Poker is a metaphor for life in so many ways. In life, we often reflect on our past to learn from it. The same can be said at the poker table. You remember situations that arose from previous hands and implement the optimal strategy from lessons learned. After all, those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
But life, like poker, is also about looking ahead. Goals, plans, decisions. When we launched Ante Up more than three years ago it was our intention to give everyday players a magazine they could relate to, a publication where they, and their poker rooms, would be the focal point, the stars.
We believe we have achieved that goal. And along the way we’ve taken many trips to poker rooms around the country so we could report back to you our findings in the form of our Road Trip feature each month. As we sit here writing this on a plane flying high over the Midwest en route back to Ante Up Headquarters from one of our West Coast trips, we couldn’t help but reflect on some of the differences between the coasts. For instance, many rooms in California have chip runners who have apron-like pouches where they cash you out or sell you chips. There’s no need to go to the cashier for either party. To those in California this is nothing new, but for those who play elsewhere it is unique.
The nuances of each poker community make traveling to different poker rooms, in your state and around the country, such a joy. This month, we feature New Hampshire and New York. The Northeast is so pretty in the fall, and there’s nothing prettier than raking in a huge pot in a poker room you’ve never played in before.
In the coming months you can expect more road-trip stories from Arizona, California and Missouri, to name but a few. Plus, you can always check out our magazine archives here for plenty of other past road trips, such as Atlantic City, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Nevada, Pennsylvania and more. We write these road-trip stories to give you an idea of what you can expect from these rooms and encourage you to travel this fine nation of ours to seek out different games and poker cultures. After all, isn’t life (and poker) about living in the moment, too? We’ll see you at the tables.
— Christopher Cosenza and Scott Long
