Take the Subway
There were no shortage of shady card rooms and gambling dens in NYC that were run by criminal groups, but the more popular card rooms were trying to distance themselves from that element. Some of those clubs were the Mayfair Club, and the Player's Club on the Upper West Side and Play Station down by Union Square. During the glorious poker boom, several celebrities could be spotted at these card rooms including Alex Rodriguez from the New York Yankees, or actor Macaulay Culkin. The Player's Club was hidden in plain sight on Manhattan's Upper West Side, which is populated by wealthy New Yorkers with families.
Mayfair Club
In the 1930s, one of the first clubs, the Mayfair Club started as a bridge, gin rummy and backgammon club. It eventually became the most touted card club in New York. The Mayfair Club was located on a low floor of the Gramercy Park Hotel. Sometime in the early ’80s they began playing poker and the Mayfair moved to East 25th Street, where unique individuals like Phil the Rabbi and Joel Bagels, who would inspire the John Turturro character of Joey Knish in the poker movie “Rounders” were mainstays.
The underground clubs, especially the Mayfair Club developed a reputation as a training ground for poker players as a result of a small group of elite players who played at the clubs. Players such as, Stu Unger, Dan Harrington, Howard Lederer, and Erik Seidel winners of World Series of Poker events led to enhancing the Mayfair’s reputation as the premier poker club in New York. Later, the Chesterfield Club in the film “Rounders” was modeled after the Mayfair Club.
Beginning of the End
Beginning of the End
After Ungar, Seidel and others left for Las Vegas underground poker clubs continued to thrive. Bookies, businessmen, numbers runners, drug dealers and hard-hustling professional gamblers all rubbed shoulders in the underground clubs.
Prior to 2000, whenever a poker club was closed down by the police, it was due to criminal offenses such as drugs or weapons. In 2000, Mayor Rudy Giuliani's “Quality of Life" campaign led to the closure of the Mayfair Club and other game halls in New York.
Poker Origins