Strike Two

I'm reminded of the joke where a man refused to leave his house in the face of an upcoming flood. At first a police officer drove by and asked him to evacuate, but he said, "I'm OK, God will save me." When the flood waters hit, forcing the man to his roof, a helicopter flew by with rescuers ready to save him. He declined again claiming his salvation would come from above.

Unfortunately, the man ended up drowning. When he finally arrived at the Pearly Gates, he asked God why he didn't save him like he promised.

God replied, "I sent you a police car and a helicopter, what were you expecting?"

My take on this lesson? Don't ignore the obvious signs.

So if you've read UpForPoker this morning, you know that last night the game we folks have referred to as "The Gaelic Game" was busted. I feel like I've dodged a couple of bullets (both figuratively and literally) by not being at either that game or the one that was robbed a few weeks ago.

In an odd manner of coincidences, this week was the first week I had nothing to do on a Tuesday. No kids' soccer practice, no kids' baseball games. Nothing. In fact, had I won last Friday night when I played, there's a good probability that I'd have been playing last night.

Downswing? Hell, I'll trade a downswing for avoiding arrest and robbery any day.

As I was typing this, I got a phone call from one of the players who was at that game. He mentioned that 5 or 6 deputies followed an apparently oblivious player into the game from the parking lot outside. They had everyone show identification and put their hands on the table in front of them. For whatever reason, they had the dealer in handcuffs.

I don't want to name any names just yet because this is all second-hand information and I don't want to be unfair to anyone.

My source went on to tell me that one by one, they called players over to another desk where they offered them the following deal: Get a ticket, pay the fine, and leave all your money with them (wha???) or contest the ticket, go to court and potentially face a year of jail time for the infraction. My understanding is that most of, if not all, the people took the fine.

My first inclination tells me that the two incidents (robbery and bust) are somewhat intertwined. My guess is that even though no official police report was filed on the robbery at Black Stallion, word got out about what had happened. Most likely, the police know about the games around town, but as of late had turned the other cheek. But with the threat of violence apparently very real, they could no longer do so.

If anyone who reads this was there and wants to clarify anything of what was told to me, feel free to do so, either via the comments or privately.

Good gravy, what's next? Sadly for me, it's home game poker or no game poker.

Oh yeah, did I mention I'm crushing the one-table turbo's? Shazam!