Layed down a monster last night…So last night was the first and last event of the APA state poker championships.
Pretty nice set up, at the function room in the Italian Centre on Carrington Street, nice bar, professional set up, around 20 tables, about 150 capacity with around 120 players already there, there were even meet and greet chicks at the door!
So I wandered in with rk and registered for the tournament, typical crowd, mostly guys, in fact there were only like two other girls playing I think.
I played kind of ok, no big mistakes, people were going crazy with buy-ins, so it was tough, my table was actually pretty subdued, mostly matchroom guys and a couple of apa guys and one guy who acted like he was a pro, but I really have no idea who he was.
This was the conversation:
Him: “So, are you here cause your husband is playing”
Me: “No”
Him: “Well, its nice to have a lovely young lady on the table, isn’t it guys…”
Everyone: “grunt”
Anyway… so I played tight, then took a hand by betting into a junk flop, then pretty much lost most of the rest of my chips in blinds, decided to go all in with 600 when I hit top pair 10 on the flop, a guy called me with K8 (he had second pair 8) and then he hit a King and so I had to decide if I was gonna spend $20 on a buy in, and then $60 on an add on or if I would just quit and leave it there. I decided to leave it there, cause my heart just wasn’t in it at the time, and this decision was the best lay down of the night…
About half an hour after I left I got a text message saying the place had been busted up by 30 cops!
Apparently they came in and told everyone to stay in their seats and that they have reason to believe that the blah blah act had been broken and this was an illegal game. Then they bagged everyones chips and cards and interviewed everyone asking questions like ‘what game are you playing’ ‘what are the rules’ and ‘what is your occupation’.
Btr said they took all his chips (he was doing well too) and his cards, K9 off suit (I think) that were in play at the time, and put them in an envelope and wrote his name on it.
One guy is quoted as saying to the guy next to him when they bagged his 7 8 off suit
“Gee mate, you should be arrested for playing with a hand like that”
Apparently they confiscated everything (including the laptop with the player database) and took video of the whole thing.
Anyway, that’s about all I know at the moment, and I missed all that drama by around 30 minutes!!!
More seriously, the incident makes me wonder what the hell the police were thinking?
This event has been publicly advertised (online, brochures, interstate) for months, the details of the event along with mobile phone numbers of who to contact for information freely available to everyone. As if the police decide to bust it out like it’s some kind of underground illegal gambling rort that is raking in millions of dollars for the organisers! The organisers just like to play cards, and compete against other card players, so they set up a club to do so. I don’t see why the police couldn’t have worked with the organisers to either ensure that they had all the correct licenses prior to it going ahead or cancel it without needing to send in 30 officers to bust out a bunch of people playing cards in a hall, it just seems a little over the top. I feel bad for the guys who run it, they’re not trying to make an easy buck out of the vunerable (like pubs and their pokies), they were trying to organise a proper tournament where you try to out play other competitors just like any other sports or game club.