Taverns offer prizes for best poker hand

On Mondays, the Grand View holds its sprawling tournaments, where players show up early or risk being turned away when tables fill up. The games span two long rooms, and below the friendly atmosphere runs a serious and competitive undercurrent.

At one table, a woman in her 30s, a mountain of a man with jagged tattoos and a middle-aged guy in jeans and a tucked, white shirt joined several others as the dealer tossed two cards next to each pile of chips. Players complimented one another on well-played hands but otherwise kept chatter to a minimum.

It's clear that while players aren't risking their money, a measure of pride is on the line.

Tuesdays and Thursdays, Fish Heads Bar and Grill holds its own tournaments, drawing about 100 players. Basketball broadcasts on a big-screen TV and songs like Carl Douglas' "Kung Fu Fighting" and Marky Mark's "Good Vibrations" provide a festive soundtrack.

If players win often enough, said Fish Heads owner Bob Stevens, they've got a shot at one of the Las Vegas trips the bar gives away roughly once a month.

Mondays and Wednesdays, Mat-Su Resort invites players for what may be the most low-key of tournaments. About two-dozen people gathered on a recent night to compete for gifts such as golf clubs and ice-cream makers.

"Most of our regulars are the dealers at individual tables," said Susie Lee, the resort co-owner.

That includes 57-year-old Rose Mary Taylor, a small, personable woman with short hair and big glasses. At some of the tournaments, men outnumber women about 4-to-1, but few of the guys have played longer than Taylor, a former New Yorker who moved to Alaska in 1977.

Back in her 20s, she used to play from early Friday night into early Saturday morning at quarter and dollar games hosted by her mother, Taylor said. Now she helps teach novices the intricacies of bluffing and folding.

Over at the Grand View, Wasilla residents Melissa Parker and Wayne McGregor, who started the Alaska Poker Association, run the games. The pair also launched a dealer school where they teach people how to run a table.

Dealers were in such short supply at the venue recently that Parker's father, sister, brother and nephew pitched in. The first week Parker and McGregor hosted a tournament, in early March, about 85 people showed, she said. The next week, 100 people played, and Parker had to turn away another 25 to 30 for a lack of seats.

There's no money on the line at any of the tournaments. State law forbids betting cash on poker, but the games are OK as long as players don't have to pay to play. The state does regulate some gambling -- pull-tabs, bingo and raffles -- and Parker hopes to see card tournaments added to that list.

"We're kind of trying to make poker where it's not the back-room, smoky feeling that everybody thinks of it as," she said.

Or, as Grand View co-owner Ernie Emmi put it, right now the only ones making money off of poker are the people who run underground games. "Home games are all over the place," he said.

Juries may view selling liquor and gambling at after-hours clubs as victimless crimes, making cases tough to prosecute, said Doug Griffin, director of the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. "They tend to fall to the bottom of the priority list when you're trying to bust meth labs or keeps drunks off the road," he said.

Players at the local tournaments said one of the easiest ways to get your poker fix is by playing online at Web sites like PartyPoker.com. Other sites, such HomePokerGames.com, claim to list money games held in Palmer, Fairbanks and Anchorage.

The post for a summer game at Denali National Park, for example, says you can play for a $30 to $50 buy-in. Even the house rules are listed online: "No Whiners, No Wild Card games, No Credit, No Narcotics, No Problem!"

Contacted by e-mail, Eric Bricking said he started the Denali game -- a social, usually one-table affair -- about three years ago. Bricking is also a fan of the kind of free tournament games now popping up across the Valley, he wrote.

"It gets more people playing the games. You can generally count on meeting some interesting folks playing poker, even if it is just for prizes."

Those prizes, in turn, keep the free games interesting for seasoned players. Taylor, for example, recently won an electric smoker at the Mat-Su Resort, where on a recent Wednesday she dealt to the regular mix of beginners and savvy veterans.

Taylor looks forward to a return to her hometown to put her freshly polished skills to use, she said. "I can't wait to go back to New York, because they play for cash."

read more