TURMEL: Perennial election loser plays his cards right at city casino
johnturmel
Perennial election loser plays his cards right at city casino
Posted By SUSAN GAMBLE
Nov 19 2009
John Turmel is known as the perennial losing candidate for mayor, MP
and MPP locally and across Canada.
But the man wears other hats.
He's a professional gambler, former casino owner and operator, card-
counter, accordion player and poet.
And, by his reckoning, Turmel is also the world's best limits hold 'em
poker player, earning a "luxurious" living at the game by playing full-
time at the Brantford casino, which is marking its 10th anniversary
this week.
Card-counters, such as Turmel, aren't welcome at games such as
roulette or blackjack, but casinos tolerate them just fine when it
comes to poker because players win from each other while the house
gets a set amount from the game.
For six years, Turmel has toiled in comfort at the casino. He knows
everyone and everyone knows him.
"Brantford's casino is a wonderful little place," he says. "Good
restaurant, the staff at the tables are competent and people are
nice.
"It's probably the top limit hold 'em casino in Canada and the only
place you can bet a black chip (valued at $100) at poker, so it's the
highest action in the land."
While the resort casinos in Windsor, Niagara and Rama operate like
their U. S. counterpoints with complimentary meals and drinks for
players, the smaller casinos that were dubbed "charity" casinos at
first, didn't play that way.
But, a few years ago, the Brantford casino began crediting regular
patrons with meal money so Turmel also can eat on the house.
While other casinos fell into the no-limit poker rage of a few years
ago, Brantford didn't and it was a move that helped it carve out a
niche market, says the gambler.
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"In limit poker you get far more competent, successful amateurs. No-
limit poker grabbed the attention but the bad players get crushed out
too soon there. I don't need to win $10,000 one night and lose $5,000
the next.
With limits, even a bad player can play for hours and, even losing at
a steady rate, can walk away with his or her shirt.
"It's the smallness of it that makes it successful," says Turmel.
"In Brantford, it costs $10 an hour to play, whereas in Montreal it
costs $32 an hour. You can go to Brantford anytime and you're going to
find a crew of small winners that keep playing. It epitomizes how to
run a poker casino."
Currently, the casino's poker room has 11 tables that can seat 10
players at a time and it's expanding as part of a huge $37-million
renovation. That includes three more poker tables and a more
comfortable poker room for the players.
General manager Grant Darling says the Brantford casino has captured
the provincial market when it comes to limit poker and was ahead of
the curve in offering the game before it became really hot.
Turmel is just one of the casino's regulars.
He figures there are about 10 more guys like him making a living
there. Add in another 100 people who are making a small profit,
several hundred more who are losing a couple of hundred bucks a week
but enjoying the game and then about 12 "super-losers."
"But they don't last long."
Turmel's an engineer. He describes his poker system in YouTube
postings from TajProfessor and KingofthePaupers. It involves knowing
exactly how much is in the pot at all times, and making hundreds of
bets based on well-established odds.
"It's a very precise system. I'm very rarely surprised. It's like
picking a winning stock that only goes up a little at a time."
Turmel says that his win rate is 150% to 175% higher than
professionals whose work has been documented over the years and has
remained the same for 20 years.
"I make enough to pay my bills, take care of my momma and be happy. I
do four (accordion) concerts around the city each month. It's a
wonderful existence."
There's only one fly in the ointment.
Turmel says the casino needs to offer regular patrons safety deposit
boxes for cash and valuables. Some regulars would love to use them to
store their cash, he says.
"They make me walk around with a couple of grand in my pockets some
nights. Someone is going to get mugged there one day."
There are no plans for security boxes for players in the casino
renovation project, says OLG spokesman Don Pister.
Turmel says all the U. S. casinos offer such amenities but Pister says
none of the other small casinos in Ontario do. The resort casinos have
security boxes in their hotel rooms.
There have been cases of muggings of people near the city's casino and
Turmel worries about that.
"Someone is going to see some guy making $4,000 to $5,000 at the table
one night and then take him going home."
Still, Turmel plans to stick with the "best action in Canada" here in
town.
"I'm thrilled that Brantford has such a beautiful casino."
Article ID# 2182563