It’s a quarter to ten and I’m standing in the dingy vestibule of an old brownstone somewhere in soho. The routine is always the same. I ring the buzzer, the intercom crackles and I’m asked my name and told to stand in front of the camera.

I oblige, telling them my name for the 10th time and removing my hat so they can get a better view. I’m told that I’m OK and am buzzed in through a series of doors.

The interior of the club is dingy and sloppy, it looks to be somewhere between a living room and the back room of a bodega. White walls with glossy lime trim, unflattering fluorescent overheads and dingy green checker board tiled flooring. A tabby cat sashays between the legs of the players, looking for attention. Something about the acoustics causes the usual clatter of chips to be amplified, but it’s a soothing sound so I don’t mind.

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(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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I should have known that writing an article about sliding into the gutter was a signal that today in Atlantic City was going to be a total wreck.

In some ways it actually worked out well for me - if you look beyond the $800 hit to my bankroll - because it put me right in the place I needed to be to test out my disaster preparedness plan.

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(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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So you can wreck your home game. And when you hit the local card room, by playing super tight against the degenerates, you can scrape out a buck or two. But what happens when you sit at a table and can’t find the fish?

Do you stubbornly sit there trying to beat the game or will your ego let you admit YOU are the fish that these sharks have been waiting for?

A big, big, HUGE part of poker is game selection. It’s probably the second thing you need to learn after hand selection. So what are some tell-tale signs that you might be in over your head?

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(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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