Hangin’ with the cool kids

I’m not Mr. Fun. I don’t do lots of fun shit.

Sitting on the bed in my drawers typing this... that’s fun to me.

But Saturday night, I had normal-people fun. It was Yancey Arias’s charity poker tournament at a rented house in Malibu, right on the beach. (I’ve been living in California 13 years and had never set foot in Malibu. Had no reason to. Now I see what the fuss is about.)

This was a ball. There were a few familiar actors in the game – Donnie Wahlberg, Danny Masterson, Anthony Denison (remember “Crime Story”?), Victoria Pratt (“Cleo 2525”!) – plus a few professional poker players (Annie Duke, Sean Sheikhan, a couple others). There was a local TV anchorman, even a couple of cops... just a cool group of people.

The deejay was killing all night long (favorite mix: “I’d Rather Be With You” into “Footsteps in the Dark” into “I Keep Forgettin’ ” into “Yearning For Your Love”); plenty of food and drink; ridiculously good-looking women everywhere you looked.

Toward the end of the evening, as I smoked a tasty Nat Sherman cigarettello and watched a full moon rise over the pounding Pacific tide, I figured this is how the hip folks must live every day.

As for the tournament... out of about 50 players, I finished in the high teens, just before they went down to two tables. I was reasonably satisfied with myself.

I’d like to discuss one hand from the first hour. If you’re not a card player, this won’t mean much. But for those of you who are, here it is:

Everyone started with $1,000 in chips (and we could rebuy). This particular hand, I got dealt ace-king (A-K) – Big Slick. A woman to my right raised the pot pre-flop. I called the raise. I could’ve re-raised her, but something told me to play it slow. A risky choice, but that’s what I did.

Flop comes ace-garbage-garbage. I couldn’t have hoped for a better flop. The woman to my right bets at it. Hmmm..., I think. Is there any way in hell she was holding, like, A-6... and just flopped two pairs? You think of all kinds of nightmare scenarios in the midst of a hand. At least I do.

I could’ve found out where I stood by raising her. But I didn’t. I just called.

The turn comes a king. Holy crap! Now I’m holding the top two pair and feeling pretty good about life. Especially when the woman checks. So then I bet.

She calls!

Now, it was early in the game so I didn’t know what kind of a player she was. But this was a head-scratcher. Could she be sitting on three-of-a-kind, and she just trapped my dumb ass? Maybe my first hunch was correct; she’d flopped aces-up and wanted to see what I’d do on the turn. Why else would she have called?

River card: another king! I am now holding kings full of aces... the second nuts. And I was damn certain she wasn’t holding the one hand that could beat me (A-A). Anyway, the woman pushes all her chips into the pot. She goes all-in!

I call without hesitation and show the world my full house.

Amazingly, when my opponent revealed her hand (actually, I think the dealer exposed it after another player asked to see it), she was holding 7-7.

A pair of sevens!

She was right to raise with those pre-flop (in a tournament). She was right to bet out post-flop. But when I called that bet – with an ace on the board – she should’ve been suspicious. Hell, she was suspicious; she checked the turn. Why, then, did she call me?

Yes, I camouflaged my ace fairly nicely... but what did she think I was betting with? There were so many ways for her to lose that hand. If I had an ace or a king – forget both – she was dead. If I had 8-8 or higher in the pocket, she was dead. Maybe she put me on a pocket pair and figured she could chase me away at the river with her all-in move (representing an A or K).

Anyhow, I doubled my stack, collected some attaboys for how I’d played the hand, and rode that confidence through the next couple of hours.

And then Annie Duke got moved to my table. She was betting so aggressively, I and the other amateurs just reeked of timidity. And as the blinds and antes grew, I soon got swept aside.

But hey... I’ll be ready for her next year.

Calling all poker players...

Wanna play cards with some Hollywood celebrities and maybe a few poker professionals... not to mention Undercover Black Man? Mark this date – July 28 – on your calendar. It’s all for a worthy cause.

Yancey Arias is organizing a fundraising Texas Hold ’Em tournament in Malibu to benefit his charitable foundation, Lives to Save.

This is the second annual Lives to Save celebrity tourney. I won the first one, so you know I’m looking forward to this. (Gots to prove it wasn’t no fluke.) You will find all the relevant details on the Lives to Save website.

By the way, I’ll be posting an interview with Yancey on Friday. I talked to him recently about his working life as a Latino actor. Yance can be seen (briefly) in “Live Free or Die Hard,” which opens today.

UPDATE (06/27/07): Uh-oh... I should’ve made clear that this is a high-dollar event. The buy-in is $2,000.

Poker diary: Love them snowmen!

I’ve been playing poker a lot the past three years. It began with friendly home games… pizzas-‘n’-beer, hip music, the occasional ice-cold tequila shot, and such wacky variations on the Great Game as “Pass the Trash” and “Black Mariah.”

When I finally got up the nerve to sit amongst the hard-eyed gamblers in the Mandalay Bay poker room, I was hooked for real. From then on, I’d be in a home game thinking, “To hell with all this yakkin’… I didn’t come to hear about your fucking mortgage. Deal cards!”

The focus of mind required to compete with strangers who wish to take your money and humiliate you while doing it… it’s like an altered state of consciousness, and very addictive.

Then there’s the coolness factor. At L.A.’s Commerce Casino, where I’ve spent many hours, I’ve seen big movie stars like James Woods and Don Cheadle, mid-career talents like Paul Rudd and Morris Chestnut, and old-timers like Bill Macy and Robert Costanzo, all mixing it up with a veritable United Nations of nameless poker degenerates. And the sound of clattering chips fills the air like castanets.

I’m not a winning player. I lack what fine poker players possess – a head for numbers and a will to study the game like a Talmudic scholar. But I do have my moments.

The key, for a non-gifted player such as myself, is to stay out of most pots. Think about it: If there are nine players at a table, the laws of chance dictate that you’ll have the best hand only 11 percent of the time. So why in hell would you play half the hands you’re dealt? (Thankfully, some do.)

Patience. Discipline. It’s about waiting for a solid starting hand. In no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em, that means either a pocket pair, two high cards, or possibly suited connectors. Of course, you can go hours without catching cards of that quality.

Such was the case this past weekend. I came to Vegas to check out Prince at his new nightclub, and to get a little poker in. Alas, I got dealt more than my share of crap cards, so I spent most of my table time as a mere spectator.

In no-limit, though, one hand is all it takes.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, I realize that telling a poker story is like scratching you where you don’t itch. Hell, most poker players don’t want to hear a blow-by-blow account of somebody else’s huge win (or, worse yet, somebody’s bum-luck “bad beat”).

Yet the urge to tell such stories is part of the addiction. So I’ll try and make this quick.

Yesterday afternoon at the Mandalay Bay, the game was 1-2 No-Limit (meaning the “blinds” – the obligatory bets – were $1 and $2 for the first two bettors). An easy-going low-stakes game. I bought in for the minimum: $100. When I lost that, I re-bought for another $100, most of which was still in front of me when the magic happened.

For 90 minutes, I’d been getting nothing but garbage. So when I looked down at a pocket pair of 8s, I was happy to stick around and see a flop.

I was the big blind, meaning I was already in this pot for a forced bet of $2. As the big blind, I’d be the last player to act prior to the flop, so I had the option of raising before seeing any more cards.

With four other players limping in, I decided not to raise. You gotta figure, with five people in the hand, somebody’s holding a J, Q, K or A. If any of those cards came on the flop, my wired 8s would be worthless.

So the flop comes 8-6-6. Holy mama! Can’t ask for better than flopping a full house! Now, what do I do with it? How do I get the most out of it? As the big blind, I was in “early position” for the rest of this hand; I’d be the second player to act.

The woman in first position bets $20. Thank you, Jesus.

I call that $20 bet. Why not raise it, you wonder? Well, that’s a no-brainer. With three players still to act, why should I reveal my strength? Hopefully one of them’s got a 6 and will raise the pot for me, thinking his three-of-a-kind is golden.

Sure enough, the third player bumps it up big-time: $50 on top of the initial bet. Allahu akbar! It’ll cost the fourth player $70 to continue. He has about $250 in front of him. He ponders. And then…

He goes all in! All of his money, into the pot. Hail Satan!!

Fifth player folds like Superman on laundry day. Ms. First Position, who got this party started with her $20 bet, throws her cards away.

Of course, I push my remaining $70 across the betting line without saying a word. All in, baby! Only wish I had more chips. Then I was puzzled, in a good way, to see Mr. Third Position move all in too.

Now, if I had a head for numbers, I would’ve realized right there that I was unbeatable. But due to my previous lucklessness, I started thinking the unthinkable: Could one of these bastards be holding pocket 6s? Did one of ’em flop the stone-cold nuts, four-of-a-kind?

The smarter spectators at the table knew the truth before I did: the other two players each held a 6. (How else could they go all in? Even if you were holding pocket aces, you'd have to get rid of them once the pot has been raised and re-raised.) This meant that my 8s full of 6s was the nuts.

With no more betting to do, we showed our hands. The other two guys held identical cards: 6-7.

The turn was a 3, the river a 7. I raked in a $300 main pot. (I can’t remember how big the side pot was. I wasn’t getting any of it, so who gives a shit? But with both my adversaries holding 6s full of 7s, they got some of their money back.)

Wah-lah! In just one hand, I went from $110 behind to $100 ahead. By the time I walked away, I had all of that in my pocket and then some. A decent day at the races for ol’ Davey Boy, regardless of all the crap hands. And I had reason to feel good about my play.

Sure, I was hugely lucky to flop a boat while two other players – two! – flopped trips. But I also made every correct decision along the way. Didn’t raise pre-flop (which would’ve chased away those 6-7s). Didn’t raise in early position after the flop (which might’ve inhibited the subsequent action). Instead, I totally flew in under the radar and took down a monster.

Moments like that are why card-players play cards.