Mike Jacob sneaked a peak at his cards: a pair of sevens.
Good hand. What will the dealer flip? Where will it take him?
The tension was palpable.
He tossed a few chips in the pile and watched as a few players folded and he won the pot.
"I always played poker, all my life," the 76-year-old retired Golden Eagle Distributors executive mused. "I like to play cards."
It was poker night at Oldfather Inn, Jacobs' neighborhood watering hole a couple miles from where he lives near the Foothills Mall. He used to get to the games at Oldfather and around town four or five times a week. But he lost a leg to a circulation problem a year ago and can't drive, so he can make it out only when he can get a ride.
Last Wednesday, as the games at four packed tables were heating up, Jacob was in good company among the two-dozen players.
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They come to these games mostly for camaraderie, said Ted Montgomery, who runs the game with his 2-year-old Wild West Texas Hold'Em company.
"We've had a lot of success here. It seems to be growing every week," said Montgomery, a trim man with short, white hair and a tight, white beard whose grandfatherly eyes sparkle when the subject is poker. "The one thing about poker players is they don't get in trouble. They're more interested in playing poker."
They have found at Oldfather Inn a welcome and homey place to play cards.
That wasn't the case a couple of years ago, when the bar had a reputation for attracting rowdy crowds.
When newlyweds Brian and Lynn Bouffard bought the place 18 months ago, they gave it a well-needed bath and laid down new rules that left little tolerance for shenanigans. The troublemakers left, a few employees bailed, and Oldfather assumed the personality of a true neighborhood joint, where folks of different walks could sip a beer together, play pool or grab a bite in the adjoining restaurant.
Poker night started last December on Mondays and expanded last month to two nights.
As the players at Wednesday's game spied their cards, a handful of mostly older men huddled in the opposite corner of the bar to watch race results on flat-screen TVs. Every now and again, one would get up and saunter to the OTB counter to place a bet.
The room was perfumed with the sweet tang of the all-you-can-eat-ribs offered in the restaurant. Occasionally, you'd whiff the heavy scent of fried food and faint remnants of cigarette smoke, dulled by months of being a no-smoking haven.
A few folks sat at the wooden bar that stretches nearly the length of the room, while, behind them, players occupied two of the three pool tables. The clacking of the balls smacking on the felt tables harmonized with the clicking of poker chips as players fiddled with them. And squeezed near the poker tables in a corner at the far end of the bar, Ronni Johnston, 23, wailed away on the "Guitar Hero" video game, blaring raucous tunes that distracted players from their hands.
Montgomery gave each poker player $4,750 worth of chips. Of course, it's all play money. There is no fee to play, and players are vying for prizes that include T-shirts, hats, trips to Las Vegas and the coveted shiny, gold-embossed chip.
"You pull it out, everyone knows you have status," Montgomery explained.
Reservist Kim Wright, 21, proudly plopped her gold chip atop her cards, then waited as the dealer flipped three cards. In Texas hold'em, you get two cards, then hope that the dealer will fill in your blanks. The idea is to have the best hand on the table.
Wright's ace and king of clubs won the hand, and she scooped a pile of coins with both hands.
At the table behind her, single dad Mike Richard, 29, was not faring as well. He folded a succession of hands before playing one and winning the pot. A few moments later, he bet it all and lost.
"I like playing here because I can play without any risk. It's practice," said the Picture Rocks resident, who said he has played poker professionally online for four years and can make as much as $40,000 a year. He uses the Oldfather games as practice to prepare for the prestigious, multimillion-dollar World Series of Poker.
Jacob does not harbor such fantasies. Poker is the way he wiles away his retirement.
"I'm a gambler at heart," he confessed, taking a drag from a cigarette outside the bar. "When they started Texas hold'em and it's free — why, it's not costing me anything."
• Where: 4080 W. Ina Road, 744-1200.
• Hours: 10 a.m.-2 a.m. daily.
• Cover charge: None.
• Texas hold'em poker: 7 and 10 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays.
• "Guitar Hero" tournament: 9 p.m. Thursdays, through early October.
