Tao of Poker

Poker in Miami!!

My good friend Jon Schanzer was in Miami this weekend on a business trip. He hit the card rooms to play some poker. Here's a bit of an email he sent me:

"Pauly, I was in Miami on Monday, waiting around to go the Eagles-Dolphins game. Jerry suggested that I go to the Hollywood Dog Track, where they just opened some poker tables. I had a ball. First of all, the whole thing was totally sketch. You take an elevator up to the second floor, and walk into an open ballroom-looking place, with about 10 tables. An old man walks up and puts your name on a list - either $1-$2 holdem, or $2 straight. It doesnt take long before you're at a table. The poker players are from every age group. All of them are serious. I was by far the least serious guy there. I did well early, but lost a couple of big hands down the stretch (lost to higher flushes and higher straights - ugh). I'm ready to go back soon."

Very cool. I started playing cards with my fraterinty brothers at Emory University over a decade ago. Schanzer and Jerry used to live with my other poker playing buddy Brad (who I used to play with when we both lived in Seattle in the late 1990s). Anyway, we used to go to their apartment off campus to play cards all the time!! Sometimes there were too many people that they had 2 games going on in their small apartment! The girls who lived next door were hooked. And they played every night with us. That was crazy... some good old times. I'll write up some stories about my early days as a poker player in Atlanta during the early 1990s. Some interesting times for sure.