Poker with the Next Generation

BY: Ashley Adams
Contact at: (Asha34@aol.com)
Author of Winning 7-Card Stud

It was a beautiful Sunday summer late afternoon. 6:00 and still perfectly sunny and clear in Boston. I was walking with a couple of fellow poker players to a poker tournament in the Brighton section of this spread out broad city. Brighton is a working-class part of Boston that has, in the last 20 years, been largely taken over by immigrants, college students, and recent college graduates who are still willing to live in rental units geared toward college students. It's a funky area, with tons of relatively low cost, low ambiance ethnic restaurants, liquor stores, pizza places, used clothing and book stores, and groups of ethnically diverse young people walking and hanging out everywhere.

I like to hang out in this section of the city too, imagining that I am still a college student myself. But at 48, it's a tough fantasy to stay in for very long. I don't get proofed at bars anymore, and though I still get an occasional glance from a young woman, I must honestly admit that it's because she's probably thinking that I remind her of her father - not that she'd like to go out with me. Ah, the realities of middle age�

This is the heart of the recent poker boom - in the living rooms, kitchens, basements and porches of poker-playing 20-somethings who watch poker on TV, play it on their computer, and hang out with their buds playing it at home. It is an area that I occasionally frequent - though most of my time is still spent in the hard-nosed world of casino poker or in the higher stakes dealers' choice games that I've been playing in with players who are generally older than I am for fifteen years. My generation generally played stud games or, more recently, limit hold em. This generation is interested almost exclusively in no limit hold em.

This game was a tournament organized by a friendly and earnest young guy and his roommate. They play twice a week - Sundays and Tuesdays, hosting 12-20 players each time. The game is No Limit Texas Hold Em. The buy-in for the tourney is $20. They charge an extra $2.00 a person and provide bottle and can openers, a cooler for beer or soft drinks that players bring, high quality plastic cards, casino quality poker chips, three nice poker table tops on top of sturdy tables, chairs, and a nice place to play.

Because the weather was so inviting we played outside. I can't remember the last time I played poker au natural. It was really nice! They had ample lighting surrounding the entire area. And, as I looked around, I quickly realized that we were set up in the middle of a skater's half pipe - that relatively modern phenomenon of curved wooden surfaces designed to allow a skate boarder the ability to cruise up and down the inside of something shaped like the bottom half of a large culvert.

Yes, this was a new generation of poker players for sure.

A couple of things became obvious fair quickly. One was that I was probably the oldest guy in the room by 20 years. No problem there. I often am the oldest poker player around these days. It doesn't bother me at all - not even when these youngsters deferentially say things like, "Excuse me Sir, do you have an extra beer that you could spare." Though it was a bit off-putting a first to be thought of as the senior statesman of the group, I've adjusted to it.

The second thing I noticed was that I carried with me certain prejudices and biases. I assumed that the young woman with the spiked hair and multiple face piercing's would be an awful player. I assumed that the gothed-out chick with the silver skull ring, the metal spiked belt, and the dyed jet black hair with matching circles around her eyes, would barely be able to hold her cards. And I assumed that I would have a relatively easy time of finishing in the money (top three finishers) if not winning the whole thing.

Well, I was right about the spiked hair girl, but wrong about everything else. Let me explain.

The tournament was run very smoothly, though it took a while to get things started. Players really didn't fully arrive until 6:45 or so. It was fine, actually, as we sat outside in the sun, enjoying a very light breeze and 80 degree temperatures. The tables were all set up with six seats each, and players picked cards for seating. Everything happened in a relaxed, friendly manner - a bunch of players who were used to the drill and lightheartedly followed through on the routines at hand. I was the outsider but made to feel welcome - especially since I had brought a six pack of the much sought after "Rogue" Beer. I made a couple of instant friends when I announced that I never had more than two beers a night and anyone was welcome to the other four. Someone even was generous enough to gift me a bottle opener which he assured me I should never be without. Thanks for the tip, man!

The first four levels were 45 minutes long. We started at $5/10 with $1,000 in chips, with one optional rebuy of another $1,000 in chips if we busted out -- for $20. The levels shrank to 30 minutes after the rebuy period was over. The structure was tilted toward skillful play more than I had expected (generally, the shorter the levels and the shorter the stacks relative to the blinds, the more of a luck-fest a tournament tends to be). The game organizer and most of the players seemed to take their tournament poker relatively seriously - even if their buy in was quite low by my standards.

The level of play was generally pretty poor. The girl with the spiked hair and pierced face really didn't know what she was doing - calling far too often and raising all in with J-8 suited - only to double up when someone with a pair of Tens called but got out Rivered when a Jack hit. She lost her doubled stack nearly as quickly as she built it when, two hands later she called an all in bet by me, with Aces, and lost when her K7 failed to improve. Lucky me.

The long period allowing rebuys kept nearly all of the 18 players in for 3 hours - as players rarely busted out twice during that time. They were all on the timid and conservative side - something else I hardly expected. With the exception of a couple of wild players like the one I just described, the poor players were generally all too passive and weak, not too wild and aggressive. This struck me as peculiar, since they all talked about the poker TV shows they watched. Yet they didn't emulate the final table play they generally saw - copying more the tentative passive play more typical of the early rounds of a very large tournament.

I was fortunate to have a couple of the wilder players at my table. In addition to my fortunate experience with the pierced lady, I had another player who fell in love with his AK pre-flop and eventually went all in against me when I had KK. An Ace never fell and I made off with his stack.

There was a gothic looking woman on my left most of the night. I mentioned her and my bias against her before. I presumed that she had little game - falling victim to my general experience with young women players - augmented by my general impression of people who dress up like zombies. I figured she was just another newcomer to the game who would either be far too passive or ridiculously wild.

I was completely wrong. She was the best player in the game that I observed - betting strongly when she had a decent hand, willing to draw to potentially powerful hands when her opponents bet weakly into her. She sized up her opponents (and me) very well and seemed to know just when to put a move on someone to get them to concede.

I was impressed by her and increasingly absorbed by the whole somewhat surreal environment - with the handcrafted half-pipe rising up around me - the smell of marijuana, conventional and herbal cigarettes wafting over me from time to time. I felt as if I had been magically transported to a new poker world - one very far removed from the hard-nosed casino play or the "old-fashioned" dealer's choice games I was used to. This was truly poker in the heart of the next generation. And I was loving it.

The tournament eventually narrowed to one table - after about 4 hours. The blinds went up every 30 minutes, from 50/100 to 75/150 and then 100/200 to 150/300. I played my typically tight/aggressive game, throwing in a well-timed bluff ever so rarely if the situation called for it. I was not contested ever when I did this - my age and bearing and play serving as proof that I only played very good cards.

By 11:00 there were just three of us, the Gothic Lady on my left and a third player whom I had driven to the game on my right. Her mound of chips dwarfed the combined total of our two remaining stacks. I hoped, vainly, that the third player would lose a heads up battle with her. Though they had four, he won them all - increasing his stack though barely putting a dent into her monstrous mounds.

Finally, at 11:30 - well over one hour later than I had expected to play - I was dealt AhKh. I was the big blind. She went all in against me, as she generally did if she decided to play a hand on this round. Though my game plan was to let her beat up the other player and to avoid heads up fights with her, I felt compelled to call with my strong hand. She had 88. They held up and I was out in third place and the $100 prize (second was $150, first was $250). She went on to win two hands later.

My conclusion is that this new generation of computer savvy, TV watching poker enthusiasts probably has about the same percentage of good players in their midst as mine did. My stereotypes proved to be as inaccurate as most. And the atmosphere of an outside game at sunset is truly seductive - especially when people are smoking up a storm as nearly all of these players were. I'm looking forward to going back - if they'll have me.

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