So Far, Sofia

I have a motto, a guiding principle in life, and I think it’s a pretty good one. It was the theme of my poker novel Under the Gun, expressed by the protagonist thus: “Walk down the beach, pick up everything you find and turn it into a party hat.”

So once again I’ve donned a random party hat and decamped to Sofia, Bulgaria, where, in the heart of the Balkan winter, I am recruiting and training writers for the Bulgarian adaptation of a popular American situation comedy. I may not be contractually free to mention the show by name, so let’s just say that it rhymes with Schmarried with Schmildren.

Because the universe loves me, it turns out that there’s a small, two-table poker room in the Casino Rila, not even a long stone’s throw from the hotel I’ve been calling home. Then again, because the universe loves to mess with me, there are two notable problems with the card room at the Casino Rila: it spreads mostly pot-limit Omaha, and it allows smoking. These two facts are not unrelated, for PLO (at least as I understand it) requires exquisite patience, and cigarette smoke (at least I experience it) kills patience like Raid kills roaches.

If you play cardroom poker anywhere in America, it may have been quite some time since you’ve played poker in a smokey room. It may be that you’ve never had the experience of inhaling others’ recycled ammonia, hydrogen cyanides and other smoke ingredients while waiting for the next deal. Over here in Eastern Europe, however, cigarette smoking is still legal in public places – at the poker table it seems almost mandatory. Look, I’m no smoke Nazi. I believe in everyone’s freedom of choice. But when I find myself bathed in second-hand smoke, I become edgy, antsy and angry. I want to bite someone’s head off, or at least play a hand of poker to distract myself from the diminished carrying capacity of my red blood cells. Now here I am playing pot-limit Omaha, a game that’s frankly not my favorite, and a game that puts a premium on not playing too loose and not chasing non-nut hands. Can you guess where I’m going with this? In the name of putting the cigarette smoke out of my mind, I find myself playing more hands. In the name of punishing the smokers for punishing me, I play those hands more aggressively than the situation, or even common sense, warrants.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

I could, of course, choose not to play. I could always stay in my hotel room watching the insanely popular chalga music videos or the Turkish soccer feed, but that sounds like a recipe for not playing poker, and why would I want to do that when I’m such a long way from home with nothing to divert me but chalga or Turkish soccer? So I play; I suffer, and I play. Sounds crazy, don’t it? Well, I mitigate the crazy by playing at low stakes. This is not hard to do in Sofia’s casinos. The standard game here has blinds of 1-2 leva (where a lev is about two-thirds of a dollar). Even the biggest games only clock in at 5-5 leva blinds. By playing small, I satisfy my urge to play poker in strange situations (an itch, as regular readers of this column will know, I have scratched all over the world). At the same time, I don’t imperil my bankroll by playing in the sub-optimal state I know I will be in, thanks to smoke and PLO.

The other thing I do that helps a lot is bring music. Understand that I don’t understand Bulgarian, which means that I can’t distract myself with much in the way of table chat or even eavesdropping. At risk for distracting myself by playing too loose, I distract myself with tunes instead. I will tell you that there’s something oddly cognitively dissonant about playing poker in so strange a realm while the familiar notes of American Beauty or Graceland fill my ears. But it keeps me on my game, and that’s a blessing. Because I’m here to have a cross-cultural poker experience, sure, but I’m here to win as well.

With these safeguards in place, I do pretty well in the game. It’s not that hard, for these PLO enthusiasts are like PLO enthusiasts worldwide: enthusiastic. They look at those four starting cards and think, playable, playable, playable! or however you say that in Bulgarian. So all I have to do is sit tight, play tight, wait till I have good starting hands and hit a few flops. Then I can book my win, while away my evening, and slope off into the chilly Sofia night with a few extra leva in my pockets. Good times? Oh, yes, good times. Well worth picking up and turning into a party hat.

Occasionally I’m not the only American in these games, and to one nameless compatriot I would like to send a particular message: “Dude, don’t be rude!” Last night this guy was jacked into his iPad, skyping with his girlfriend back home in Fresno or wherever. I guess he figured that no one at the table could understand him, because he was yacking quite loudly about his ventures in local venture capital and (hand to God) what sexual delights he had in store for her when he finally got back home. Maybe this was his strategy for distracting himself from the cigarette smoke and/or the risk of indiscipline in PLO, but seriously, dude, how about a little decorum? To some, your second-hand chat is as noxious as their second-hand smoke.

All of that said, though, I have deeply enjoyed playing poker in Sofia, just as I’ve enjoyed it in Sweden, Nicaragua, Russia, Romania and all the other strange places I’ve played. I’m lucky to have a job that takes me around the world, lucky to be working for Schmarried with Schmildren, and lucky to get the chance to sample the poker wares of other lands. Even with the smoke, even with the language barrier, even with the PLO instead of my chosen hold’em, a bad game of poker is better than no game of poker, and thus it will be until I die.

Which, based on last night’s particulate accumulations, might be a week or so sooner than actuarially predicted. ♠

John Vorhaus is author of the Killer Poker series and co-author of Decide to Play Great Poker, plus many mystery novels including World Series of Murder, available exclusively on Kindle. He tweets for no apparent reason @TrueFactBarFact and secretly controls the world from johnvorhaus.com.