Texas Hold ‘em at the Silver Dollar Cabaret

“I ain’t sayin’ I beat the devil,/ but I drank his beer for nothing,/Then I stole his song.”
To Beat The Devil, Kris Kristofferson

Texas Hold ‘em at the Silver Dollar Cabaret


Texas Hold ‘em is a popular game just now. It started gaining popularity with tournaments like the World Series of Poker on ESPN. I saw it in 2005, and they showed the 2003 winner. He paid an entry fee of $40 into an Internet game and ultimately won his way to the final nine and then won it all. Champion of the World Series of Poker with a payoff of $2.5 million. That’s right: an investment of $40 and some outrageous poker playing and the guy wins $2.5 million.

This caught my eye right away. To me, it looked like easy money. After all, I’ve played poker before and it just takes luck and the right cards at the right time. It’s like Lee Trevino said about golf tournaments, “Somebody’s gonna win this thing and it might as well be me.” From your mouth to God’s ear, Lee. Except I want it to be me that wins.

Third place in 2005 won $2.5 million, and he was from Texas. Hell, I’m from Texas now; I’ve lived here for 5 years so I’m practically a native. First place in 2005? $7.5 million. I could use that and as the old joke goes I’d pay my debts as far as it would go. I play poker; I live in Texas. Maybe it’s meant to be. But here’s the catch: if you don’t have the $10,000 buy-in for the World Series of Poker, you have to win your way in.

Then I heard of the Silver Dollar Cabaret in downtown Dallas. Naked women, beverage alcohol and Texas Hold ‘em tournament the first Wednesday of each month until June and then the finals (for the preliminary winner) with the winning Alpha Male --or Female-- Poker player who wins it all headed for the World Series of Poker with a buy-in for the Tournament as a prize. Seems to me Opportunity must be knocking. I’ve always heard you must give a miracle a chance to happen.

That’s my game plan: no more depending on the Lotto for me. I’ll polish my game on the Computer with my YAHOO! version of the game (After all, it calls me “ The Future of Poker” and how can cyberspace be wrong?). Then I’ll be Las Vegas-bound for the WSOP. After all, it could be another Cinderella story: books, TV, a movie and even guest appearances on talk shows. It all sounds easy, but it isn’t quite a slam dunk yet.

First of all, you must actually get into the Tournament at the Silver Dollar. It’s not enough to simply walk up and tell them you are ready to play. First option: you listen to the Hard Rockin’ station that sponsors the whole thing and win tickets each morning by being the lucky caller. Second option: you can show up an hour early and put your name into the hat for the drawing they hold to fill the empty seats. Radio sounds like an option; after all my musical tastes are pretty eclectic for a dude who went to college in the 60s: 311 and Prodigy and Days of the New and Garbage are all way cool! I’m a bit out of touch these days, but I like all sorts of music. I’ll listen and call and win the ticket to play in the tournament. You must give a miracle a chance to happen, right?

But sometimes life is just too damn hard. I listened to the station. Rap music (I think) and metal so heavy as to defy the known elements of chemistry. So we are looking at Plan B: I go early, get lucky and win the draw. After all, it won’t do me much good to win the entry if I end up in a rubber room instead of Las Vegas.

Here we go. How bad can it be? Naked women, beverage alcohol and maybe poker. Hot damn! If it’s meant to be it’ll all work out, right? Yeah, right!

Here’s a rude awakening. All naked women are not beautiful. They are definitely naked, but not all beautiful by anybody’s standards. And all the people who attend services to worship the alabaster altars of their bodies are not even close to normal. Star Wars? Bar scene? Déjà vu all over again? You better believe it! Plus the music. Louder than LOUD and many many many speakers all around the place. There is no quiet nook. However, I am an ex-Boy Scout and discovered that a napkin torn into strips works nicely. I have to pantomime with the waitress to order a beer, but that’s life.

After putting my name and cell number on an entry form, I wait for the lottery to begin and for my name to be called. The Rockin’ Station has some cute girls in jeans and T-shirts supervising the drawing. Plus some guys who may be DJs. Nice guys with splendid voices, but I know why they aren’t on TV. No offense intended, but they better hope radio is around for a long long time. Great voices. Yep, they’ve got great voices but I bet they were picked on a lot in school when they were much younger.

The first time I didn’t get picked. Damn. Go home and wait a month and play poker on the computer until my eyes glazed over. But all in all it’s not too bad; after all, Texas Hold-em is an interesting game.

According to Wikipedia.com, there is no precise information on where or when Texas Hold 'em Poker was first played. According to legend, the earliest game played was in Robstown, Texas, in the early 1900s and it first came to Dallas, Texas in 1925. Texas hold 'em was introduced to Las Vegas by a group of Texan gamblers and card players, including Crandell Addington, Doyle Brunson, and Amarillo Slim.

If you aren’t familiar with Texas Hold-em (or even poker), Widkipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_hold_'em) is just chock-full of information so I won’t repeat it here.

I learned a trick about my computer version of Texas Hole ‘Em Poker: it can be fooled. You are supposedly playing against all these superstars, but if you check and call until the very last card and then go “all in,” they call every time, no matter what cards they have. They are easily fooled in the game, but I’ll bet the real thing isn’t that easy. I hope I get the chance to find out.

Another first Wednesday of the month rolled around and here I am again. Naked women. More pretty ones this time. I was prepared this time; bought foam ear plugs at CVS; now I’m ready for the music. I dressed in black shirt, black slacks, black shoes, black socks. I want to look the part if I get in. I look around at the other hopefuls—bib overalls, baggy shorts, babes in spandex-- with spandex is being asked to do the impossible—I guess they don’t plan to be on TV, though, so they might as well be comfortable. Or are they deliberately trying to look like goofs to throw everyone off? Have to wait and see.

A few suit-and-tie guys have their cell phones in constant use. It is an eclectic group, to say the least. Now they are calling names so of course I feel a sudden urge to answer nature’s call, but I can’t risk missing my name if it’s called. Nature is calling louder; and they are still calling names. MY NAME is called; rush up with ID and get ticket for game and rush to shush nature and get to the poker room and find my seat and I’m in the game at last! Whew! I can’t believe I made it at last!!!!

The rules are simple: no ante, just blinds and ten players trying to be the last one standing for a chance at the finals. White chips are $25, blue chips $50 and everybody gets the same stack worth $500 for the game. When your chips are gone, then so are you. The game starts with small blind $25 and big blind $50 and then both blinds double every 20 minutes until someone wins it all. Cards stay on the table, and no hiding chips or you are disqualified.

After all, it’s an important part of the strategy to see how many chips the other players have left. If you are the chip leader you can pressure them a bit; if you are low man on the chip count, you better be careful. For the first 20 minutes I did okay. I won a nice pot with a pair of kings in the hole and played cautiously after that. Across the table one guy set an aggressive posture immediately by trying to bluff on every hand and he went out quick.

The second twenty minutes did not go so well for me. I had a few good hands, but lost my bets when someone else had a better hand.

Sooner than I wanted to, I was wishing the others luck and slinking toward the door. Not the first one out, but didn’t do as well as I thought I would, either. All is not lost, though: there are two more first Wednesdays—April and May—before the June 7 finals.

April is the cruelest month as T. S. Eliot says; I waited in vain with no luck this time. Didn’t get called and so I waited another month. Then I showed up and registered and waited. By this time I had the routine down now: earplugs, sipping a beer, and watching the crowd watching the ladies. My fingers were crossed and I was hoping hard; thinking about how I would play differently if I just got the chance. One more time! Redeem my failure and go for success.

Thousands of entrants and millions of dollars to be won at the WSOP. To paraphrase the old Dixieland song, “I want to be in that number…”when the money comes rolling in. Come on Luck, be my lady…be my lady tonight.

Since it’s the last night to play for a chance in the finals, they are really dragging it out—touting food specials and happy hour drinks while we wait. They call names in smaller batches. My name doesn’t come up and I wait for another batch and another…until it’s all over.

No second chance, no Cinderella story with a five-iron hit an impossible distance to win the Masters. For this year, it’s back to my Yahoo! Game and watch the event on TV and dream.

I realize it’s not just about the money –although $10 million would be welcome! It’s more about the prestige of a rank amateur, a nobody, coming from nowhere to win it all, and being able to quit my day job and go pro. For “occupation” on all those forms I could put “professional gambler” and mess with so many many minds. But it will not be me and it will definitely be someone else and I hope it’s another unknown who bests the top players in the world and walks away with the prize.

Maybe next year will be my turn to make it to the WSOP and even to walk away with it all.

I can hardly wait.



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