For those interested in the history of this place, or at least my history, here's a pic of the building and some old memories...
The Grove was basically a shit hole. It was a small bar in a crack-head filled area north of Seattle that had only a few tables in the back room and pool tables, pull tabs and karaoke in the front. But those games were CRAZY action. Like nothing I've ever seen since (and I went on to play cards full time for over a decade after I left there. I've played just about everywhere in the western US - and no other games even come close to the action there). I kept a log of my play while I was there, and I averaged just over $35 per hour in the 4-8 limit holdem game there. Which goes to show you just how much action there was. That's not usually possible in a game that small.
Here's a picture of The Grove below. I guess it's now called "Wild Hare Bar & Grill". Oh man, I almost forgot, I had my 4Runner stolen from that parking lot too! Just 3 days after I finished putting a Chevy 350 in it (well, my girlfriend at the time's dad did rather, I just helped)... those thieving bastards!
The 100s were pretty much never put into play at The Grove. They tried to run 2 blackjack tables for a brief period, but it didn't really work out. No one ever played, or if they did, they played $5 chips. They quit running blackjack tables and started running a PAN game instead.
All of the blue and orange chips were put into play. In fact on super busy Friday and Saturday nights when the bad beat jackpot was big, they would occasionally run low on chips and we'd be scrambling to get more from the lockboxes. Although I don't recall them actually ever running completely out. They never had very many. It was a pretty small joint. There weren't a ton of orange chips, and they were pretty much only used sparingly on the 4-8 tables or on weekends for the 10-20 game (which was EPIC!). It wasn't unusual for the average stack sizes on the 4-8 game to exceed $1000 and for the 10-20 to exceed $2000. No joke. People took pride in overbuying there. It was pretty funny. Probably half of the players there on any given night were either poker dealers or pit dealers from some other card room or casino. It was where all the degenerates went to play and hang out. I would often amass mountains of chips in that game. Every 20 minutes someone had to pay for the drink pot! I didn't play a ton of hands, so I usually got free beer lol. Almost every pot was a capped out family pot pre flop. I shit you not. It was like nothing I've ever seen before. When I hit the bad beat jackpot there, I flopped quad tens and the player in the 10 seat (games were always 10 handed late at night) had 2d5d and called 4 bets cold capped out pre flop. No one folded. The flop was TcTs4d and he called a capped flop 4 bets cold! And I was the BB and never even had to put in a bet with quads. Turn was the Ad and again, he calls a capped out turn (I still never put in a single raise with quads mind you). Only a few players folded on that turn. River was 3d and he starts jumping up and down yelling "High Hand! High Hand!" because he rivered a steel wheel which had a $500 high hand payout at the time. It was classic. I knew instantly that we hit the bad beat. I still remember that feeling. I've never held onto my cards so tight in all my life. I didn't even say a thing. I just sat there while he kept jumping up and down screaming "Hi hand". The place went crazy because the pot was so huge and everyone that was raising thought they got sucked out on by him. No one had a clue that I even had a real hand. Once they all calmed down, which took a long ass time, I said, "Oh, it gets better than that!" And I just rolled over my hand. 4 or 5 players literally jumped from their seats, chips fell over, everyone started screaming and running all over the place! This place was crazy! Like actually fucking crazy! Unfortunately it was only a 14k jackpot because it was the third backup bad beat jackpot because it had already gotten hit twice in that same month! So crazy. I still got 7k though, so that was cool. Most bad beat jackpots are between 100k-150k. I'm probably the luckiest & most unlucky guy I know, both at the same time lol.
I also played my first hand of Omaha Hi-Lo there, got my first Royal Flush there in both Omaha and Holdem. Oh, and I got a BJ in the bathroom stall there too, lol. Good times, good times.
There were probably a lot of reds and blacks that never got put into play though. Well... relative to how many were ever made. Not many were. I'd guess there are fewer than 1000 blacks even in existence. And probably only a couple thousand reds, if that.
