Player's Stories

Finding the Poker Game
By Johnny Hughes

Amarillo, Texas 1984.

The bar seemed in a middle age crazy, everybody yells at everybody over the band, dancing frenzy, with the women outnumbering the men six to one due to a convention of nurses at the Motel.

"You a rancher?" one Rubenesque redhead inquired in an obvious reference to Buddy Hargrove's Stetson, cowboy cut suit, and alligator boots. There he was with twelve thousand in his pocket, a new suit, a roomful of horny nurses and it was going on the worst night of his decade.

His wife had burned his clothes in a clear ending signal.

Buddy did not have and for the first time ever did not want a woman at this time. What he did have was a one bedroom apartment furnished with a mattress and a couch and a couple of chairs and a dice table that had hosted only half a dozen people in three weeks.

Buddy had retreated to Amarillo on the strength of the word of Durwood Greer that he knew a lot of rich high-tone folks to host at dice games, blackjack, and sports booking. The twelve thousand Buddy had was his last. The barroom was a wall of sound but Buddy heard the two older hippie looking men who he made to be brothers talking about poker.

"Heard yall talking. I love poker." Pretty soon they were telling Okie jokes and talking about a dime limit game. A couple of beers, a two-step and a waltz later, Buddy realized they meant a thousand for a dime and began to think they were making it all up about a floating game on either side of the Red River with as much as one or two hundred thousand on the table. They were Brad and Mike Jones and they ran the game. Over time they introduced Buddy to several other shady Okies all named Jones.

Ten days later, Buddy did the gambler's knock in the early afternoon on a motel room in Shamrock, Texas decorated in four leaf clovers. There were only nine chairs and nine players in the poker game and he had to sit on the bed to wait. The players all appeared to be farmers or blue collar workers in work clothes, gimmee hats, and work boots. Out front were several older beat up pickups. He had walked into this same scene hundreds of times in many a town but rarely seen this many impressive stacks of hundred dollar bills and black chips. Buddy didn't see any beer bottles or liquor glasses and it was dealer's choice with no house dealer. They didn't even charge him any tea, rake, or per cent on his chips. It was the only friendly poker game in America.

There was an empty seat with what Buddy guessed to be forty-thousand in front of it. Brad Jones explained with some glee that Clifford Jones, who will raise most pots, has gone to the seven eleven for chips and dips and drinks and snacks and smokes. Buddy went in the small bathroom and put a folded up hundred in his billfold and then bought $9000 worth of chips with great fear.

After only one pair of Aces, Buddy jumped off winner and beat this game eighteen weeks out of twenty in a series of mostly Indian owned motels not far from the Red River. He had just never met such totally laid back and mellow outlaws.

He knew they were in the dope trade but nobody said it. It was a wonder they never got robbed or arrested with the least security and the most cash money for miles. Buddy knew to do everything humanly possible to win all the time and not get barred. He brought pounds of bar-b-que from Amarillo or steaks from the Big Texan. They bet on dove hunting, skeet shooting, washers, and horse shoes and Buddy made small but strategic losses. Buddy listened hard to bad beat stories and had jumper cables and fix-a-flat and a cell phone and would pitch any of the players the car keys to his noble and faded Cadillac. He would shuffle in a clumsy way, have trouble handling chips and money, and drop frequent hints about his inheritance and why he just seems to play games rather than work.

Pretty soon Buddy had them all dealing hold em and he tried to get them to drop the thousand dollar limit but he did not press it.

The first week, Buddy tried to reach Cody Slaton to bring him in for a score and to share this bird nest on the ground. He was really glad when he couldn't reach him. He felt he knew about what to take down each week without queering the deal.

The second week in March,Buddy knew to roll on past the designated motel in Altus when he didn't see any pickups he recognized and he did see what he made to be two unmarked government cars one of which pulled in behind him. Buddy had his bankroll over three hundred thousand from this one game. He had thirty-thousand in the trunk, a loaded . 38 revolver, a loaded . 22 Ruger, a sawed off double barrel shotgun, a half ounce of pot in the trunk, and a smelly lit joint in his hand.

The car seemed to follow from a long way back and Buddy drove on toward Mangum and did not stop until Floydada,Texas. The number for Brad Jones was disconnected and he did not see any of the Jones crowd again. Buddy made a drive one weekend to Shamrock and Altus and Vernon thinking he might spot the game. You never know how good something is until it is gone.