Houston area outing

[Mr. Mojo31]

This week it was back to Houston, week three, day 10…

A little background is probably in order. You see, because of work I travel to the same market on a weekly basis for months on end. Last year it was northwest Iowa where the NL games are chalked full of overly polite weak-tight whites. Two years ago it was Minnesota where I was forced to learn and eventually love the mechanics of limit. Four years ago it was New Orleans, where I learned that taking money from idiots hopped up on nitrous, rum and various foreign substances was tedious and easy.

For the last three weeks I’ve been traveling to Houston and sitting in a hotel room by night. I’ve hunted a live game via on line research, in phone books, through friends, all to no avail.

I finally discovered that a work colleague of mine, who is based in Houston, is an avid player. He told me about the underground rooms that have sprung up all over the metro down here. So I followed him to an unnamed part of the city.

The room was located in a strip mall. The section of it where the room was situated had tinted windows. It was made to look unleased; black tinted windows, neglected store front, beat up curb, unlit and blank neon sign etc, etc. Walking through the doors, you had to go through two different staging areas. Both had cameras, where presumably they eye-balled you and them buzzed you in at each door. I was absolutely expecting Teddy KGB to take my money and cash my chips. Coming from a City where poker is legal and flourishing, I have to confess, the whole episode was [censored] surreal.

The usual game at this place is pot-limit hold’em. On Tuesdays they spread a 5-5 NL game with a 1k max-buy in. After buying in, I plopped myself in a beat-up old leather office swivel chair. I sat for an obit before playing a hand.

With four limpers to me I was dealt As – Ac on the button. I popped it up to 60 and got four callers.

The flop came out Q-9-4, two clubs. Checked to me I bet the pot.

Small blind calls, seat four pushes for 1 thousand more, seat 8 pushes over the top for 3k, I fold, and the small blind isnta calls. Set over set over set.

Plane is leaving…