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SAILING WITH PIRATES "The thing you have to understand about the Dutch," this one Dutch guy told me, "is we're all either farmers or pirates." "And probably mostly pirates," I think to myself as I stand in the Dutch dusk and look up at the sign overhead: Holland Casino Amsterdam. I have heard that this place is full of tough opponents, but I am prepared. My poker senses honed by a five-month layoff, I stand ready to storm and board the piratical Dutch in their own home port. I will not be denied! State of mind. Poker is all about state of mind, and with this confidence-building spiel I'm trying to fine-tune mine now. This place is no pushover (not like London's a pushover. Sorry London but you are; if I can beat you, anyone can.) Against the Dutch, I've been coached, you always need to bring your A game. Here's what can happen to you in Amsterdam. You can be sitting in a park, just reading (studying your poker texts, right?) when a wild-eyed young man with a blasting boom box steps up and stands over you. You drop your head and study the ground, silent. Depending on one's point of view, you're either ignoring the crazy nut or submitting to him. After a moment he goes away. Whatever his point was, he feels he's made it. Amsterdam poker is like this. It's a strongly posturing game. People fire raises just to watch you flinch. The Holland Casino Amsterdam sits like the stout glass stern of a concrete galleon at the corner of some canal and the Max Eweplein. I could give you directions to the place, but it would not help. You'd still get lost. That's what people do in Amsterdam. They get lost. They also get charged for everything. For instance, it costs about four bucks to get into the Holland Casino Amsterdam. A girl at reception explains, "You have to pay for everything in Holland." How prophetic her words turn out to be. The casino opens daily at two p.m., but don't expect a game until early evening on most days. They spread limit hold 'em mostly, and have weekly tournaments in both hold 'em and seven-card stud. And they host at least one major tournament a year, the Lido International Dutch Open in November. Other games in the casino include American and European roulette, Caribbean stud, and a bizarro little game called sic bo. In sic bo, you bet on the outcome of the roll of three dice. You can either bet any two dice or all three, and the odds are structured accordingly -- though not, of course, in any way favorably for the player. Here, I'll let you read the informational brochure yourself: "Het zich vanaf inschrijvingen aantal deelnemers." Oh, you don't read Dutch? I offer this translation: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Okay, it's a figurative translation. But that's quickly how I felt as I stood and watched the one hold 'em game they had going at 8 p.m. on this Friday night. It was rife, as predicted, with bully moves. Bluff re-raises; furious defense of blinds; relentless chip assaults on all fronts. I seriously doubted that I could take control of this table. There were already ample candidates for that job. Like this one old man named Vanderwal, whom I came to call Wonderwall, because trying to read his hand was like trying to read the last page of a small-print novel hidden under a bushel basket behind a two-foot thick brick wall. A block away. He had elevated unpredictability to a high art, and I soon stopped trying to figure him out; might just as well flip a coin. The limit in this game was 10-20 florins. A florin is worth about 50 cents. It's also known as a guilder. Don't ask me why, for I never did find out. Part of the "Amsterdam experience" is being confused much of the time. One might speculate that this has something to do with the huge number of coffeeshops in Amsterdam, which sell not just coffee but also marijuana and hashish. But that would be strictly speculation; I'll never admit a thing. Minimum buy-in was 200 florins, but nobody bought in for the minimum, not even yours most nervously truly. You don't want to be caught underfunded around here. In a game like this, ammunition is everything. Nor is it squandered by these players. When they bet, they bet for a reason -- usually a malevolent one. Almost without exception everyone I play against this night proves to be fearless, aggressive, unpredictable and highly knowledgeable. On top of which, they're pitiless; it's easy for an outsider not to feel at home. Not that anyone was rolling out the Welcome Wagon anyhow. Mike Caro may be right when he says that friendly, happy poker games are profitable games, but this crowd has obviously not read that text. "Screw friendly" seems to be the prevailing mindset. They don't just want to win, they want to terminate. And they do a credible job. For instance there's Psycho Choir Boy, whose downy blond hair and cherubic good looks clash emphatically with his fierce style of play and his glowery, penetrating gaze. He makes snide remarks at everyone's expense. I don't know Dutch, but I know snide, and in this case I can see that snide works; he's got people playing scared. And then there was the guy to my left, a guy I called "the guy to my left." He shot every conceivable angle, from hesitation checks and fake raises to misdeclaring his hand at the showdown. At one point I caught him bluntly trying to look at my cards, and called him on it. He was completely unashamed about getting caught. To the contrary, from that point forward he raised every bet I made, just for the sake (as he merrily admitted) of cheesing me off. And how's this for a land mine? One man with a gray beard and stubbly shaved head sat down and didn't play a hand or defend a blind for almost an hour. When he finally did come in, it was under the gun, for a raise, with 3-2 offsuit! He pounded raises through the flop and the turn, and when the last opponent surrendered on the river, he flipped his winning bluff face up on the table, just for the chance to sneer and grin and boast. Impressive. Scary. Dare I say piratical? That's how they all were: aggressive and treacherous, or deceptive and treacherous. Either way... relentless. Bam! Bam! Bam! And not just relentless, but relentless with attitude. And utterly unimpressed by grandstand plays of any kind. Having noticed that Psycho Choir Boy loved to attack blinds, I found an opportunity to try and attack his. He gave me a bored re-raise, and then led out at me through every round of betting. He didn't have a particularly huge hand, but he had a huge amount of swagger. Which made his miracle catch on the river even more annoying. Can you say "bad beat" in Dutch? More bad attitude: Three players see the river with a bet and two calls. The bettor turns over a pair of jacks, and a second player quickly shows his kings. But the third player, a tough-minded woman named Berta, takes a long time -- I mean a long time -- fiddling with her cards before aiming them toward the muck. Then, at the last second, she turns them over to reveal her winning pair of aces. She cocks a sneery grin at her opponents and says something in Dutch that doesn't frankly, sound like, "Have a nice day." I know this is nothing new. I know that this sort of behavior happens in poker games from Commerce to Katmandu. But I've never seen it so prevalent among all the players in a single game. The majority view was that winning the money was only a means to the desired end of earning bragging rights. If you're going to be a pirate, the logic goes, you'd better be a cutthroat. Then there are the dealers. Bullies... just like everybody else. They analyze and criticize, editorialize but never apologize. I was in one hand where my opponent couldn't decide whether to call or fold. As he began to relinquish his hand, the dealer groaned loudly, clearly unhappy with the player's decision to release. I asked the dealer please not to comment on hands in play, and he gave me a blank look, like my protest was not just alien to this place, but pretty much completely wrong in general. Amsterdam, man -- even the dealers have a 'tude. When you're a tourist in a place like Amsterdam, it's easy to lose your focus. There's so much to do. Museums... canal cruises... the aforementioned coffeeshops (not that I ever...) The world's richest collection of paintings by van Gogh is just a ten-minute walk from the casino. It's easy to feel casual about your poker here, but casual is a dangerous way to feel. Despite the lowish limits, this about the least casual poker game you'll ever find. Take it lightly and you'll soon be shark bait. How do I know? Sadly, because I was the one who walked the plank. It's not that I played badly. It's just that every time I raised my head someone fired cannonballs at it. With glee. With absolute glee. That's the part I can't get over. By all means go to Amsterdam. The museums are outstanding, the canals are delightfully quaint, and the concept of sin seems pretty much missing from the local lexicon. It's a beautiful old city, oozing with charm. There's much to enjoy in Amsterdam. But if you go there to play poker, even your A game won't be enough. You'll also need a fat bankroll, and a willingness to go toe-to-toe with street fighters. Show weakness -- any weakness -- and you will be destroyed. That's the pirate's way.
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