Have you ever been robbed?

[frob23]

Have you been robbed playing poker. This applies mainly to live players but online players are welcome to post if they've been robbed that way. I'm not talking about being cheated but rather forcibly separated from your money.

I was robbed once. And the story is really much less exciting than it could be. I was in college back in the day before the hold'em explosion. I had a friend who told me about a dealer's choice game that he knew about and we both decided to go. I left with $85 in my pocket.

It was a juicy game and was mostly 5 card draw and stud games with a wilds and all sorts of crazy rules. There was a "technical" spread limit but it wasn't really enforced. Basically, you were limited to raising a max of $3 at a time or anything below that, if you wanted. There was no limit to the amount of raises per round and if it looked like the raising could go on for a while, they didn't care if you just decided to bet above $3 to speed it up.

This game was sketchy from the start. First of all, it was in a very bad neighborhood near the college and several of the players were clearly not college students. They were roughly my age but... well, you know the type.

My friend quickly lost most of his money and decided to leave. I was making money and thought the game was still good and decided to stay. This was my mistake.

I played for about another hour and decided I was done. The rest of the players, who had lost a lot of money and decided they weren't about to watch it walk out the door refused to let me leave. After several minutes of heated discussion it became clear that I wasn't leaving that house with any money and they intended to take it by force if I tried. Threats were spoken and the players crowded in around me. I don't think this was planned but was just a crime of opportunity.

I was unarmed, alone, outnumbered, and didn't even have a cell-phone back in those days. Even though I had a few hundred on the table, I realized that it really amounted to the $85 I had brought with me. I agreed to just leave the money on the table and get out of there. I was happy to leave unharmed. Things could have turned ugly.

On a positive note: The friend who knew about this game happened to know several of the players and his friends were friends with several of the players too. Most of them felt this was horrific sportsmanship on the part of the people involved and confronted them about it. When pressured by these people, the guys involved agreed to return $50 to me... which is what they claimed I brought with me. So my friend got that back for me. I know the crowd my friend hung with at times (the same crowd who got him into this game) and I asked no questions about what it took to get that money back nor did I insist that I was owed more.

Yeah, I never played with those people again. And now when I go to a strange game I always go with another person and leave with them. I also try and know who is playing and at least a couple people. If the game is really sketchy, I'll usually go with a knife at least... and never without my phone. Of course, a gun trumps all that and being outnumbered would still result in the same outcome.

[mollila]

I have never been robbed, at least in a way that I have noticed.

Doyle Brunson was a guest speaker at a recent conference I attended, and he told one story where their poker game had been raided and as he was the biggest guy, the robbers had picked on him. Doyle had a shotgun pointed at him, and was asked who ran the game. According to code he said he did not know, but when the guy cocked the hammer of the shotgun and asked him one last time, he pointed and said "that guy" No use being too tight lipped.

[frob23]

I've never been in a game that was robbed at gun-point. But it is something I worry about at times. Especially if they game is fairly "obvious." Like a game where cars line the street every week during the games. And that same game, which has no security at all... and often leaves the door wide open... is probably an obvious target. Still, it's small enough that it's not that large a target but money is money... and people are dumb. I've been physically attacked in a robbery before, working at a gas station, for less than $30.

[AnArkhos]

I've never got robbed really. Once a dude took my sunglasses and was about to leave, I told him to give the rest of his booze if he took my sunglasses.

My glasses cost around 5€ and the bottle was around half full, I was getting about my own plus it was evening so no alcohol was sold at that hour.

The dude was propably a bit stunned by this as he has somewhat of a reputation of an aggressive type and had gotten used to get what he wants just like that. This time he gave half a liter of booze for my used glasses.