TRADITION (for Dr. P.A.)

Holy Toledo, just look out there: Las Vegas is running amok!   With the now traditional World Series of Poker underway, the city is teeming with poker freaks.  Unlike the eponymous baseball championship, limited to clubs of a single continent, the Big Poker Show is open to anyone who can cough up an entry fee.   And let me tell you, they are here by the thousands!  Parked beside the pickup trucks of the local toothpick-chewing rednecks, the long and level limousines of gamblers from Aukland to Zimbabwe stretch faraway.   Brother, if ever you thought the Tower of Babel was a rendezvous of confusion, wait till you see what's happening here.  Would you believe that at one single nine-player table Japanese, Finnish, English, Spanish, Chinese, French and Hebrew were spoken?  

 

            That means plenty of my old poker-playing pals from Paris are present.   Not only are they in town, they're loaded to the gills.  I guess that's because the Euro is selling at a 25% premium over the dollar.  In his first ten days, one fellow told me he had dropped thirty grand.   Was he upset?  Not in the least.  Better to lose in Vegas, he said, than to drop a wad on a boring vacation on the French Riviera.   Yeah, sure!

 

            Driving along The Strip at night reminds me of trying to circumnavigate the Arc de Triomphe at six o'clock on a Friday afternoon.   You're lucky if you can advance more than a car length every five minutes. On normally quiet weekday evenings, the valets of the MGM are refusing customers who are not staying at the hotel.   A promenade through the Bellagio is about as easy as walking along Times Square on New Year's Eve.    Not only is every poker seat in the house taken, the waiting list is slightly longer than the IRS's roll of delinquent tax payers.   And that when it's 110 degrees outside and gasoline is selling at . . . well you know how much!

 

            Of course it is the Rio that is stealing the show.   In case you are unfamiliar with this year's World Series, that's where the action is.  Rumor has it that owner Harrah's spent over $5,000,000 to build a special pavilion to house the forty-six-day long series of tournaments (June 26 - August 10).   A floor manager told me there are 102 tables in all.  That might be, but when, after an hour and a half, I finally procured a seat at a $2-$5 No Limit cash game, it was at table Number 184.    Maybe he was talking about tournament tables exclusively.

 

            The main event begins on July 28 ^th when cards will be dealt for the $10,000 No Limit Texas Hold 'Em tournament that the late Benny Binion inaugurated thirty-six years ago with a handful of players.  This year promises 8,500 contestants.    I bet Old Benny never imagined he'd see a hundredth that amount in a single tourney.  While I am at it, I'll bet this year's winner, like those of the past few years, will be less than forty years old.   I'm telling you, the physical stamina needed to play winning poker over a two-week period is akin to boxing for the heavyweight crown or riding with Lance through the mountains of France.  Do you want to know something else?   Mentally, it's equally as tough.

 

            For those of us who live in town, the initial excitement of watching thousands of people cram into a gigantic airplane hangar wears off pretty quickly.   Personally, I want to be able to get a seat at a game as soon as I walk into a place.  Sure, it's swell seeing a lot of faces one recognizes from TV, but I know not one of them is about to put a penny in my pocket.   Almost every dealer will tell you the same.  Apparently, the rich and famous among poker celebrities are as stingy as the rich and famous in any other field of endeavor.  It's something of a tradition.   As a result, many of the local dealers refuse to participate.  Can't say I blame them.  In this heat, distributing cards must be almost as tiring as playing them.  Makes you wonder why Harrah's doesn't hold the event in April or October?   Another tradition, I guess.  And why not move the tournament around every year?   To Reno, Atlantic City, Monte Carlo and Macau.  Make it a genuine World Series.   Well, maybe that's going a bit far.   After all, tradition is sorely limited in Las Vegas as it is, wouldn't you say?