Inverse Underground: Small private games in luxury high-rises such as The Ashton (above) seemed a safer alternative to strip malls and warehouses as gun-wielding cops/robbers began infiltrating Dallas poker action.

More info coming in about last week’s robbery of a Dallas game in Uptown. First, we have no indication of any synchronized Al Qaeda-type attacks … it appears to be a single robbery, committed by two black males … which has some people speculating that the perps were the same two black males that have been seen brandishing guns in at least one other poker robbery. Because you know, two black guys is very specific.

The poker venue that got robbed Friday night was known as “The Ashton,” after the building it was hosted in. There were actually two games there — a “little game” (2/5) during part of the week, and a bigger one less often that attracted pros and somtimes saw five-figure bricks of cash on the table. The robbers poked their 9mms in the door during the little game, which suggests that either they didn’t know that there was less money in play with more potential players/potential troublemakers, or they just were being less criminally greedy, thinking thousands of dollars stolen from many players would be nicer than taking 10s of thousands from just a few. With that said, the robbers left cash on the floor, so they musta been in a hurry, too.

Security was apparently the problem … dudes got lax, or at least comfortable. So much so that others involved in the game(s) reportedly had been complaining about security procedures to poker authorities at The Ashton, but no one really tightened up their game. The more details I give you here, the less certain I am of my accuracy, but one (theoretical) dealer supposedly lobbied successfully for hallway cameras, but they weren’t used very diligently. Hey, play too loose with a comfortable stack and its almost certain you’ll eventually lose it, right?

The Ashton’s non-poker management reportedly knew about the game(s) all along — I suspect they thought it was kinda cool to have a two-table poker speakeasy in their joint, especially one that paid the rent reliably — but have since asked their poker tenants to leave, who of course, being the good clean pokerers the are, are complying.

That’s what we’re hearing … that three games got robbed on Friday. One such robbery is semi-confirmed at a popular 2/5 locale.

Not sure about the other two. The last time guys with guns stormed in to three places simultaneously and took all the money was in November 2006, when the DPD busted out the big guns and battering rams. More TK, of course.

UPDATE: The one semi-confirmed robbery took place in an Uptown high rise. Reportedly, “the phone rang indicating that someone had entered the access code in the lobby. They authorized access without picking up the phone. Whoever opened the door did not check and the perps stuck a 9mm in the door. 2 black males. They told everyone to empty their pockets but did not even take all of the money on the floor.” One player who was there also happened to be at another Dallas poker robbery a while back and says it was the same two guys.

We continue to hear that two other rooms were robbed, but whenever there was a poker raid, we would always hear about two others with it, and only once did that check out.