A couple of weeks ago, I played in a no-limit hold-em tournament.
There were sixteen players at two tables. It was a freezeout, with the top three finishers taking home money. I had never played in a real money tournament before, and this was my first chance to test out the teachings of Doyle Brunson, Mike Caro, David Sklansky, and Lee Jones that I’ve spent so many hours studying.

The club is on the eastern edge of Hollywood, in a pretty seedy area where the cops are too busy busting crackheads to bother a poker game. To get in, you walk down an alley, and knock on the door with the big red bar painted horizontally across the middle. Most of the people who play here are in the entertainment industry, so it’s appropriate that it’s something out of a movie.
I show the doorman a business card with the club’s address written on the back, and he lets me in. I’m here to play in a no-limit hold-em tournament. It’s the first time I’ve ever played in an illegal game. It’s the first time I’ve played outside of a friendly home game. It’s the first time I’ve ever played for money.
I buy in, get 600 in tournament chips, and my table assignment: I’m seat six at table two. We don’t start for about ten minutes, so I get a bitters and soda from the bar, and try to act like I belong here.

“You play poker, right?” my friend said to me a few weeks earlier, as we waited for the subway.
“Yeah. You have a game?” I said. I’ve been looking for something similar to The Tuesday Night Game ever since I read Big Deal.
“Sort of. You ever heard of the Odessa Room?”
I shook my head. “I’m spectacularly uncool, Shane, and I live in suburbia. What’s the Odessa Room?”
“It’s an honest-to-goodness speakeasy in Hollywood. Twice a month they have poker tournaments.”
“What are the stakes?”
“You can afford it. Why don’t you come with me next Wednesday?”
“Because I’m not good enough to play for money.”
“You ever played for money?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“I appreciate the invite, but my wife would kill me if I played cards for money.”
He took out his business card, and wrote down the address.
“Think about it. If you change your mind, I’ll see you there. Show this card at the door.”
With a blast of warm, humid air, the Wilshire / Western train pulled into the station. Shane got into the car.
“Of course, if you’d rather, you can just give me 100 bucks and cut out the formality of playing.” He said as the doors closed.
I laughed and flipped him the bird. He gave it back as the train pulled away.
I turned his card over in my hand. His office at Walt Disney Studios on one side, the address to an illegal poker game on the other.
Sometimes, I love this town.

The Odessa is really just a bar, and its illegal nature means its unknown owners have forgone the interior decorating that would make it truly cinematic; the only thing of real value is a sound system that rivals any Sunset Strip night club. Three well-worn area rugs cover most of the cold cement floor. The indirect lighting is provided by those halogen uplights that were popular in the 80s. Twelve of them line one wall, and create a pretty good mood. Large cathedral-like candles sit in sconces that are nailed to the other walls. There are several enormous Samoan bouncers watching over all of us.
Everything is portable, including the bar. When I lean against it, it rolls back a few inches.
“Watch it,” the bartender says. His tone tells me that this happens all the time . . . when fuckin’ new guys like me show up.
“Sorry.”
I swallow hard. I think about leaving, but my money is already spent. Better not lose my nerve now. For the first time since I decided to come here, I wonder if the club’s name has anything to do with the Russian mafia. Then I wonder how many of these Samoan guys have guns. What am I doing here? And where the hell is Shane?