AT THE RIO

                                                         

 

          It’s 11:00 AM on a Friday morning at the Rio.  Nine of us are about to commence a $2-$5 No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em cash game.  Behind us, janitors, dealers and pit bosses are setting up tables for the $10,000 N.L. tournament, first prize, twelve million dollars.  About eleven hundred of the original 8,700 contestants remain.  Security personnel and television crews are scrambling all over the place.  They have an hour to get everything ready.  Since no spectators will be allowed this morning, the room seems almost vacant.   Maybe that’s why it is so damn cold.  The air conditioning must be regulated for several thousand bodies.

 

            Compared to the main event our table is small potatoes.  That makes me smallest of all.  My eight opponents have bought in between $300 and $500 apiece.  Not me, partner.  After 30 years of playing the game professionally in Paris, I know the advantage of risking as little as possible.  At this table, the minimum stake is  $100.  That’s enough. If the poker gods want to smile on you they will do so no matter how much your initial stake. 

 

            It takes an hour before I am obliged to buy-in again.  Other than losing a $20 raise with a pair of sevens, I didn’t play a hand.  By now the place is buzzing with activity.  Over the PA system a detached voice instructs the dealers to shuffle up and deal.  Unimaginable, I am thinking.  How can a person win $12,000,000 at a poker game, even one that lasts two weeks?  Once I won $18,000 in a marathon game in Neuilly, but all I collected was half that amount.

 

            I bust out with a pair of kings.  A fat man with suited ace-king hits an ace on the river.  The river, the river, it’s always the river!  Pumping a fist in the air, the bastard looks as though he is congratulating himself for skillful play. 

 

            Back in the pocket I go for another $100.  No way am I going to take more.  Since a $500 buy-in wouldn’t have helped me so far, I see no reason to change tactics.  A loud roar erupts from the tournament section.  I guess some celebrity player just demonstrated his ability by hitting a straight or flush.

 

            I go all-in with Ace-King of hearts.  Fatty follows with Queen-six of clubs.  A straight to the five – what’s called a bicycle or a wheel at lowball – appears on the board.  The fat man and I split the pot.  At the back of the room someone emits a deep moan.  I know how you feel, pal, believe me I do.

 

            I limp in with king-ten of spades.  Fatso raises $10.  You got it: from five bucks he brings the hand up to fifteen dollars.  A young fellow with a thousand bucks in front of him and I are the only followers.   Either the other players have nothing or they are distracted by the action a few yards away. 

 

It is still like Antarctica here.  Some wise guy must have upped the A/C another couple of notches.  Members of the TV crew are wearing sweaters.  I’m telling you, there are more summertime colds in Las Vegas than any other place in the world.  I wonder if a collective lawsuit against the casinos . . . Forget it, nobody ever forced a player inside.

 

A king, a ten and a five appear on the flop.  Two of them are hearts.  I go all-in.  Fatty too pushes his whole pile into the pot, an amount equal to what the young player has in front of him.  With action like that I can only assume he has flopped a set.  If it’s kings I am drawing dead.  The young fellow scratches his head but folds.  The fat man turns over two small hearts.  What a ridiculous bet!  Suppose the young guy was holding two kings or the ace second of hearts?  Hey, wait a minute!  Maybe the three hundred pound man isn’t so stupid after all.  If that were the case, wouldn’t the young fellow have come back at his two-bit raise?

 

Naturally a heart appears on the river.  I’ve had enough.  I can’t hit against them, but they sure know how to hit against me.  Anyway, I am glad to exit this igloo.  Walking out the door, I am jostled by a tall, well-dressed gentleman who apparently has been eliminated from the tournament.  He is talking to a woman next to him.  It is probably his wife, though in France it would be assumed she was his mistress.

 

“Forget what I told you yesterday,” he says.  “This game is ninety-nine per cent luck.”

 

            “I couldn’t agree with you more,” I say to him, before quickly walking away.