Bar Game

Running my weekly bar game last night and what a crazy night it was. Biggest and drunkest crowd of the year. Two people knocked out first hand. LOL I am an alternate so I take my place next to the guy that just tripled up and the drunk guy that lost half of his chips. I am big blind. Drunk guy calls with out looking at cards. Comes around to me I have A-4 off and check. Flop is K-J-6 rainbow. Drunk guy pushes all-in without looking, everyone folds to me. Damn. I call and he flips ovey Q-8 off and then hits a Q on the river to beat me. Two hands later I have AA, so I push all figuring he would call. He had played every hand and still had a few chips left and folds. LOL Next hand he pushes all with two all-in in front of him with nothing and big stack. wins two more peoples chips. What a great read by drunk guy only hand he doesn't play is my aces! Must have been his great reading ability. Got to love bar poker! Heading to Hinkley Casino tonight to play a rebuy tournament and play cash games. May get snowed in! Might as well get snowed in at Casino! LOL

Home Game

Played in a home game last night. Thanks for inviting me Jon. 7 pretty good players. I was never not the chip leader and took it down. I think I took out every player. LOL. Nice run of cards. Never happens like that when I am playing a bigger tournament. I also played a lot online. Nothing better this time of year then watching NCAA basketball and hockey while playing poker. Decided to move up in limit on Absolute and play some 2-4 limit. It was a good decision. I made a little over $200 yesterday. More basketball and poker today. Running my bar game at legion club tonight. My NCAA brackets are now bust. I had Pitt. winning it all. Another year another bad year with the picks. I need to follow more teams then just MN.

Part II

I now have a great promotion running that is bringing in 50-100 people each week. They are spending money and having fun. Then the call comes about 2 month later. It's the MN Dept of Gambling. They tell me that my promotion is against the law and that I must quit at once. I tell them that I have talked to several lawyers that what I am doing is legal under MN law. The law is in order for something to be gambling it must meet all three of the following. 1. Must be an entry fee 2. Must have prizes 3. Must have consideration Of course I didn't have number 1 so it can't be gambling. Anyway, I was told to quit. I once again call my lawyer and told him of the call. He said it was up to me but they still believed it was not gambling, so on we went. It was now June and I hadn't heard anymore and it was still growing. I had taken a monday night of and went fishing with my wife. When I got back I noticed that I had 69 missed calls on my cell phone. I called and found out the State and Local police had raided my free poker game. They came in with 15 officers with guns drawn and held everyone for 1 1/2 hours, taken everyones name, and confiscated my cards and chips. I talked to head guy from the state and he said that I was to be charged with running an illegal gambling establishment. I asked him if he was sure that he wanted to go down this road. So needless to say I made the front page of the newspaper the next day and then the TV crews started to show up. I made it on all three channels that night telling my story. The local Senator from St Cloud couldn't believe and began legislation to legalize free Texas hold-em in MN. I testified in both the House and Senate and in December a bill was signed by the Govenor making free Texas hold-em legal in bars in MN. I was never charged and only missed one Monday night of hold-em for the whole year. I was able to meet Phil Gordon, he came and testified at hearings, start the Free Poker Tour, running free poker in bars, and be part owner of Full Tilt Magazine. to be continued

First Post

In this blog I will be tracking my poker experiences either online or live. I hope you enjoy! I grew up in a card playing family. We mostly played four handed games such as 500, buck euchre, and Pfieffer. My parents owned a small bowling center in southern Minnesota. It was the afternoon card playing spot. $.50 a game $.25 a set. I did very well winning more then losing. It was in college that I began to play in home game poker games with the younger farmers in the area. They had a lot more funds then me, so it was mostly a losing endeavor playing the crazy games that are played at such games, but it built a love for playing poker. Now fast forward ahead to 2002 and the begining of the current poker craze. I owned a bowling center in St Cloud, MN and I am looking for a new promotion. I am watching the WPT at home with my son and he is talking about how everyone is playing Texas Hold-em at school. I think, there has to be a way to incorporate it into a promotion at my bar. But, is it legal! I decide to invest some money in to lawyers fees and have them look into what the MN law says about Free Poker. They come back that it would nbe ok under law as long as no entry was charged, but they also stated that the MN Dept. of Gambling would not like the idea. After further discussion, it was decided to go ahead and purchase equipment ( Chips & Cards ) and set a date to start. We chose Mondays nights because it was a slow night. Now I had my chips and cards and it was time to start. I picked a monday at the end of Jan. 2003 as the first night. I made up Flyers for my center and posted it about a week in advance on the reader board on my businesses sign. I only knew about Texas Hold-em from wacthing TV, but figured I could wing it. I set up my chip values, blinds and got a timer ready. It is now the morning of the 1st event. I am hoping to have 10 people there for starters. I get to work and my employees are buzzing. The phone has been ringing off the hook about people taht want to play Hold-em that night. I am blown away. I now realize for this to work I need tables and dealers. I spend the next 3 hours making tables out of wall board and cover them with felt. I now have 4 tables. I call several friends to deal. The first players arrive about 4pm. We are not starting until 6pm. First night had 43 players that won a t-shirt for winning. The next week people starting showing up at 3pm and we had over 50. My career as a Tournament Director had begun. More Later!