Playing with the big boys fun, intense

Years of poker-playing bravado, trash talking and foolish posturing had come down to this: I would play in the Park City Poker Round-Up and write about the experience for everyone to see.

The event -- billed as the largest amateur poker tournament ever -- kicked off Saturday at the Kansas Coliseum Pavilion at 10 a.m. That provided my first excuse: I'm not a morning person.

And the second (of many excuses): Texas Hold 'Em isn't my game. I'm more of a Pass the Trash, Between the Sheets or Anaconda kind of gal. You know, the silly games.

I've played at bars in a couple of games put on by the Amateur Poker League, the organizer of the event.

But my real education didn't begin until I sat at Table 186 with a group of guys who quickly scared and confused me. Guys with names like Rico, Hot Shot (OK, that's what I called him, anyway) and Nee. One guy wore flashy sunglasses. Nee kept his hat brim low.

Someone named Anthony tried to claim he'd never played before, but soon he and the others were speaking a language I'm convinced wasn't English. There's a whole poker lingo that, even if you know poker hands, is tough to break.

Like: "I gotta boat and quads." Or, "I'm flush nuts."

My favorite? "It's all in for $700, but you gotta call eight to party." What does that mean? I still don't know.

Hot Shot counseled me on not "splashing the pot," which is throwing your chips into the middle too soon. I splashed away, saying, "Oops! Sorry!" about every other minute.

Playing, learning the lingo and knowing the rules peculiar to Hold 'Em is too much at once.

There were a couple thousand of us in that first session. The top 100 would get to go on for a chance at a $10,000 seat in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

We each started with $2,500 in play money, and there was a constant click-click-click of chips in the background, kind of like change falling in slot machines, though not as exciting.

I quickly was introduced to new terms like "counterfeiting." I'll skip the ugly details and just say it's when you think your win is real but it's actually fake. At least I think that's what it means.

"Welcome to the world of poker," said a grinning Hot Shot.

"It's nothing personal," someone else said.

Funny, it felt personal.

I was shaking. I'd been shaking the whole time. Then I realized others were shaking. It was freezing. The crowd of mostly men even admitted to being cold in the cavernous pavilion. People left their coats on, though they started coming off as games grew more tense and the atmosphere heated up.

We may not have been playing with real money, but the emotions were genuine. Beginning-of-the-game chatter gave way to a more serious tone.

As players were forced out, we had to continually move tables to consolidate. Each move was kind of discombobulating. You'd just get a groove going or finally think you'd figured out the bluffers at your table, and it was time to go. But players at each table seemed excessively cordial.

"Good luck, guys, party on," Hot Shot said after he lost. I sat stunned that I'd outlasted him.

Before I knew it, I was movin' on up to the big-boy table. A group of Wichita celebrities had occupied this table, where poker league founder Dave Wallace was dealer, but the only one left was Wichita Business Journal editor Bill Roy. As an Eagle business reporter, Roy is my No. 1 competitor. So I had a new goal: Beat Bill.

The big table came with all kinds of gawkers and, unfortunately, really good players.(And TV cameras to capture it all.) But I made it to the 1 p.m. lunch break. I had $8,300. Bill had $8,600.

When we came back at 2 p.m., 900 players remained.

"Now is not the time to be brave," Wallace counseled as he dealt. "You have plenty of time to sit back and let yourself catch a good hand, and then BAM!"

He also offered entertainment. Before I knew it, I was singing the theme song from "Gilligan's Island" with him. "Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale...."

I was having a ball singing and laughing. Only one other player joined in. The rest, I painfully realized in hindsight, were concentrating.

Reports from the field showed about 300 players left at 3 p.m.

Though I was one of them, my stack was dropping fast. I should have been more patient. More conservative. But I'm neither.

"I'll tell you what, missy," said former Wichita Mayor Bob Knight. "A little less writing and a little more playing and you might have more chips."

Suddenly I found myself the object of the smack talk that I usually administer. And my small stack of drab gray $1,000 chips looked positively ugly next to pretty-in-pink Bill Roy's bubble-gum-colored $10,000 chip.

Fewer than 200 people were left. If I wasn't going to make the final 100, I at least wanted to go out with a dramatic finish -- maybe a tension-filled moment I could later recount with the new lingo I'd picked up.

Instead, I wasted my last $2,000 in a pathetic loss to two eights. Two eights!

It doesn't really matter. I wouldn't have remembered the lingo to describe the big moment anyway.