Part 1:
https://www.reddit.com/pokecomments/bfr2pf/inside_boston_underground_poker_part_1/ Someone in the original post asked me to point out that these are true stories. I'm recollecting everything to the best of my ability, the exact betting amounts will be off a bit, I obviously don't remember the exact dollars being bet on each street, but the overall hands and when the money went in are true. Some of the events might be slightly out of order too, I've tried to write stuff down over the years, but I don't have the best memory for when things happen in a timeline. I'm also skipping some other non-poker degeneracy that happened along the way that I'll probably post in a side-post outside of the normal story. Anyways, back to the main story.
I forgot to mention one thing in part 1. One of the reasons I left Boston at the end of the school year in 2006 was that Chris and I had tried to rent a townhouse with a few non-poker friends, and we kept getting denied by the landlords. I got frustrated and left. Also, I barely played poker while in Israel, there isn't much of a live scene there and I was partying too much for a real online grind.
When I arrived back in Boston in August of 2007, everything was different. I was ready for poker to be my life. I wasn't enrolled in school despite lying to my mom and saying I was. I was only there for the grind.
Rich had gotten us a shitty basement apartment in Allston. He was working as a mailman during the day and still dealing poker at night, not playing very much anymore. His was from Southy Boston, and his dad was minorly connected according to him, but I'm not sure if that's true or not.
Stevo was gone, graduated and moved away. Many of my friends from his game were gone as well, but I still saw Phil around town from time to time, and Chris was now a junior, so we hung out a bunch, and he'd occasionally come to some of the poker games. He was more serious about school at this point though, not a crazy degen like me, but we'd make trips out to Turning Stone in New York once in awhile and have some crazy times. Some stories from those trips will be included in the interlude post.
I found myself a really gorgeous freshman girl to date who at first seemed cool with my crazy hours and lifestyle, but she eventually got sick of it and dumped me. I was a master of Jdate (Jewish dating site) at the time, and convincing Jewish college girls to come on a date with me in my BMW to a fancy restaurant was like shooting fish in a barrel. I set aside 2 nights a week where I'd go to poker late after going out with a girl. I'd play all night until 5 or 6am, get to bed around 7, wake up at 3 or 4pm and then fuck around until I went out for more poker.
The old game at The Loft was gone, but the same guy Moon had set up a new game in Back Bay. The new game was usually $2/5, but sometimes $1/3. It featured a pretty consistent cast of characters. The dealer was a bald guy named Rubin who was super friendly. Some regulars included a couple where the husband was a prison guard and the wife a poker pro. He'd usually lose as much as she'd win, and they'd argue constantly. I think her named was Silvia, I don't remember his name. There was a guy who went by Tatonka who was obsessed with KJ and would never fold preflop with it no matter the action. There was a guy who went by John the Painter who was some low level wanna be mobster as a side gig, and a painter as his day job. There were a few good regulars, one was named Ron and in 2015 he made a deep run in the WSOP Main event. I forget the other good player's name.
Best of all, there were these 2 guys Sayid and Sagar who were both part of the Saudi royal house, and thus got a nice allowance while they were in the US for school. They lived in the same apartment building that a bunch of the Red Sox players had places in right next to Fenway Park. Sagar was a good looking guy with dark skin, long hair to his shoulders, probably about 5'6, and always wearing nice button up shirts. Sayid on the other hand was about 6'2, extremely fat, had bad skin, wore nothing but Billionaire Boys Club sweatshirts, and tended to smell bad. Most importantly though, both were obsessed with poker.
Sagar was one of the most aggressive players I've ever played with. If he missed, he'd try to bluff. He was always trying to bully the table, and he'd make you pay dearly if you wanted to come along in the pot with him. My biggest losing nights in my poker career in terms of bbs lost were when Sagar would catch a nice run. One night I got into 2 $2000 pots with him, once I had 2 pair once I had a set, both times he had a flush draw when we got all in, and both times he hit on the river. Overall though, having a guy like Sagar in the game was amazing. He'd put other players on tilt and make people start playing crazy as well. With Sagar in the game, I'd just wait to make a hand and eventually he'd pay me off.
Sayid was a whole different beast. Sagar was way too aggressive to be profitable long term, but Sayid just straight up SUCKED at poker. He would only raise with big hands or big draws, otherwise he was just a massive calling station. He never would believe you had it, so there was no slow playing against him, you'd just bet and he'd pay if he had anything at all. My favorite hand I ever played against Sayid, he raised to $20 in early position in the $2/5 game, I reraised from the button to $60 with QQ, and he stands up from the table and yells "RERAISEEEEEE THREEEEE HUNDREDDDDDD!" I was laughing so hard and just to tilt him, I folded my QQ face up. He went nuts, showed his AA and was ranting for 20 minutes about how can I fold QQ preflop. He proceeded to lose 6 or 7 buy ins that night, several of them to me. The best part about Sayid was that if he lost everything, every couple of weeks he'd just have his bank account refilled, so it didn't matter. I'm not sure I ever saw him have a winning session. I'd constantly lend money to Sayid to keep him in the games, and he'd pay back and insist on paying me interest as well. I must have made $100k off of Sayid alone that year. Thanks Saudi government!
One night I came back to the shithole apartment at about 6am after a night of poker and we had been robbed. Rich had been staying at his girlfriend's apartment, and someone had broken in through a side window. Rich was insanely pissed, our TV that we had split the cost of, his laptop, a bunch of random stuff for both of our rooms, and other stuff had been stolen. Rich had already been spending most nights over at his girlfriend's place, our place was gross and had roaches, silverfish and other bugs, but after the robbery Rich was hardly at our place at all. I didn't spend much time in the apartment either besides sleeping or occasionally bringing a girl back when we were drunk and she wouldn't notice what a shit hole the place was.
Ron and I became friends as some of the only profitable players, and we'd try to stay out of each other's way generally. One day Ron invited me to come along with him to a bigger game, a $5/10 single table game that ran in a fancy guarded apartment building right outside of Chinatown by the Financial District. To get in, you had to go into the lobby, have the guard call up to the unit you wanted to go to, and then he'd walk you to the elevator, activate it, and let you up. This was the kind of game where you didn't have to worry about getting robbed.
Thanks to the legitimacy and security of the game, this game attracted some serious whales. There were plenty of banker types in the game, but the star attractions were these 2 hedge fund owners who would play. I can't for the life of me remember their names, but they were worth about $50 mil each at the time according to Ron. I'm not sure how Ron had gotten himself into this game, because the guy running the game Andy was really big on not letting pros in. He let me in because I, like him, am Jewish, and he liked me right off the bat. There was another pro who would play every time too, so usually 3 good players (me, Ron and other pro), a couple of decent break even players, 2 random fish, and the 2 hedge fund guys. The game was dealt by this Brazilian guy who dealt really fast and efficiently, I was impressed. The setup was great, it was just in Andy's apartment and it was a really nice apartment at that. His TV was insanely big for that time, he always had amazing food and drinks for everyone, it was a really impressive setup overall.
The first night I played at Andy's game, there was this extremely cocky 17 year old kid sitting in the game with $2k in front of him. Apparently he was crushing online poker and had a reputation for being a little punk, but a good player. He had the total poker uniform on, a Full Tilt Poker jersey, a backward ballcap, and sunglasses on his forehead to be flipped down for big pots. I'm not sure why Andy let him in the game, but I didn't know Andy well enough at the time to question it. I bought in for $1k and had run it up to $2500 at this point, the kid had about $2200 in front of him. From playing the past few hours with him, I knew the kid loved to try to run big bluffs and shove it in his opponent's face. I was still a pretty tight player overall, but I tended to be cocky as well as a way to tilt my opponents into giving me more action.
So me and the kid get into a pot, I raise $15 with KK from early position, the kid 3bets in position (which he did really often) to like $50, I 4bet to something like $200 and the kid just rips in his $2200 stack. I'm looking at the kid trying to read him, and he looks confident as fuck. I'm totally convinced he has AA, but I wasn't ready to have this punk flip up 72o and laugh in my face, so eventually I called. He had the Aces, and is talking shit as the dealer dealt out the cards. River comes the K, and the kid goes from talking shit to literally toppling backwards out of his chair, his hat and sunglasses falling off of his head, and him moaning in a super pathetic voice "NOooOoOoOooooo". Everyone in the game bursts out laughing, it was hilarious after all the trash he had talked to see him get destroyed like that.
Now I should say at this point that at some of the other games I mentioned, you bought in like at a casino, pay up front, get chips. If you knew Moon well like I did, he'd float you a couple of buyins just so you didn't need to run out to the ATM if you were having a rough night. Andy did things differently. The game was bigger, the hedge fund guys would often dump $5k+ into the game each in a night, and they sure as hell weren't going to carry that much cash around just asking to get mugged. The rule was that you had 2 days to settle up, but only if Andy trusted you, otherwise you had to pay right away. Andy would walk with you to the ATM and make sure you got the money out, or if you lost more than your ATM limit you'd stay the night and Andy would escort you to the bank in the morning. Andy was a goofy guy and stoned most of the time, but he was also on steroids and clearly a bit unstable. I wouldn't cross a guy like Andy.
So the kid gets up and makes as if to leave, and Andy says "hey wait, I fronted you $1000 of your buy in, I don't know you well enough, you need to settle." After some back and forth, they are at an impasse, Andy insisting the kid stay until he can get the $ from the bank and the kid insisting at 17 he doesn't have a bunch of cash in the bank, he has it in paper currency hidden at his house. I feel bad for the kid after the $4k suck out, and say that I'll just let the $1k be a debt from the kid to me, and to take it off of my cash out. Andy actually takes the $1k in chips from in front of me right there in the middle of the game and says okay, but warns the kid that he'll still take it personally if the kid doesn't pay me. The kid leaves.
I text back and forth with the kid, and there's always some excuse. I can search his name and see him sitting with over $1k total between tables on Full Tilt, but he always has some reason he can't pay me right then. Eventually I tell Andy the kid is ducking me, and Andy is PISSED. I mentioned John the painter before, a semi regular in Moon's game in Back Bay. Andy knew the guy as well, and paid John $200 to go teach this kid a lesson. Apparently $200 is worth going and committing a felony against a minor, because John went and punched the kid in the face right in front of the kid's mom, kicked the kid once while he was down, and said he better pay up. He made sure the mom knew that the kid was playing illegal underground games and welching on debts. The kid sent me the $1k to my Full Tilt account that very day.
I started playing Andy's game pretty regularly, and was doing well. It ran twice a week, and I tried to always be there, except when it ran as a $25/50 game, that was too rich for my blood. The rake on the game was supposedly $10, although Andy was elusive if you tried to get him to say straight out that the max rake per pot was $10. The thing was, more than $10 was coming out per pot, and most people were aware of that. Andy would play in the game though, and he was a total fish. He'd lose back what the house took in a night most of the time, so it wasn't that big of a deal that the game was being over raked. One day, Andy asked me if I'd ever dealt cards before, and I mentioned that I'd dealt a little bit for Stevo's game when Erik couldn't make it for whatever reason, or needed to leave for the night. Andy asked me if I'd be willing to slyly take more than $10 from each pot if he'd make me his dealer and give me 20% of the house take per night. 20 year old me was willing to be a pretty big scumbag for money, so I agreed.
I'd get high and deal that game for 10 hours straight with just short 5 minute bathroom/smoke breaks. I raked that game like crazy, constantly "making change" in the pot, tossing in a green and taking out 6 red, or taking out a green and tossing in 4 red. I rarely got tips, people could tell what was going on, but it was worth it for them to play in the game with the hedge fund guys. Once a regular called me out, saying I had raked $10 preflop and then again on the flop. One of the hedge fund guys told him that if he couldn't afford $20 rake, he should get the fuck out. That ended any complaining about the rake ever. The house take was around $5k/night with how I was raking the game, Andy would lose a few grand on average per night, the hedge fund guys were probably losing a combined $6-7k on average per night, and so the other players didn't complain. I was making $1k/night for usually 8-10 hours of dealing. It was amazing. Ron would pay me a small piece of his winnings every night after the game in exchange for me not raking pots heavily that it seemed like he was going to win. Ron was an excellent player and must have been averaging $5k/night in profit, and the hedge fund guys loved him and were offering to stake him to start his own business.
One week there was a big tournament series going on at Turning Stone. Ron and his friend Ray wanted to go, and I got free rooms and comps at TStone, so we piled into the BMW and went out there. A couple of days into the trip, I got a call from my roommate Rich. Although he was barely ever home anymore, he said he had stopped by the apartment and it had been broken into again. He said a bunch of my stuff had been stolen, although very little of his stuff was gone since he barely kept anything in the place anymore. I asked him to file a police report as we had done the first time we had been robbed, and he said he would, but I never followed up with him about it and it sort of slipped my mind. About $500 in stuff had been stolen, but I won $2k on the trip and was making $1k/night twice a week dealing, oh well. I was too blind and careless at that point to see what was really happening...
Interlude between parts 2 and 3 about my degenerate lifestyle outside of poker at the time (reposted since it wasn't viewable for people the first time):
https://www.reddit.com/userobswins/comments/bfyehh/inside_boston_underground_poker_interlude/ Part 3:
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