For the majority of players, the compulsive nature of the game keeps them coming back to places like Pompano Park, where the new poker room, with its wood paneling and high-tech tables that allow for faster play (and more rakes), is the center of a $140 million renovation project that includes a steak house, a New York-style deli, and a top-shelf bar.
Starting in the early afternoon, players begin to arrive, a ceaseless stream of poker zombies traversing the vast, sweltering casino parking lots, called to the cool air inside. Once in the door, they grip their wallets inside their pockets and march past the slots and over to the escalator going to the second floor. From the first floor, they can already hear stacks of chips shuffling and clacking together in a rhythmic, soothing cadence. The sound alone sets the neurochemical receptors in motion, a Pavlovian response in anticipation of the gamble.
Tara Nieuwesteeg
As "Harold Caribbean," he plays reggae on cruise ships; as Harold Persaud, he plays poker professionally. He says he averages taking in $1,000 a week.
Tara Nieuwesteeg
Brian G. started playing poker for dollars with his father's friends at age 14. Now he's at a table more than 80 hours every week.
Related Content
More About
The regulars, however, require more stimulation. Sitting in these cold, anonymous rooms for hours on end, they need something to root for. So after a pizza or a smoke break or a series of unlucky hands, a player might pat the table gently and call for the elusive bad beat. Most players have actually never seen one. It's the dream — the prayer — that gets the weary through a disappointing stretch.
On a recent Wednesday back in Pompano, Persaud had suffered a string of bad beats at the higher-stakes $5/$10 table, though none qualified as so bad it was good. After losing $500 ("That's the most I'll buy in to a table for," he told me. "If it's not your night, it's just not your night."), he saw me at a $1/$2 table.
Across the table, a man sat next to his wife. The man wore a poker T-shirt; an open, buttoned-down shirt with cards on it over the T-shirt; a poker-themed hat; and poker sunglasses. His gold wedding band had aces carved into it. As they played, the man criticized his wife's play.
"No way you should have called that," he said.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't know what I was thinking."
Persaud sat next to me, across from Mr. Poker.
"How's it going, Harold?" the dealer asked.
"Not so good," Persaud replied. "Not so good."
Most dealers also play, though they can't play where they deal. But on their days off, they play in the other card rooms — and tip the dealers especially well — so many of them seem like a happy little community. Except when you're losing.
A woman with a round belly walked by. "Hi, Gina," the dealers called out as she passed. Gina, the wife of one of the dealers, made eye contact with a dealer friend of her husband's and sat at the table. She was eight months pregnant.
"I'm just trying to get it out of my system," she joked to another dealer who'd come by to rub her belly and pay his respects.
"You mean the poker or the baby?" he replied.
"If I hit the bad beat, it'll be both," she said.
"Awww, we'll have a great little poker player, won't we?" he said as he rubbed her stomach a few seconds more.
Playing at a table nearby was Trevor Nesbit, a Jamaican-born man in his 20s with an underbite. He told me he plays to pay the bills, painting a picture of himself as the stoic grinder who can gut out the emotional roller coaster poker provides. His family owns a coin-operated laundromat where he sometimes works when he isn't playing cards. He doesn't go to the laundromat much.
Trevor, or T as he's known in most card rooms, told me I should write about him. "I'm the best player in Florida," he said with an accent. "You follow me around and write about me and get me a sponsor." He said he could take anyone in the world one on one, that he can play all day, every day, and that he never makes a bad move. "Just when you think you might have me, I got you," he said, closing his hand quickly. "I was born with a straight flush in my hand."
He left Pompano around 10 p.m. He said he was off to Coconut Creek, where day and night cease to exist. He vowed that he wouldn't leave that casino until he had $2,000, enough to pay his bills for two months. "Come watch me get rich the easy way," he said as he left.
Back at my table, Persaud's bad luck continued. He went through half of his $100 buy-in in just a few hands, losing once to Mr. Poker's wife. His sorrow was interrupted by the shrieks of a woman a few tables away. A swarm of players from other tables stood up and walked over to see about the commotion. The woman was throwing white chips — each worth a dollar — into the air, laughing. "We got it!" she announced in a shrill voice.
Indeed, the cards were still on the table as the dealer waited for a floor supervisor. The woman had four queens ("quad queens," in pokerspeak) and had just lost the hand to another player who showed four kings. As the woman danced around, though, Scott, the dealer, sat calm and quiet. Something was wrong.
