Not exactly an incident but hopefully worth sharing.

About ten years ago I was playing in a private game. I’d only played there once before and didn’t really know anybody in the player pool. There were ten players, two dealers, two house men, and three or four guys waiting.

The cops kicked the door in with guns pointed like they were raiding Tony Montana. After telling everyone to place their hands on the table one of them said “If you’re carrying a weapon, slowly raise one hand.”

Every hand in the room went up except mine.

^^ reminds me of something I experienced back in the day^^

I had just won a WSOP ME package to the 2006 WSOP and decided I need to try and get some deep stack poker tourney experience. I heard about an underground poker room in Dallas that was having a deep stack tourney but was a little concerned because several underground rooms had been robbed by people coming in with semi-automatics and taking chunks of cash so I just brought in my keys, my drivers license and $20 more than the buy-in.

There were probably 200+ players plus various staff and an older lady making food in the kitchen as well which took place in a warehouse type space in an industrial area of Dallas.

About an hour in, there's a loud bang and a lot of commotion and I look up to see a bunch of guys in black holding high guns screaming. I couldnt believe the first time I go to an underground game, it gets robbed...

I get a closer look and see "SWAT" written across the front of all the people followed by a bunch of other staff in windbreakers blazoned with SWAT as well. Then I see a crew of people with cameras filming everything.

Turns out the show Dallas Swat came along for the raid and was filming everything but when they asked for everyone to sign waivers, everyone refused so it never made it to air...in retrospect I wish we had given them permission so I could see the footage

The players I met were in construction, doctors, attorneys, retired grandmas, etc, etc... they arrested the operators and even the old lady cooking food, what a joke!

The players got tickets, I think some fought them and won. I didnt have time so I just paid the $250 fine and moved on.

such a waste of time and resources but I guess it makes for an interesting experience...

I could tell you a bunch of stories, all of which are true, from my experiences in poker and pool. One that involves a fight did not involve me, but a very close friend of mine from our childhood in Dayton. He lived in a beautiful home in Scottsdale and I was living in L.A. I came over to visit him and he took me down to the casino he was playing in (the one that was slightly out of town). This was about 25 years ago. My friend's name was Terry Johnson, a 5'10" 220 pound legitimate bad ass. Even as a teenager I saw him take big guys out with one punch. I knew he was some kind of gangster but I never discussed his "work" with him. He was my friend and that's what mattered to me.

Terry was playing the big game there (30-60 Stud) on a regular basis and killing it. He played damn good. I got in the 10-20 Limit Hold'em game right next to him. So on this night Terry is doing his thing and beating the game. There is a big guy in the game who takes a dislike to Terry. And Terry backs down from no one! Period!! So there is some smack talk at the table and when Terry goes to the restroom the guy spits in his drink. Terry returns and finishes his drink. Everyone at the table knows but won't say anything. After an hour or so the big guy has to go pee and that's when someone tells Terry what happened. The guy returns and Terry tells him he knows what the guy did, and the guy just laughs and says what are you going to do about it. Terry throws his new drink in his face. The big guy jumps up and says let's go outside. So out that go.

Maybe three minutes go by and Terry walks back in. He calls for security and when they come he tells them there is guy passed out outside. Everyone at the table laughs. Later on the way home I ask him what happened out there. He says the big guy took a swing at him and he hit him square in the middle of his face, and the guy dropped like a rock.

Maybe some of you who played in Phoenix back then remember Terry. He was killed/ambushed a few years later, but that's another story.

One more little tale. Some of you may know about this from when it was going on. Years ago at the Bike there was a group of Asians robbing people in the parking lot out back, after they had seen them make a score. It always happened at night under cover of darkness. That back lot was not well lit, and the Bike tried to keep this on the QT knowing it was bad for business. Anyway on this night a medium level tournament was coming to an end and I made the final table. Long story short, I finished 5th for 7,700 plus change. I threw the extra in the tip jar and took the 7,700 in chips to the cage to cash out. It was probably about 3 AM and maybe a dozen people had been watching the game. I'm at the cage and the cashier is taking time cashing me out. I notice a small Asian man about thirty feet away leaning on a column, kind of glancing my way a couple of times. Let's just say I have radar and something didn't feel right. The place was pretty empty and why was this guy standing there. Anyway I get my cash, tip the girl twenty and head out. I walk right by this guy and look right at him but he looks away.

I keep walking down the ramp toward the exit and take a look back. Sure enough this guy is coming too, maybe forty feet behind me. I get to the exit doors leading to the parking lot and take another look. He has been joined by a second man. Where he came from I don't know. I walk outside and cross the alleyway and head to the entrance to the car park. Now I look back and here they come out the doors, closer to me then before. I know something's up. I go about twenty feet more and turn around and walk back directly toward them. They stop and stand still. I purposely walk right between them and head back inside. Once inside I look back and they are just standing there unsure of what to do. I get a security guard (armed) and he escorts me to my car. They are nowhere to be seen.

The next day I call my friend Robert Turner who worked at the Bike and tell him what happened. He said I was lucky. Several people had been robbed in the parking lot during the last couple of months. They would follow you to your car and when you opened the door they would pull a gun on you. Caught them by surprise. I guess a lot of people don't really pay attention to what is going on around them and who's out there watching them. I do! I said I have radar. Years on the road will do that to you. Most of my pool playing buddies have been robbed. I'm one of the only ones who hasn't been so far, and I long ago quit gambling at pool. I was right too. The Bike wanted to keep it on the QT and did not want it in the news, and the police co-operated even if a police report was made. After all they were the biggest tax payers in Bell Gardens. Eventually they added more lighting back there and put up a sentry tower, that was manned 24 hours a day.

Enough for now.

Do tell, good of a time as any...

I really enjoy this thread and witnessing the drama that comes with playing poker but not a fan of engaging in it personally.

One of the better ones I’ve seen was a corona bottle thrown across mid/low limit section of borgata about a decade ago and the thrower being escorted out. I think he was aiming at big bad Bob the floor man lol

Another story I luckily didn’t witness first hand was I showed some college buddies a “home game” aka raked private game in Chinatown in boston when I went to school there decades ago which I happened to have found listed here on 2p2. I played once or twice did ok at the 1/3 game. So few friends went one day I stayed in the dorm and played unraked home game with some others and midway through our game those ones who went to Chinatown game came back looking like they seen a ghost. Apparently Chinatown game got robbed at shotgun point by some masked robber barrons. I dodge bullets baby!

forget it jakes it's chinatown

Canadian stories are always good. Canada is like vanilla ice cream, so any ingredient you add will taste awesome.

I think most of those stories show why it's much safer to play online

Guy got two outered and threw the burger he was eating at the dealer. He was promptly removed and 86’d, fortunately.

X-posted from my 2p2 blog.

there's a female floor at aria who is probably the worst floor person all over vegas ... basically every situation where she is called over to a table to settle a dispute turns into an altercation :-)))

Pretty sure I know who you are talking about and one of the reasons I stopped playing tournaments at Aria, that and the crowded tables, and awful parking situation..

yep, she is difficult to "overlook or hear" :-)))

I recently saw an altercation at a 5/5 table at the Encore in Vegas. Guy was yelling like a mad man at the dealer for not dealing him in as he got up to talk to his friend at the table behind him. The funniest thing was that he seemed like one of those guys that just looks for some reason to get angry at the dealer for no good reason. About 4 people spoke up at the table telling him how he was wrong. He was not seated and the dealer was just doing her job. She’s not going to be able to look around the room to make sure none of the players are close by. He got quiet immediately after everybody explained how unreasonable he was being.

There was no security anywhere nearby to prevent him from leaving after he assaulted you?

😂😂😂. There’s nobody in the real world to help you. Welcome to reality. You’re on your own in life

I had a degen chase me around an apartment threatening to spit on me / my car because I refused to loan him to play him heads up after he tried stealing my deck of cards. Had another degen throw a handful of $0.50 and $1 coins at me and I ducked and they smashed against wall or my apartment when I tried to cash his $100 or so out with about $10 worth of coin and the rest cash after he drunkenly passed out on my reclining chair after playing me heads up for less than an hour or so. Home games for the win.

Well, I just got banned from my favorite underground game for three months (unfairly, in my opinion), so I might as well tell the story behind it.

Game in question is a 5/5 PLO game in the Buffalo area that runs four nights per week. It's held in a former bar, and that venue is quite appropriate, as the majority of players are drinking to excess any time they take a seat, myself included. Player pool is around 20 regulars, with a few newcomers occasionally sprinkling in. I generally get along with all but one of the regulars (and that one exception will certainly factor into this story), but I admittedly have my low moments where I'm drunk, down a few grand, and unable to 'keep my thoughts to myself'. A few years back, a 4 AM discussion of the existence/nonexistence of god led to me getting another 3 month ban, after an overzealous theist decided to initiate a shoving match with my heathen self. So I guess that was my first strike.

This time around, it's 5 AM, I'm many IPAs in, and I'm down 7k. $25 double board bomb pots have not been kind to me, and one typically bluff-happy (fellow) drunkard reg keeps showing up with the goods against me. So by now I'm just insta-3betting opens and looking to get my remaining 3k in, whenever, however. The one game operator likes to refer to me as the 'winningest player at the game', but I don't think that can possibly be true given my susceptibility to nights like these. I may win 75-80% of my sessions, but the losing 20-25 can get very ugly.

Anyway, the guy I don't particularly like is sitting two to my left, being his typical all-too-talkative self. He and I had had two verbal disagreements over the past six months, one of which led to him grabbing me by the neck before a game operator intervened and restrained him. He played college football (though as a running back), has a habit of curling 25 lb weights between hands. He's about a year removed from a 7-year prison sentence for illegal debt collecting practices, and he told me previously that he would've 'killed me' were it not for the fact that he's still on probation. That comment led me to ask around the local poker community to see if I should he worried about this guy, but several people reassured me that he's not a threat.

Still, I resolved to be more careful around him. The best-laid plans tend to be fully undermined by the synergistic effect produced by the combination of inebriation and losing, however. So when he decided to comment, 'mrcnkwcz is on life tilt', I went off on him. I remember screaming at him, though I'm not entirely sure what I said, as I was drunk. So, he gets up from the table, and I do as well, if only to back away from him. I'm never looking to initiate a physical fight with my words, but other people tend to have their own ideas.

Meanwhile, a guy to my right, a guy who's built like a linebacker and with whom I generally get along, is telling me to shut up. I eventually hit him with a 'go F yourself', and that's when the melee ensued. He stood up and threw a giant fist towards my face, which I mostly dodged, though I ended up on the floor anyway as I crashed into a nearby drink table in my effort to evade. Linebacker dude kicked me a couple times while I was down before the game's security guard held him back. One player immediately bolted from the game without even bothering to cash out his ~4k in chips, but the rest of us had resumed playing within five minutes. My attacker threw me 50 bucks as a peace offering, not that it mattered, as I eventually punted off the remaining 3k to none other than the guy who'd initially set me off. I quietly said 'nice hand', went to the fridge to get a beer, then waited for the players to leave so I could vent my frustration to the game operator (who's become a friend of mine), the security guard, and the dealer (also a friend).

Once the other game operator reviewed security footage of the incident the next day, it was decided that I'd get a 3-month ban while the other two escaped punishment. Not the fairest of verdicts given that I made zero effort to do physical harm to anyone, but there's no point in protesting. I talked to the game operator with whom I'm friends on the phone for an hour two days later; he recommended that I either replace or supplement my alcohol consumption with 'shroom microdosing. I told him I'd see him in three months, beer in hand.

ETA that there was a stripper at this game that night, serving drinks there for the first time. Unlike most local strippers I've seen over the years (which ultimately doesn't amount to too many, as I'm not really a fan of strip clubs, but would occasionally find myself at one for a bachelor party or whatever) she was actually extremely hot. One guy took 1k out of his stack to get a (quite expensive) lap dance from her in full view of the rest of us. He rightly said that I'd paid for that lap dance, lol. The stripper's parting words at 6 AM: 'Bye guys. Please don't kill each other.'

No wonder they call Buffalo the ******* of the world.

Guy wasn't entirely wrong for accusing me of being on life tilt! Living in Buffalo is hardly ideal

Strippers. Founts of wisdom.

Are you sure the game operator is a friend of yours? Sounds like he's friendlier with the big guys who like to get physical.

Hate to tell you but nobody at this game is your friend. They are bleeding you dry. I had a "friend" that was doing the same to me. Acted like he was my friend, listening to my life **** that I was going thru, going out together to strip clubs, partying together the whole 9. All the while he was cheating the game as a dealer for his real friends against me. Bleed me good too. I found out sitting seat 9 that he was false shuffling/cutting the deck. Saw it plain as day and he dealt me AA right after doubling up another player. I always figured that his game was rigged but you never want to believe that you are a mark. Well I was. He still calls me and text me to plead his case. It's all a hustle. Don't be "the mark" !

The other game operator is the one who's friendlier with my recurring adversary; those two were friends from the time before the debt collector served his prison sentence. I foresaw that I was going to be the one taking the fall, given the 'partnership' in play. I also have a reputation for being a loose cannon (verbally) when drunk, and I've challenged the secondary game operator (who owns 40% of the game compared to the 60% owned by the guy I consider something of a friend) on a few occasions, such as back in the summer of 2020 when he played sick and gave Covid to multiple people. A couple of those people were hospitalized and are still suffering adverse health effects 3.66 years later. This guy is completely jacked, whereas I'm 6'1'', 170, so he's not accustomed to being 'challenged' by someone at a serious size disadvantage to him. But I don't care; when drinking, I'm going to say my piece.

Unbeknownst to the 40% owner, the majority owner offered me a 10% stake in the game for 30k back in October, when he was completely broke. I gave it some thought but declined, as I do not want to have that level of involvement in an ultimately illegal game. I tried to hook the then-broke game operator up with a poker friend who is very active in real estate and acquaintances with multiple loan sharks, but my buddy was in his native Scotland during the game operator's 'time of need'. (For what it's worth, the Scottish guy and I have agreed to play the WSOP tag team event together this summer). Would've added an interesting layer to this most recent situation had I accepted the offer to buy 10%!

It's hard to say that when you don't know anyone involved or anything beyond what you read in one post of mine. I've played in maybe 8 different underground games in metro Buffalo since March 2020, and the only wrongdoing I've encountered is overraking of pots by a couple dealers. One of those dealers died from fentanyl-laced cocaine a few months back; he and I stayed in the same house for the Turning Stone WSOP circuit event last March. He was a charismatic guy with some low-key shady tendencies. That describes quite a few people I regularly interact with in the Buffalo poker scene. I've never been f*cked over at any of these games, but I have been when I've extended loans to a few people.

ETA Obviously what happened to you sucks, and I don't mean to minimize that