New York City Poker Room Reviews -- Midtown West

[Ed. note: This is the fourth in an ongoing series of reviews of the major New York City Poker Rooms. Due to the quasi-legality of these games, no room will be mentioned by name or specific address. While I realize these restrictions limit the usefulness of the reviews, I also respect that most of these rooms are trying to operate without drawing much attention to themselves. Anyone interested in learning more specifics about any club should contact me directly.]

[May 2005: Club is out of business.]

Wow! A whole month has passed since the last club time I reviewed a room. That certainly wasn't the game plan when I started this project. Too much travelling and assorted other commitments in the month of September kept me from playing live poker in NYC.

Last night found me at a relatively new room on Manhattan's West Side. My companion for the evening was Above Malibu's BkynPlague, back from a recent sojourn to Holland, where the local players taught him the Dutch word for "rock" and he taught them the English phrase for "Nyah, nyah, I've got all your chips!" We were both interested in the baby NL cash game that the room claimed to spread, and he thought he might play in a $100 freezeout tournament scheduled for 8pm.

To the best of my knowledge, the room has only been open for three or four months. The number of players that were there suggested that the room was even newer. I'm getting ahead of myself, though, so let's back up.

After a dreadful meal of White Castle chicken (first and last time for that), BkynPlague and I walked to a depressing-looking building on a depressing-looking block in Midtown West. It probably didn't help that the remnants of Hurricane Fatzenyatz were settled over the New York region, dumping sheets of rain. We passed by a security guard who didn't seem inclined to stop us or ask why we were in the building, and proceeded to the tenth floor. The elevator opened on a rough, unfinished hallway -- poured concrete floor, bare walls, and light bulbs in those little mesh, plastic guards that you see at construction sites. It took us a few minutes to find the right door (the one with the club's name on it in stencilled letters).

Another player was standing in front of the door, ringing the bell and getting no answer. Not a good sign, considering it was 6:40 and the club supposedly opened at 6:00. I brought their phone number with me, so I pulled out my phone and called. The guy who answered said the club would be open between 7:00 and 7:15, with the tournament to start at 8:00. Time for a beer.

One beer later, at about 7:30, we returned. This time, when we rang the bell, we were buzzed through the door... to discover we were the first players there. Strike two. Russell, the manager for the night, introduced himself and greeted us. He assured us that the tournament would have plenty of players and would be underway by a bit after 8:00. He offered to deal a three-handed cash game (the guy who was ringing the bell when we first arrived walked in right behind us), but nobody was up for that. I took the time to observe the room.

Unlike previous rooms that I have reviewed, this one quite literally was one large room, painted a dark brown that seemed to fit with the depressing quality of the building and neighborhood. Four red felt tables and one green felt table were spaciously arranged in the center of the room. The felt in front of the dealer box on each of them was worn, suggesting that they had been purchased second-hand. A few of the rails did not have drink-holders, which would have been a problem in any room except this one. There was no drink service, no tray of snacks or pot of coffee, no cute, flouncy blondes walking around collecting tips.

Two doors in the back wall of the club led to a bathroom and a small smoking room. The manager's office, where we bought in, was off to the side, complete with one desk, one filing cabinet, and a small television monitor receiving feeds from security cameras inside and outside the club. And that was pretty much it. No lounge area, no computer terminal. There were two smallish televisions in the club; one was off, the other was tuned to a channel broadcasting "Fight Club", later changed to a rebroadcast of one of the smaller 2004 WSOP events. Russell served double-duty as manager and dealer; a second dealer arrived late, delayed by the inclement weather.

By about 7:50, we had enough players to get a NLHE cash game going. It was either 6- or 7-handed, with blinds of $1/$2 and time collection of $4 every half hour. I took one guy for about $30 out of the BB with 9-6 when the flop came A-6-6 and he called the whole way with Big Slick. BkynPlague made a great call with the nut flush on a scary board to bust someone else. The two seat seemed to be betting at lots of pots, figuring that nobody really wanted to challenge him without having the goods. I wised up to it, but the guy in the four seat also did at about the same time, and started raising the two-seat at every opportunity.

I lost a bunch with top two pair when the guy BkynPlague busted caught a set on the flop, but thankfully he was such a bad player that he only had $45 left in his stack when it happened. Nobody seemed interested in buying in for the maximum ($300); there were a few buy-ins of $100, one of $150, and one of $60! That guy wound up reloading at least twice. Overall, the quality of play was low, but here was the problem: the cash game disintegrated at 8:30, when the tournament started. EVERYONE got up to play the tournament; nobody was interested in playing the cash game. Of course, "everyone" means all 13 other players that were in the club by that point.

I was understandably annoyed. Not because I was down $50 at that point, but because I never would have sat down in the cash game if I had known it was going to break in 40 minutes. I wasn't really interested in playing a $100 NLHE freezeout, so I stuck around and watched BkynPlague for a while.

One area this room did earn lots of points was for its tournament structure. For the $100 tournament, there was "only" $20 of juice, players started with 1500 chips, and the initial blinds were 5-10 and went up every 20 minutes as follows: 5-10, 10-20, 15-30 (race reds), 25-50, 50-100, 75-150 (race greens), 100-200, 200-400, 300-600 (race blacks), 500-1000. This is a pretty favorable structure for skilled players and provides lots of bang for your buck. In fact, to date, this is the best tournament structure I've seen in NYC.

I stuck around until about 10:00, hoping for a cash game to materialize as players busted out of the tournament or as new players walked in, but it never happened. Nobody else came to the club after the tournament started, and the players that busted early left. I decided my time would be better spent at home. BkynPlague later told me he busted 6th out of 13, made all the more disappointing by the fact that he was the second largest stack at that time. Get 'em next time.

In the end, here's my encapsulated review:

Location: Pretty Good
Club Atmosphere: Awful
Extras: None
Quality of Play: Low, Passive
Tournament Structure: Excellent
Cash Games: What Cash Games?
Staff: Friendly and Helpful
Worth Your Time?: Only if you're interested in playing NLHE tournaments