NOT JUST POKER

Long before I moved to the Boston area and long before I started playing in a local Thursday night poker game in Newton and Medford, I played in a game at Mel’s apartment in New York City. Mel was a bachelor who owned an investment company. Each week he hosted a game. He supplied sandwiches, snacks, and beverages.  He never took any money for the sustenance.  It was usually the same group of renegades.  We were seven at maximum.  Many times we played with less.  The group consisted of a few insurance guys; Harry, who owned a diner somewhere near the Bowery;  Lou, who I mentioned in a previous post (he hosted a similar game with some of the same guys); and, when he was in town, the actor James Broderick.

It was a nice size game for the 1960’s with stakes at $1, $2, and $5.  We played a few wild card games, one we called Manhattan. It was a Seven-Stud, hi-lo, declare game.  The low card in the hole  (and any others in your hand that matched it) was wild.  In addition, after the seventh card, there was a replace card that cost $1.  So, if by chance you were betting your hand contingent upon your low card in the hole being a four, let’s say, and your seventh card was a two, you had a chance to get rid of the two in hopes of getting a card higher than the four so that the four would be reestablished as your low card in the hole.  Anyway, there were many reasons to replace a card. By replacing an up-card, you could possibly match your low card in the hole. 

We played a five-card version of Manhattan, called Downtown. Each player received one card down, three cards up, and a final card down. There was betting each round. Of course, after you received your fifth card, which was down, it was very likely that your complete hand changed. You now had the option of replacing a card.  There was a lot of positioning and posturing.  This game made everyone think.

We played some Seven-Stud, hi-lo, declare with no wild cards, but still a replace.   In addition, we played some versions of Fiery Cross, described elsewhere in this blog under Criss-Cross Variants.

At that time, we played no 8-low qualifier games.  All hi-lo games were declare. Positioning was paramount, since all declaring was verbal. In the declaration round of betting, the last active better (the person making the initial bet or the person taking the last raise), was the first to declare. Sometimes, by posturing yourself correctly, you could back into winning by hearing, as an example, that the three declarers before you all went high.  You being last to act, might just declare low, feeling that your high hand faced too much competition.

Games would usually start at about 8:00 at night and run through 1:30 or 2:00 A.M. That’s when the real action started.  We played Poker for five or six hours, struggling to win $150 to $350; then, we would risk so much more.  Chairs got moved, a couch got moved. The carpet was moved back. We got on our knees and would start shooting Craps, many mornings until daylight.  The wins and losses at Craps were not relevant to those possibilities of the Poker game. Sometimes, someone who was a marginal winner at Poker, might win $600 to $1000 shooting Craps. Usually anywhere from three to five remained to shoot Craps.

House Craps (or Street Craps) varies from casino-style Craps. There is no felt listing all the betting options. All bets need to be covered by other players.  Many times, not all bets get covered. Usually, most action was against the dice roller. There was no behind-the-line action. The roller would put up let’s say $200. The other participants would shout out how much of the action he was taking and lay his money down. When the last of the $200 was covered, the shooter was “faded.”  If the $200 was not covered in full, the shooter would pull back the money that was not covered. Assuming there was no 2,3, 7, 11, or 12 on the initial role, the point would be established.  Then, there was usually more action: 2 to 1 on the 4 or 10, 3 to 2 on the 5 or 9, and 6 to 5 on the 6 or 8. That was the extent of the action.  No one was betting the hard-8 or placing a come-bet on the next roll. 

Most everyone at the game smoked cigarettes or cigars. If you were a non-smoker, you never objected since smoking was hardly verboten then.  By 5:30 or 6:00 A.M. we all stank from the smoke in the air and were all quite disheveled.  Many mornings, we never made it home to shower or change clothes.  Sleep! Sleeping was secondary.  There were many times that we just went from work to Poker/Craps and back to work–and that was without cocaine.

One day Mel, whose apartment was on West 92nd Street, not far from Central Park, parked his car.  He opened his car door to exit. At that moment, Mel’s life changed.  He was never the same. Some young man, speeding down the street on his bicycle, slammed head-first into Mel’s car door. The bicyclist was pronounced dead on the spot.