LOOKING FOR FLOPS
Cagbalete Island, just off the coast of Quezon, surrounded by undeveloped white-sand property and open ocean. Every now and then, a mass of flesh whizzes by me and I wonder: “When did women stop wearing one-piece suits?”
Twice during the day, when the low-tide hits, a perfect sandbar the size of two to three football fields is exposed. What follows next is the ritualistic breaking out of the volleyball nets, Frisbees, pigskins, kites, landboards, and buckets to collect beached starfish in.
And here I am sitting under a gazebo watching it all…and wishing for the tide to come in already. How did I get here? How does somebody who never leaves the house and subsists on a rich diet of unlimited internet and fastfood delivery end up on a Private Island six hours out of Metro Manila…with no intention of getting wet? I’m here to see a flop, and I am not referring to a Hollywood movie.
It all began where is usually does: on Television. How much of a Celebrity Poker Tournament can you seriously watch before you start to think to yourself: “I can beat these guys in a hyperventilating heartbeat.” After a few more hissing breaths and bursts of “God, you’re so stupid!” (as I throw chips at the TV screen), I decide to prove a theory once and for all. A couple of downloads later, and I’m in my first online Poker Room.
Take this picture: I’m in my computer chair, in the clothes I woke up in, multitabling three poker rooms on my monitor (yes, three, I’m a noob!). Barely visible in the desktop background is the document I’m working on between hands. A box of pizza that has survived two days sits on my left with the last slice and a half waiting to be put out of its misery, and a 2-liter soda bottle is on my right. Not exactly something to post on a travel magazine, but this, as strange a place as any, is where the Poker Wanderlust is born.
If you’ve played five minutes of No Limit Texas Holdem Poker, you’ll feel me when I say that people will often step out of their comfort zones for a Flop. You might even notice that new players will pay anything. Do anything. Go anywhere. Even if it means leaving the house. Even if it means going back to the office just to see how many clueless office mates can be conned into a game.
Long story short, I suddenly find myself making rare and celebrated appearances in my office, where a handful of colleagues who generally can’t stand each other have found something in common: the need to feed our ego with chips and cards.
Makati has not changed much – defined by traffic frozen with empty cabs that refuse passengers because they think the next one will be a better deal. The Makati Poker Game is pretty much the opposite: the games flow fast and free because every hand is good enough to go with. The Makati player is often the yuppie who has changed his lifestyle from bar-hopping to table-hopping. The good news is that he’s used to spending a thousand bucks drinking away Friday night. He may be used to spending another thousand playing a “maybe I’ll get laid” card. That’s two thousand that he won’t mind losing at his new Friday night habit. Which he does, by the way.
It won’t take long before the Makati blokes have lost enough to try to get it off someone else. In Advanced Poker Parlance, this can be called “setting up a weekend game” – and that usually means getting new players and playing in somebody’s out of town getaway.
So now I’m driving to Antipolo on a slow Saturday afternoon – just after lunch, when the roads are clear as the day after the holocaust. The trip is well worth the welcome contrast to the Makati environment. The small side room has been replaced with a large outdoor table in a well-kept garden. The small window that was left open to let the cigarette smoke out is replaced by a breathtaking view of the mountainside. And no matter how much your party smokes, you can always find a patch of fresh air.
The Antipolo game is different as well. The weekend and the non-office environment makes players take their time. I won’t say they’re more patient, just that they take longer before they make the usual wrong decisions. The location, however, is the one great decision that stands out.
Hands pass. In a haze of cards, chips, and highway, I somehow end up farther north than I care to be: Bulacan, at a small poolside bar and resto that the proprietor has closed for the night in lieu of a private poker party. On the quiet drive here, I notice rows and rows of similar establishments with the poolside-bar setup – and I think of a new slogan that will boost Bulacan’s Tourism Income tenfold: “Who needs a beach anyway, we’ve got water and wine, don’t we?”
The farther away from Metro Manila one is, the more drunk you’re supposed to get. I guess the rule of thumb is that a car should never consume more gasoline than the driver. That’s my way of telling you that the Bulacan Game is loose, and hands happen between drinks. That’s generally good news, until the hangover.
The Bulacan game was an overnighter, and more than half the people in attendance were complete strangers bound by the same mantra repeating in their heads and haunting them in their sleep: “Must…Find…Game…”
On the road again, and I think about the usual traveller’s diary, whose content is motivated by a lust for new places and meeting the incidental new people. My Poker Travel Diary is the reverse: Tell me where the New Players are, and I will drive five hundred miles to the incidental new place to get to them.
I’ve removed the first aid kit and sleeping bag from my bag and replaced it with two packs of cards and a small set of chips in two colors. In the car at all times: two more poker chipsets. One, a classy 500-pc set. The other, a passable set for those strangers who just might have the nasty habit of throwing chips around carelessly or pocketing a few for souvenirs.
I break out the cheap set for a party in Quezon City. The traffic is horrible, the location is nondescript, but the house is as big as the alleged heart of Manny Villar. Quezon City houses still believe in opulent furnishing and big shiny useless decors.
This is a birthday party, but as it often happens, it will become a Poker Party once somebody notices the chips. The next few minutes after that is usually a frenzied clearing of the buffet table to make room for a ten-seat tournament. The birthday celebrant will be forever forgotten in favor of “that time my pocket kings were bad beat by that lucky chaser’s low-end straight.”
Alabang. In contrast to Quezon City’s mixed identity, Alabang is an almost strictly residential area. The quiet privacy is a relief. You don’t have to worry about where to park, because no miscreant is wandering the streets looking for side-mirrors to steal.
This is another dinner party, and I’m really beginning to feel like a Dance Instructor at an old matron’s ballroom club. I know exactly one person at this party, but I’ve met several like him: the Poker Addict who’s been dying to get his friends and family into this addicting new game that is sweeping the nation. Tonight is the night, and I was invited for this one purpose.
The master plan is always the same. In Phase One, the television is turned on and will “inadvertently” “just happen to be” on a channel where the Celebrity Poker Tour is showing. Dinner is delayed long enough to give the visitors no choice but to sit around the giant screen TV – which is louder than the house music, by the way. In Phase Two, having little else to talk about, the half of the party that knows about the game quickly gets the other half up to speed.
While all this is going on, my job is to sit in a corner unnoticed like a performer waiting to take the stage. Like a Ballroom Dance Instructor in a cheap suit and shiny shoes, I wait with my case of chips and my bottomless drink. The music changes, it’s a waltz! I take one last sip from my Iced Tea, pick up my impressive and mysterious steel case, and step to the dance floor to open Phase Three…
New people, new places. The Poker Wanderlust takes me to Cavite, where the crowd is older and often retired. On lazier days, it’s Ortigas, like Makati, where the players have progressed from being clueless noobs to regular noobs. Aside from the locals, the attendance of an overseas guest has become a more than occasional thing. Talk about how far you’d go to see a flop. Most of this international flavor can be experienced at the Airport Casino in Paranaque, where the games are pure business. This was the only Casino in the Nation with a Texas Holdem Poker Room, and the attendance was always good. You will get your fair share of pants-losers, but will also run into the lurking semi-pros.
I make a point of dropping by the Casino regularly, but I favor the leisurely spirit of the road game, so I soon find myself in Tagaytay, way South of the city. The drive is long and scenic. Players are distracted by the temptations that abound: snoozing in natural airconditioning, wonderful walks on clear hills, a hypnotic view of Taal Lake, and rows of restaurants – each with a view and a unique specialty. The hours are longer and the games are riddled with breaks, but once night falls, it goes on in earnest…
…And now I’m on an Island on the fringes of the Pacific Ocean, fidgeting with a my new “beach poker” chip set – made of cheap plastic and costing just enough to look semi-official, but not enough so that I would not care to lose a handful of them in the sand. The beach has everyone’s undivided attention right now, but when the sun comes down and the drinks come out, the chips won’t be far behind…
Ah, good times, so far away from the pizza box. My computer is getting lonely.
Ron “RedAirkson” Regis is a Filipino Poker Coach for The Asia Poker Academy, Asia’s largest poker school. He is also a Lifestyle Journalism awardee. He coaches poker not just a game, but as a way to live more efficiently. You can email him thru ron@asiapokeracademy.com
