Poker City Canada

Calgary is the city I call my home, as do about 1.2 million other people. Nestled in the foothills of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, as the tourist bureau would have you believe - in truth we lie a little east of the foothills and unless you happen to be facing west the vista is of flat prairie farm and ranchlands. Perfect for a   booming city to just sprawl out in. And Calgary definitely sprawls. It takes up more space than Toronto or Chicago and more than half as much land as London, England - a city with eight times the population. We do like our space here.

There are six casinos in Calgary (seven if you count the one on the Indian reservation that borders the west side of town) and each of them has a poker room. Most poker rooms are open twenty four hours a day. I can only guess how many people are employed by the poker rooms, but the total must be a couple hundred. Dealers mostly, many working as few as twenty hours a week, maybe less, and a few working full time. Aside from those with "real" jobs there are a surprising number of  people in Calgary who have made playing  the game of poker their primary source of income. Dozens of people, certainly. Maybe even a hundred.

Who are these people who make a living playing a game while the rest of us have are salary slaves in the gleaming downtown skyscrapers? The majority are older, retirees who supplement their income by grinding it out at the tables. They have low overhead. The house is paid for and kids are done university. They have lots of time and are more than happy playing cards six days a week. They come early, and usually leave by suppertime - just when the real fish and the real sharks start showing up. They play the low limit games, because that's where the softest competition is. Of course there are plenty of retirees who lose money playing poker. They are in it for the social aspects and just are having fun. Sometimes it is hard to tell one from another. There are some younger ones too - and again it is sometimes hard to tell the long term winners (real professionals) and the wannabe's who slowly drain their bank accounts. After all most of us have to lose money - the math demands it.