Poker Articles

Texas Tales, Part I
By Nolan Dalla
(All Rights Reserved)

Introduction

The close of the 1980s marked the end of poker's "golden era," in Texas. The famous underground circuit -- so eloquently described by legendary road gamblers such as Doyle Brunson, Bobby Baldwin, and T.J. Cloutier -- gradually declined, fried up and eventually disappeared. Big games were busted by vice squads. A few legendary gamblers passed away, such as Johnny Wheeler, Troy Inman, and others. The most successful players moved on to greener poker pastures like Las Vegas and California, leaving behind a motley medley of memories which are increasingly difficult to recall as time passes by.

I consider myself privileged to have played with many of these players -- who taught me a thing or two about poker, and life. We will never see such a marvelous mix of people and stories ever again. This makes preserving their memory all the more important. This is the first of a two-part article.

Mr. Vegas

Before pursuing life as a writer and professional gambler, I took my first real "9 to 5" job working as an insurance salesman. What a dreadful job that was. I rented an apartment outside of Dallas, and began dressing the part of Marlin Perkins. One thing I quickly learned about the insurance business is that a significant part of my "training" would include drinking and gambling with my colleagues. Forget the image of insurance agents as boring, conservative types. What I remember was sitting at barstools, strip clubs, and regular visits to Vegas. One salesman in his 40s supervised my development. His name was Justin.

Justin had previously lived in Las Vegas for several years, and did a stint as a blackjack dealer. This made him something of a celebrity among the other insurance agents who all looked to Justin as the office playboy. Since Justin always wore silk shirts and flashy clothes, everyone in the office called him "Mr. Vegas." Between sales calls, most of our time was spent reading the Racing Form, handicapping the day's sporting events, or playing gin rummy. Insurance policies, are you kidding? So much for us being "the good hands people." The only good hands we were concerned with were of the "five-card" variety.

Justin's real love was poker. The problem was -- we couldn't get enough players for a weekly poker game. The answer to our prayers came when pool party was scheduled at my apartment complex. Plenty of free booze and loose money floating around made it seem like the perfect opportunity for a poker game. Everyone expected Justin, the poker expert, to win big.

That Friday night, we put all the furniture into the back room and set-up a poker table. The game started. Within an hour, the place was absolute bedlam; with dozens of people strolling in and out, and a long waiting list. Unfortunately, Justin didn't seem to be doing particularly well. We played the normal games -- stud, draw, and holdem -- but Justin kept right on losing his money. To add insult to injury, kids in wet bathing suits who were either too drunk or too stoned to know that a flush beat a straight, put bad beat after bad beat on the silk-shirted Justin. Mr. Vegas just couldn't manage to win a hand. Then, he went on massive tilt. Pretty soon it became obvious that Justin wasn't nearly as good as we figured.

Maybe the cards were running bad for Justin that night. But I doubt it. Within a year, Justin left the insurance business and owed local bookies so much money that he skipped town. The lesson here is not to try and impress friends with an image. Another lesson is to realize that simply because someone has lived and worked in a gambling environment does not guarantee they have absorbed enough knowledge or have enough discipline to be a winner.

Troy Inman, "The Protector"

In his poker book, TJ Cloutier told a funny story about a gun-toting Texan named Troy "the Protector" Inman. I knew Troy, what a character. When a new player came into the game. Troy was sure to show off his chrome-plated pistol, thinking he could intimidate other players by packing heat. Troy passed away a few years ago, but when he was alive he was both one of the meanest and funniest and people you ever met in your life. Troy was the master of the one-liner. There could be $10,000 in the pot and Troy would still crack a joke.

One night, the table conversation got around to family life. Everyone was discussing their marriages, divorces, children -- things like that. Nobody knew for sure how many times Troy had been married and divorced in his life, but he always liked to pop-off and complain about his wives being unfaithful to him. Can't understand why, since Troy was always hanging out in the poker game. Anyway, Troy's version of the story was that one night, he returned home early from the game and walked-in on his wife in bed with another man. This should hardly have been a surprise to anyone who was listening, since Troy was away from home playing poker most nights. "Did you know the guy she was sleeping with?" someone asked.

Troy didn't even take the toothpick out of his mouth and replied, Hell no I didn't know the guy. Heck, I barely knew her!"

"I'll Raise You a Drawer"

Iranian Mike and I were very close friends. We trusted each other with every dollar, and if one of us got busted played on a shared bankroll. One night, we were at a no-limit holdem game at Doc's place in East Dallas. I don't know if "Doc" had a medical background, but he was one whale of a cardplayer. Mike had about $2500 on the table and decided to take a break to get a sandwich. So I played Mike's chips -- which was allowed.

There was a special house rule in force at Doc's place. The rule was that Doc was never "all-in." Any time there was a bet and Doc was involved in the pot, he had the option of covering it. For this purpose, he kept a small nightstand next to his chair with a big rack of chips in the top drawer. Unfortunately, I was new to the game, and was unaware of Doc's special house rule.

A few minutes after Iranian Mike was gone, I was dealt As-Qs in late position. With $5-10-20 blinds and no callers, I brought it in for a $60 raise. It was folded around to Doc who was in the big blind. He thought for a minute, then re-raised $200. I had seen Doc do this before -- defending his blind with an aggressive re-raise. It appeared that Doc still had a few hundred dollars in front of him, so I re-raised another $200 (putting him "all-in," or so I thought).

Doc didn't even hesitate. He whirled around in his chair, turned to the nightstand and pulled-out the whole top drawer full of chips. Well, I'd never seen anything like what happened next. Doc took the drawer and set the whole thing right in the middle of the pot! There it was -- probably $20,000 in chips and an old wooden drawer with assorted racks of blacks and greens all jammed into the pot. My protest fell on deaf ears. Not wanting to jeopardize Iranian Mike's entire bankroll on such a mediocre hand, I folded.

Of course, Doc played me like a fiddle. He knew that I wouldn't possibly risk my friend's money unless I held the unlikeliest of hands (A-A or K-K). When Doc revealed 9-3 offsuit, I learned yet another important series of lessons: First, always know the house rules before you sit in a new game. Second, when you are not involved in a hand -- you should try to observe your opponents' actions as much as possible. And finally, to be successful you must get inside the other person's head and determine what your opponent is thinking about you. If they have you pegged, you're toast.

The Rabbit

There were many unusual characters back in Dallas during the old days. Every player seemed to have at least one distinguishing feature that made them memorable in some way. Iranian Mike, Troy "the Protector." Doc. Someone called me "Blondie," because I had blonde hair. One player was nicknamed "Rabbit." For the life of me, I have no idea what his real name was -- we just called him Rabbit.

Rabbit had a big, bushy white mustache. Anytime he had a good hand his upper lip would start twitching -- you know, just like the whiskers on a little bunny rabbit. That twitching white mustache was the most obvious tell you could imagine. So, if Rabbit was involved in a pot and he was twitching, he'd almost never get action. Rabbit never could figure out why nobody ever called his bets. Come to think of it, he must have wondered why everybody called him Rabbit.

Redman's Game

One night in a game off Jupiter Road, I was playing at a club called "Redmans." I think it's still there, as it's been a local institution for years. The club name was just a cover for the nightly holdem game that took place inside an old storefront. The game was run by a really nice guy named Lloyd, and was one of the best limit games in the city.

Redman's is memorable for me because it's where I really learned how to play Texas holdem. Day after day, I put in the hours in those games, losing and winning, and more importantly -- learning. We were playing $10-20 one night and I sat down at a full table. The game was very lively, and I called a raise with Qd-10d. The flop provided some wonderful possibilities for my hand: Jd-9d-x. There was a bet, then a raise by a woman whom I had never played with before. I called. The turn brought no help. Again, the woman bet and two of us called.

Well, I couldn't have written a better script for what happened next. The river was the perfect card, the 8d. I had a straight flush! The woman bet out again, and I raised -- knocking out the other player. To my surprise, the woman re-raised! After feigning some confusion over what the board cards were, I raised again. Did the woman not realize that a straight-flush was possible? I suppose not. She re-raised again and we went back and forth 14 times before one of us was all-in. With $800 in the pot, she revealed Ad-Kd, what she thought was the nut-flush lock. She had a big smirk on her face and began reaching for the pot. "I don't know what you were betting on, honey. Didn't you see the flush out there?" she asked.

Adding a little drama to the proceedings, I rolled over my Qd-10d announcing, "straight-flush."

Well, her face just turned blank. I mean, she looked like she'd just been hit in the face with a hammer. At that point, I didn't think smirks or clever comments were necessary. The cards did all the talking.

Little Richard

There was another local gambler, named Richard C. who ran several dice games around town. Richard was as smart as a whip as a businessman. But he was a total maniac at the poker table. Anytime Richard was in the game, you knew there were going to be some mighty big pots. It was nothing for Richard to make a couple of thousand a night at his dice game, then blow it all away at the poker table. He could always count on money coming in the next day. To top it all off, Richard was extremely superstitious.

There was another fellow named "Charlie Tuna," who was Richard's worst nemesis. For the record -- if Tuna didn't have bad luck, he wouldn't have had any luck at all. He lost at everything -- poker, sports, horses, you name it. That was, except for when Richard was around. Then, Tuna always seemed to make a big score.

One night, Tuna went over to Richard's dice game and nearly broke it. He had a monster rush and he held the dice something like an hour. The very next morning, Richard returned to open up the dice game and he was robbed and shot by two robbers. Superstitious Richard couldn't separate the two incidents in his mind, Tuna having nearly broken him at the dice table then being left for dead by a couple of bandits, so he banned Tuna from the crap game. What was crazy was that Tuna was probably the only guy in Dallas ever to be barred from a dice game. God only knows how much money that saved him.

A few weeks later, Richard was still recovering from his gunshot wound and was playing holdem in a game off the North Dallas Tollway. He was gambling it up and running pretty good. Then, Tuna suddenly walked in. To see Richard's face, it was like somebody had pissed in the punchbowl. Trouble was -- it wasn't Little Richard's game, so he had no power to ban Tuna. Tuna bought into the game and proceeded to just run over the table. I mean, he destroyed the game. By the end of the night, Tuna had won all of Richard's chips.

The funniest thing about it was -- Tuna was a horrible cardplayer. But come hell or high water, whenever Richard was around, Tuna would rock the house and be drinking imported beer at the end of the night. Maybe there's something to superstition, after all.

Nolan Dalla can be reached at: nolandalla@pokerpages.com