Deadwood dealt windfall

Joe Kafka

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 | 9:01 a.m.

Editor's note: This is the second of a two-part series on the state of gaming in Deadwood, S.D.

DEADWOOD, S.D. -- With tournaments nearly every night of the week, poker is the latest hot game in Deadwood, and Texas hold 'em is the big ticket with many card players.

The game has become so popular that the Deadwood Gaming Association is asking that entry fees for poker tournaments be allowed to exceed $100, said Larry Eliason, executive director of the state Gaming Commission.

A June 14 hearing has been set to determine if those higher fees are prohibited by a state law that sets a $100 bet limit in Deadwood, he said.

In Texas hold 'em, players are dealt two cards each and then share five community cards that are played face-up. The game has sparked nationwide interest, and local casinos in this historic Black Hills community have been flooded with new players.

In a recent Texas hold 'em tourney at Cadillac Jack's, Darrel Hochhalter of Rapid City carefully watched as community cards -- called the flop -- were turned over. Hochhalter, 29, quit his job as a restaurant manager two months ago to become a full-time gambler.

He makes no excuses for being a professional gambler, honing his skills daily during games of Texas hold 'em.

"I stumbled across it on the Internet. At the time I was having a hard time paying the rent. I thought if I could learn to play this, I could make a living at it," Hochhalter said.

He spent two years perfecting his game, gambling in the evenings, both on the Internet and in Deadwood. "On a good night, I could make $500. When I went to the restaurant the next day, I made $100."

Hochhalter said he makes the most money by gambling on the Internet, but Deadwood poker also can be lucrative. His wife, Jan, who calls herself a full-time mom, also plays Texas hold 'em. While most players are men with more experience, she won a recent tournament here.

"Sometimes I get the feeling they kind of expect a little bit less out of me because I'm a woman," Jan said. "I just try to play like they do."

On this night, Jan makes it to the final table in the tournament before running out of chips. "I was folding the wrong hands," she explains with resignation. "That's poker."

Her husband, however, takes second place and wins _$200.

Typically, the winner in poker takes it all, but the top players in this tourney agreed before game's end to split some of the money in the pot, assuring they would not leave empty-handed.

The casino's cut, which is a percentage of the entry fees, comes off the top. Dealers said players typically pay from $20 to $30 to get into tournaments.

The tournament winner on this night, Jon Holmdal of nearby Lead, makes $536. A former teacher in Colorado, he is an at-home commodity trader by day and earnest poker player by night.

Holmdal said his fortunes have improved as Deadwood casinos began attracting more card players the last couple years. He said he once went 45 days in a row without losing.

"It's getting better and better in Deadwood," Holmdal said. "It was dead in Deadwood when I first moved here four years ago."

Wearing sunglasses, the headphones on his digital music player drone out idle chatter while he carefully ponders each hand. Holmdal watched for weaknesses in his opponents and did not hesitate to raise the ante when his cards looked good.

"If you've got a good hand, you've got to bet it," he said. "You can't win if you're not aggressive."

Although Joseph Kuhlmey, 41, of Gillette, Wyo., lives 115 miles from Deadwood, he said the drive is worth it to play Texas hold 'em. Wearing a World Poker Tour T-shirt that said "I'm all in," he was not in the money this time.

But Kuhlmey was not discouraged.

"Texas hold 'em is a wide-open sport," he said. "Your skill is compounded by the luck factor, and it comes down to the people you're playing against. Until all the chips are in your hand, you don't win."