Putting on a poker face: It’s about strategy and socializing — and winning
Published 10:38 pm Monday, January 21, 2008
For Judy Vigoren, it started when she saw a sign tacked to the Oxford Saloon: “Texas Hold ‘em Played Here.”
She’d played a couple of hands of the popular poker game with a work acquaintance and, as she put it, “donated lots of money to them.” But something drew her in at the Oxford — maybe the fact she didn’t have to put up any money to play.
Before long, she was a regular, playing sometimes five times a week at different venues around the county. She likes socializing with other players and the mental workout, the strategy, the competition. And she likes winning.
“I find it far more entertaining than watching TV at night,” said Vigoren, a 65-year-old Snohomish resident who works in real estate sales.
Texas Hold ‘em has taken off across the country in casinos, card houses and online. The poker league Vigoren plays in, called Win Your Way In, is another angle on this trend: Unlike other venues, it doesn’t cost players a dime to play, and players can still win a little cash or a modest prize.
Another big draw: The league pays the $10,000 buy-in to send the top player each year to the World Poker Tour in Las Vegas, a game that draws some of the top professional poker players in the world and offers a top prize in the millions.
Win Your Way In isn’t the only free poker league, but it’s the fastest growing in the state, said Ben Lahav, director of sales and marketing for the league. Thousands have registered in this league, although Lahav said a few thousand play consistently in the Puget Sound region. The company also has a presence in Nevada.
The league, a for-profit company, got its start in Maple Valley four years ago. The company makes money by charging bars and other establishments a flat fee for allowing a game. The bar provides the prize, sometimes cash or a gift certificate. In return, the bar or restaurant gets dozens of people filling its seats, ordering drinks and food, for up to six hours.
What the company is doing is legal. The gatherings are a social card game, Lahav said, since players don’t have to buy in to play. He said the company picked up a number of players after a bill was passed in the state Legislature in 2006 making Internet gambling a felony.
“We’re squeaky clean with the gambling commission,” he said.
Here’s how Texas Hold ‘em is played. The dealer deals two cards to each player. Then the dealer burns — that’s slang for discards — a card, and then places three cards on the table, called the flop. Everybody can check or bet. The dealer burns another card, then puts another card on the table, called the turn. Check or bet. Then the dealer burns another card and puts the final card on the table, the river. Everyone makes the best hand they can with the five best cards in their hands or on the table.
It’s simple. And it’s not simple.
“It’s easy to pick up,” Vigoren said. “But there’s a lot of strategy in the game. It isn’t just the betting. It’s watching people’s reactions to the cards and trying to second guess what they are betting on.”
And what makes a good player is far more than luck.
Lahav, a seasoned player, said the best players have to understand the mathematics behind the game, how to calculate the odds of the right cards turning up. But a good player also needs to be something of a psychologist, someone who can carefully observe others, read nonverbal cues and pick up on other people’s tells.
“We have a lot of analytical engineer-mathematic types,” Lahav said. “But we also have people who are great manipulators. They’re the life-of-the-party people, and they might try to bully people around.”
He said Vigoren is one of the best, consistently ranking at the top of the league. The reason is she’s smart and plays every aspect of the game well.
“She is pretty tough,” said Connie Eden of Everett, a regular player. “She’ll hang in there and she reads people really well. She’ll stare you down and try to get a read off you.”
All kinds show up, Lahav said, including urbanite professionals, blue-collar workers, housewives, retirees and 20-somethings with tattoos. At a recent game, there’s a mix of young and old, men and women, plaid shirts, dress shirts and T-shirts, husband and wives, a father and a son. Sometimes Vigoren’s son plays with her.
Several of the top players in the state are women, including another Snohomish County local, Elizabeth Guild, ranked No. 1. People might think of poker as a male-dominated game, but Lahav isn’t surprised.
“I’m more afraid of playing women than men,” he said. “Men can’t read women and it’s no different when they play poker.”
Vigoren, who stands 5 feet 21/2 inches tall, has had her share of men underestimate her at the table.
“They’ll try to bully you to bet high or go all-in or dare you to call them,” she said. “Yeah, it happens quite a bit.”
Lahav calls the gatherings social, and they are. Many players come several times a week and grow to know each other so well they attend each other’s parties and baby showers. But, as Eden said, “There are friends in poker, and there are no friends in poker.”
Vigoren chatted so much at a recent game at the Oxford that, at times, the other players needed to remind her, “Judy, it’s on you.” But the next moment, her eyes were darting from one player to the next. At one point, she stared at another player, tapped her cards on the table and said in an intimidating tone, “I like these cards, these are good cards,” almost as if she were daring the other player to try and bluff her.
The atmosphere at the tables was one part friendly chitchat and two parts steely-eyed competition.
Vigoren said when began playing two years ago, she never imagined she’d wind up being one of the best. Now that she is, she has her eye on that ticket to the Las Vegas championship.
“I will play in it someday.”
Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com
