The Non-Conformist Club

The Non-Conformist Club Part 3

Chapter 5—Stella

Poker night at the Veterans of Foreign Wars hall was the most lucrative game in town for me. I played steadily in pick-up games at frat houses, too, but I liked the old geezers at the VFW. Most of them played very tight, they rarely bluffed and folded a lot. With a little aggression, I could steadily get their chips a few at a time. I didn't wear my Queen garb, of course. I had a couple of Minnie Mouse sweatshirts I saved for this crowd. Tonight I would be the sweetheart granddaughter or daughter they wished would come and visit more often.

The stale cigarette and Vicks vapor rub smell would probably be enough for most people to turn right around and go back out the door. But it always reminded me of my Grandpa Burt's bedroom, and I found that comforting. Mike, the bartender, smiled at me, not checking my fake ID like he used to. "Playing in the tourney Stella?"

"Sure; how many so far?" I asked, counting out twenty-five dollars in fives and ones.

"You make 32, but I'm expecting a bunch more," he said, handing me a stack of 2,000 chips. "Good luck!"

Poker wasn't as popular as it was a few years ago when they tell me you couldn't always find a seat, but by the time the tournament started there were 77 players, a substantial score. In tournament poker, the chips don't represent real money; you buy a set amount of chips and are eliminated when you go "all in," betting all of your chips, and lose. It ends when one player gets all the chips. It costs a set amount to play each hand, also called the blinds, and that amount gets bigger as the tournament goes on, so the game gets more expensive every few minutes. Your 2,000 starting chips become small, relative to the blinds, very quickly, so you have to win pots and eliminate players if you want to stay in. Fortunately, it was a good starting table for me. I knew five of the seven other players already, so I only needed to get a read on two. If I could do that, I could get some chips and last to the final table.

I played my part, laughing and joking with the old men as I watched the newcomers. I wanted them to like me, to subconsciously want to give their chips to me. Now that didn't mean I didn't have to play cards, too. But using my granddaughter-like qualities only helped me separate them from their chips. In the meantime, I quickly dismissed the first newcomer as another tight-passive player and he was steamrolled from the game before I could really exploit him.

The other newcomer was much more dangerous. At first I thought he was just a lucky card rack, but he quickly demonstrated that he could play some too. I mostly stayed out of his way and watched as he made move after move on the old men. These old guys played tight and folded often when pressured, so he just kept the pressure on; raising almost every hand he played. This worked well for him for the first two hours, but I'd played with these guys enough to know that that strategy would not work forever. Sure enough, he went out two spots before the final table trying to push around a guy with more chips than he had. Dumb.

I, on the other hand, made the final table with ease. I doubled my chips early when I got a lucky flush; then slowly but consistently increased my stacks without ever risking all my chips again. The guys knew I was a solid player and liked this version of me well enough that two of the players I busted even smiled as they pushed their chips to me saying, "I hope you win, honey." There were 140,000 chips on the table to win, and I had about 20,000 of them. Blinds were only 500/1,000, so I was in fine shape, but by no means dominating. When we reshuffled for seats at the final table, I was in fourth place out of nine. I had to finish in the top five to get paid.

Two small stacks were already eliminated when I got lucky and my Jack/King made a pair after I had called a small all in, allowing me to stay at about 20,000 chips and busting the seventh place person. Nothing came for me for a couple of rounds though and when the sixth place person busted, my 20,000 was one of the short stacks as the blinds went up again, hitting 1,200/2,400. I needed to get some chips soon or I would risk being the last person to not get paid, the absolute worst place to be. I would have wasted my whole night and have no money to show for it.