The eternal poker game. CHAPTER TWELVE
THE POKER ROOM
Might be safer in the desert
lOnly dust to judge your sins
But those who wager aren't so clever
'Cus in heaven
Well, the House always wins
The Stupendium
This is the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night poker game at the Pleasant Avenue Yellow Taxi garage repair shop. First you have to picture the shop itself. It's about the size of a no man's land on a tennis court, around twenty-one feet by eighteen. It's dingy and it's dark, lit by incandescent bulbs. There are piles of tires, rims, a few car transmissions laying around, yellow taxi hoods and bumpers. There are a couple of computerized diagnostics gadgets and three lifts, two of which have cars on them. There is an exposed shower and a mezzanine that is lined with lockers. There's no work going on between midnight and 4 a.m. That's when Albanian Louie used to take it over for a few rounds of Texas Hold'em.
There is a work table that can handle a five person card game. Folding chairs are brought in from the drivers shape up waiting room.
Texas Hold'em is an interesting game. It's the most popular form of poker and the basic concepts are pretty simple. The responsibility of dealing the cards rotates around the table. Each player gets two cards face down. The player to the left of the dealer must lay down a small bet called the small blind. The player to his left must lay down a bet twice as big. This bet is called the big blind. Along the next players have the option of checking which means doing nothing, calling which means making a bet equal to the big bet, raising which means making a larger bet that the next players must match if they want to stay in the hand or folding, which means leaving that hand. These two forced bets assure that there is money on the table. The next player can check, which is to say wait to see what's going on, call, which means lay down a bet equal to the previous bet, raise, which means lay a bigger bet down or fold, meaning quit and lose the money already wagered.
After everyone on the table has made a move the dealer lays down three cards face-up in the middle of the table. This is called the flop. The cards that the dealer lays face up are held in common and are known to all players.
A fourth card (called the turn) is laid down face up. The players then make their responses by calling, checking, raising or folding. Then the dealer lays down the fifth face up community card (called the river). After the players make their responses the winner of the hand is determined. The player with the best hand who has not folded collects all the chips. You can make a hand from the two cards in your hand with three cards on the table, one card in your hand with four on the table or with all five cards that are on the table.
Only the very best players end up making a profit over the long run. While the players are not playing against the house the house always wins because it takes a percentage out of every pot which can be even 15 or 20% (called the rake) or else the rake is collected as a flat rate, something like rent. It's calculated based on time or percent of the pot per hand. Assuming there's no cheating going on, the players have comparable bankrolls and the players are evenly matched according to skill, over the long haul there is no winner, in fact there are only losers. People who earn their livings at Texas Hold'em or any poker game seek out games where they are the most skilled and where their bankroll is stronger than all the other players. And this is why Albanian Louie was a consistent winner until he got all fucked up that morning on the northeast corner of Broadway and 74th. Not only was Louie a human odds calculator, a skill he discovered and honed in Rahway prison but he was backed by Noah, the overnight 'zookahead* dispatcher. In fact actually he was backed by Alejandro Castro (famous New York Yankee pitching great Fidel's son) though Alejandro Castro didn't know it.
Simply put Louie splits his winnings with Noah, a $20 kickback. Technically there was no rake. Noah got another benefit out of this deal. Drivers who got cleaned out in the game would need money, at least enough to eat the next day. Noah, on the QT, would give such a guy the keys to one of the cars that had been returned to the garage by an early quitter. A driver could go out and hustle let's say $40 or $50 between midnight and 4 in the morning and hand Noah 20 bucks which would shortly go up in smoke.
Now this was the riskiest play because the driver didn't have official permission. He wasn't in the computer let's say. One serious accident could fuck up the whole scheme. Typically these guys would line up outside the clubs and not race anybody for a fare. The god that looks after bazookaheads seemed to smile down upon this arrangement. Until he frowned.
*Boazuco is a street name for residues left in the processing of cacao into cocaine. Common in the slums of Colombia, it appears lately on the streets of New York. It offers more bang for the buck though it's effects on the human body are more delterious than the white powder.
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*Boazuco is a street name for residues left in the processing of cacao into cocaine. Common in the slums of Colombia, it appears lately on the streets of New York. It offers more bang for the buck though it's effects on the human body are more delterious than the white powder.
Next