Wildo carefully drove the windy, twisting two-lane road. We were less than an hour west of Denver in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
“You will totally clean up in this game,” Wildo said matter-of-factly. “Terrible players. Expect big swings, but you’ll be cashing up way ahead at the end of the night.”
I appreciated Wildo’s pep talk. I had not played cards in a casino in a while and had never played at Black Hawk before. Instead of Wildo sounding like a head coach psyching up his team before a big playoff game, he sounded more like a seer issuing prophetic advice. After all, he was a regular in those games.
Founded in 1859 during the Pike’s Peak gold rush, Black Hawk is one of the oldest cities in Colorado. Black Hawk was one of those mining towns that experienced its share of booms and busts. During the last boom, when gold prices reached an all-time high at the peak of the Great Depression, the town built an opulent opera house rivaling Vienna and Paris. The last bust nearly decimated Black Hawk. By the end of Reaganomics, Black Hawk was on the verge of becoming one of those ghost towns that pockmarked the western landscape. Only a few hundred people actually called Black Hawk home until the state of Colorado legalized gambling in 1991. Casinos sprang up overnight and once again Black Hawk was revitalized.
Black Hawk is a speck on the map that appears out of nowhere. On the drive up the mountain, you’re cloistered in darkness, trying to make out faint skeletons of abandoned mining equipment that lurked in the shadows along the highway. But then you make a sharp turn around a bend and you’re greeted by the warm, friendly glow of multi-colored lights from the 16 or so casinos nestled on a band of rare flat land, which snugged the contours of narrow canyon walls.
The history of Black Hawk is something out of a Cormac McCarthy novel. Decades of hard living, accented by blood, sweat, and tears. Dozens of tiny two-story brick and wood mom and pop casinos give Black Hawk a retro late-1800s atmosphere. You did not have to stretch your imagination to imagine two grizzled gunslingers standing in the middle of Main Street to discuss a “bad beat” with their side arms.
Over 150 years ago, prospectors from all over America migrated to Colorado and hiked up into the mountains trying to stake their claim at Black Hawk. The West was settled by gamblers, taking their chances with precious metals prospecting in Colorado and California. Most of them died broke and never hit the mother lode, but it’s on the back of those broken dreams that the West prospered. Original settlers were determined to amass a fortune by mining gold and silver. In 2013, only ski bums and gamblers head up into the mountains hoping to hit a slots jackpot or ship a share of a bad beat jackpot. The only miners you’ll find in Black Hawk are nits set-mining at the poker table.
Ameristar Casino is the largest casino in Black Hawk with a 33-story hotel that boasts majestic scenic views from the top floors. Ameristar offers a rustic feel with a more laid-back atmosphere that better suits my personality.
Seven tables at Ameristar’s poker room were filled, but the majority of the money in the room was sitting on a short-handed $30/60 table. The players were caricatures straight out of poker’s central casting: a trio of sleep-deprived Asian gamblers, a tattooed biker dude who looked like an extra from “Sons of Anarchy,” a portly guy in a Peyton Manning Broncos jersey, and the youngest player in the room sporting a flat-billed Miami Heat hat, sunglasses, oversized headphones (who was practicing for his 15 minutes of fame at a TV table by tanking for five minutes on every street).
The Big Game looked super soft, but I had not played in a cash game for several months and lacked a sufficient bankroll. The loudest voice inside my head (think Jules from “Pulp Fiction”) is a miniature devil that hypes up the seven deadly sins. Jules tapped directly into pride and greed.
“Get your skinny ass to the ATM and withdraw the max cash,” barked Jules as I stood on the rail, salivating at the mountains of chips on the table in biggest game in the room.
The most sensible inner voice (who sounds like former North Carolina head coach Dean Smith) sternly reminded me of a primary rule about gambling limits: “Never withdraw cash from a casino ATM. If you run bad and lose all the money you brought, it’s time to go home.”
Jules was always an angle shooter and suggested, “Ask Wildo to borrow a few hundred. Or ask your lovely girlfriend to hand over all the cash she has on her. You can destroy that $30/60 game but need as much ammo as possible.”
Coach Smith calmly whispered, “It’s foolish to jump into the big game. You’d be instant roadkill and donating to the local high rollers. Punch your weight, son.”
The inner voices finally simmered down. My plan was simple: run up my stack at $2-5 and wait until after midnight to take a shot at the $30-60 table. I got my name on the list for a $2-5 game but the $1-2 game had seating right away. I dug into my pocket and pulled out a small wad of $20 bills. Before Black Friday, I used to grind online poker five days a week but I was in the biggest poker drought since Chris Moneymaker binked the Main Event. During this hiatus, I no longer held a physical poker bankroll.
While anxiously waiting for a seat at $2-5, I went slumming at $1-2 for several hours. It was a spread-limit game with a max-bet of $100. Very strange, but that’s a part of the peculiar gaming laws in Colorado. At least it’s better than the former $5 max-bet rule.
Wildo was probably the best player at the table not including myself. I was hoping to find a table filled with shit-housed drunk oilmen, but the only crazy, drunken oilman at the table was Wildo. We pretended we didn’t know each other and stayed out of each other’s hair. We only played one pot against each other (my pocket Aces held up).
Ameristar enticed locals with a juicy bad beat jackpot, one of the primary reasons it was the most popular room in Black Hawk. A couple of old timers (one super loose and the other super tight) sat at the far end of the table. They were bored retirees who swapped war stories about their most recent surgery and happily grinded out player points while taking their shot at the bad beat jackpot.
I scoped out the biggest stacks at the table. It’s like being a burglar. You don’t want to knock off poor people and instead set your sights on the richest of the rich. My goal was to double up against the big stacks. Within an orbit, I identified the action players (including Wildo). I stalked and hunted the most wasted guy at the table before he bled the rest of his chips to someone else. A meth-addled tweaker in Seat 5 had a vexing leg twitch who almost kicked over the table a few times. He kept maniacally rubbing the left side of his bald head, which left a dark red splotch of irritated skin. He saw every flop, no matter how much it cost him. He must have had some friends in the pits because he’d disappear for a few minutes and return with a $100 chip, which he’d convert to red birds and quickly donk off before he angrily rubbed his head to the point of nearly drawing blood, then disappeared into the pits to borrow more money.
Golf guy to my left wouldn’t shut up about a round he played earlier in the day. He didn’t have that degen glint in his eye because he desperately wanted someone to talk to, which is why he chose the poker room instead of hiding out in a trench of slot machines. Card players inflicted with the sickness of problem gambling purposely avoid eye contact with tablemates so they don’t get sucked into innocuous conversation. I made the wrong move by politely saying “How’s it going?” when I sat down, but golf guy took that as an invitation to tell me his life story. Hearing someone prattle off a bad beat sucks, but listening to someone go into the sordid details of their life bad beats is even more nauseating. I’d rather sit next to the hopelessly addicted problem gambler because they don’t say much aside from the occasional grunting and muttering to themselves with a glassy-eyed 100-yard stare. They have no time for chit chat or banter. All they want is another fix and could care less about exchanging pleasantries at the table.
I busted chatty golf guy and no longer had to endure his stupid banter. I held As-2s. I flopped a Wheel draw and a straight-flush draw. I had so many outs and wanted to get rid of the chatty golf guy that I couldn’t get my money in the pot quick enough when he moved all in on the flop. I rivered a flush. He mucked his hand. Thank goodness golf guy didn’t rebuy. I would not have been able to sit through another orbit.
I never heard my name called for the $2-5 game and never got a shot at the big game. Despite the rust, I booked a sensational session at my low-limit table. At the cage, the cashier slid several crisp $100 bills across the granite counter. I caught the bug once again. Next time I buy into a game, I won’t be embarrassed about unfurling a grimy bunch of 20s. I now have Benjamins after rebuilding my bankroll from scratch.
The relaxed poker room at Ameristar is so soft that I cannot wait to return to Colorado. If I lived in Denver, I’d never go to an ATM to withdraw cash. Instead, I’d head up to Black Hawk and fleece the Rocky Mountain donks.
