way my attempt to steal the blinds from two absent seats was handled … but many familiar faces (and breasts, hi Lindsey!) … and plenty of absolutely terrible play. 🙂
I think by making the final table (8th place – top 3 won Lodge gift certificates) I qualified for some special mini-semi-finals six weeks from now. Perhaps I’ll have to return?
Click below for an impressive (?) list of known poker pros, authors, and celebrities who at one time or another played on these (same) tables:
(Oh, also, congratulations to Liz the longtime Lodge poker waitress and LAP player Michael Tiegs, who will be getting married this week in Las Vegas!)
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One of the rules changed at today’s (yesterday’s) TDA Summit (for the TDA, not the WSOP) … as per a tweet from @SavagePoker:
New TDA Rule….. All Hold’em Final Tables that start 9 or 10 handed will go to final table at 10 handed. 6 handed tournaments at 7…
Hmm, not sure how I feel about that one, or how it would work at a place like The Lodge, where an extra-big field meant starting with some fold-up outer tables that were only 6-handed, compared to the 8-9-handed tables elsewhere in the room.
It’s always fun running into people unexpectedly … happens regularly here in Vegas and today I noticed Lodge player Jerry Dolan (left) playing in the nightly $120 tourney at the Venetian … and when I went to snap a picture, lo and behold the player seated to his left was Adam Schacter (right), another occasional Lodge player and a final tableist in the 2005 Pokerati Invitational. They didn’t know each other … but would get to know each other in the end, as Schacter busted Dolan in this 129-player event.
Too funny! Small (poker) world. And good luck to Adam, as he’s currently chip leader with 19 players remaining.
Pro Poker, Too
So lots of big action going on in Vegas tonight. We’ve got the WPT World Championship final table at Bellagio (word around here is that somebody won — about $2 million), the Venetian Deep Stacks main event is down to heads-up (Doug Lee vs Vegas local Eric Baldwin — for about $200k), and over on the kiddie tables outside the Venetian poker room we’ve got a Lodge/Pokerati alum fighting to see if he’s got what it takes to take one the whole way (for about $2k). Good night in V-town.
Lesson #1 in politics: It’s not about what makes sense or creating any legal consistency.
Proof: In Dallas, it’s legal to ride a motorcycle without a helmet, but illegal to ride a bicycle without one.
With that in mind, another law moved forward today that indirectly relates to poker … the Texas House approved a 10 percent tax on admission fees to strip clubs, replacing a $5-per-head “sin tax” that was previously in play. I know this law well … not only because it was a major deal at my old stomping grounds, The Lodge, but also because a good buddy of mine actually wrote it. And when he did, it was a sign to me of everything that is wrong with American politics …
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Some of you may know Walter Whitehead, a Dallas player and semi-regular at the still-going Lodge Amateur Poker tourneys. He’s one of those super-nice friendly Cowboy-hat-wearing tablemates who always seems to have a good time while working on his game. Well, his son, John, was murdered last week in Plano, and he’s having trouble paying for the burial. Meanwhile, Walt’s grandsons — Grayson, age 5, and Jonathan, who turned 8 yesterday — are left without a father and face a future less certain than they can understand … and a difficult one for their dad’s dad to deal with.
Sorry for being the bearer of rough news, but I thought a few of you specifically might want to know. Any financial assistance would be greatly appreciated and can be sent to:
Jonathan B Dwayne Whitehead Memorial at American National Bank of Texas
Here is the bank’s info … funds can be snail-mailed or wire-transferred to any branch. And if you’d like to offer any other assistance, don’t hesitate to contact Jay Wagoner (aka “Cowboy” or “Gandalf” to Lodge players), who can put you directly in touch with the Whitehead family.
Rough times, to say the least. But it’s good to know he’s got family, church support, and poker friends to help make it all a little better.
There’s a big deal pending with Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott right now, and though his opinion is technically not be legally binding, his decision will set a standard that impacts thousands and thousands of players in Texas … and will affect the state’s ability to raise millions of dollars for charity via poker.
The Kerr County Attorney has asked for an opinion on charity poker galas. He wants to know if hosting a pricey dinner that happens to include an optional poker tournament violates Texas gambling laws if the winners are awarded prizes. Likewise he wants to know if leasing a ballroom or banquet hall for such an event constitutes a “private place” defense.
Click here to read the specific and official pending opinion request.
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Was just going through some old, buried emails, and I came across one dated May 13, 2008, that I sent myself to remind me of all the good, unique-content posts I had building up that needed to get written before the WSOP. Obviously most of them didn’t make it … and while the time of relevance has passed for some, others still might make for good reads, and maybe someday I’ll have lots of free time and get around to crafting/completing thoughtful narratives. As for the rest, I figure their patent-time has expired, so here they are for anyone else to run with if you’re looking for fresh stories to explore. As for now, I really just wanna be able to delete the email.
[Note: Links and strikethroughs are contemporary add-ons, not part of the original email.]
Yeow, if someone actually wrote about all that stuff, it would probably make for a pretty good blog, no?
UPDATE: No-stakes Dallas Amateur-turned-Vegas small-stakes pro David Pflaster is hanging in there. Has built his stack back up to about 6,000.
“I did stop-and-go,” he said, “the best play in poker … He raised it up and i couldn’t go all-in because I only had like 1,500 more, so I just flat called and bet all-in on the flop.”
“Ah, because in that situation it doesn’t matter what you have or if it hits you — you’re just banking on it not hitting him.”
“Yeah, but it did hit me,” and he folded.
Hmm, so in that case a check wouldn’t have been better? Maybe not. Still, good stuff, DP … back in survivable action … with 520 of 2,317 remaining. Money kicks in at 198.
UPDATE: Pflaster is out. He built his stack up to 8,500 by making moves. First go was all-in with J-3 … tight table, his short stack still big enough to hurt any and all of them … everybody folds.
Next hand: AK … can’t just raise a little bit, so he moves all-in again … no one calls.
Next hand: [cards]9c Tc[/cards]. Same move again … by this point players are getting suspicious, but he still has too many chips for any of them to call … except for the dude with pocket queens. Flopped a 9, but never improved. Totally crippled, moves all-in in the dark in the next hand, late-position min-raises … they’re heads-up, but Pflaster’s Q7s fails to outflop-turn-river the raisers K-J.
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