MARKETING

 

                                                   

          For the past forty or fifty years, many of us have admired the marketing skills of wine distributors from the Beaujolais region of France.  Every third Thursday in November, a handful of merchant/growers manages to capture the palates and wallets of wine drinkers throughout the globe.  From Buenos Aires to Stockholm, Sydney to New York, Paris to Tokyo, pre-shipped cases of New Beaujolais are simultaneously opened on the stroke of midnight, Central European Time, giving to the awaiting throngs a taste of the undistinguished product of the gamay grape. What had once been little more than the pet wine of Lyon, (generally drank as an aperitif, or to accompanying a brunch-like meal called a machon) annually leaps to the forefront of world consciousness.

            Other French products have followed suit.  Most conspicuously, Perrier has done for water what some gooey syrup did for seltzer back in Nineteenth Century Atlanta.  For a while it seemed impossible to enter a tavern anywhere between Manhattan and L.A. without catching sight of rows of tiny green bottles sitting atop bar counters and tables.  Glasses of Perrier with lemon and ice replaced beer, bourbon and martinis as the drink of choice in a suddenly health conscious nation.  Consumed year round rather than during a brief spell in autumn, the fizzy water opened the door to dozens of clones.  Today, Americans from coast to coast enjoy not only French sparkling water but also the residue of spas and fountains from California, Colorado, Italy, Spain, Argentina, Germany, Brazil, Fiji and Fuji.  Whereas a generation previously it was inconceivable for an American to pay for flat water in Paris, today no sophisticated Yankee diner would dream of ordering a carafe d’eau when an endless supply of Evian, Volvic and Contrexeville are available. 

            France aside, it is our own bottled water that dominates today’s American market.   Even in the High Rockies, where water is cool and pure, bicyclists, hikers, skaters and pedestrians tote around plastic containers distributed by the same people who produce and bottle sweet sodas.  What did you think?  That the managers of Coke and Pepsi were caught in a time warp somewhere beneath the Champs-Elysees?

            Another trend whose marketing brilliance cannot be overlooked is the promotion of an event rather than a product.  You got it, Brother!  Thanks to Online Casinos, Las Vegas Resorts, magazine and book publishers, poker has become an intrinsic part of the national psyche.  Most of all, incessant television broadcasts have brought the game to a new level of international prominence.  What a difference between today and the years (1969 – 1999) when I played the game professionally in Paris!   Believe me, I had to come up with any number of cover stories in order to conceal that I was making a living at what was then considered a less than ethical profession.  Well, it is not that way any longer.  Today, thousands of young people are happy to acknowledge that it’s the poker business they want to get into.  Why not?  What would you rather do, play cards with your friends at the Bellagio or sift through papers in a solitary cubicle? 

            They are here in Las Vegas right now.   Youngsters by the thousands have assembled to pursue the dream of a life style only a few will be able to attain.  Indifferent to the odds against them, they have come to play in the $10,000 No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em Tournament that promises the winner both an emormous monetary prize, and the glory of a world championship.  8,500 strong, they are without exception, people who love the game of poker.  While representatives of other age groups are certainly present, you can be sure that the vast core of this army is composed of people between twenty and thirty. 

            From now until tournament’s end, wherever one chooses to play will be teeming with young men and women from every corner of the earth.  Since eight-five hundred people cannot compete simultaneously, and since many contestants will quickly be eliminated, the visitors head for any place in town with a poker room.  The MGM is packed. The Wynn has an interminable waiting list.  Not one seat is available at The Mirage, The Venetian or The Red Rock.  Harrahs, The Palms, Caesar’s Palace and The Mandalay have rarely witnessed such business.  At one table, I was told that six of ten players were contestants at the World Series.  Not one of them was close to forty, and not one of them had paid the full entry price.  I don’t know how many participants qualify each year by winning Online (or other) tournaments, but apparently they are plenty.  Heck, why not, if you can get in without having to pay ten thousand bucks?

            You know what?  One of these days Americans might become fed up with Beaujolais Nouveau, and grow tired of Perrier.  We might even return to the realization that besides being a hell of a lot cheaper, much tap water is as good as bottled water.  Not that we should worry about the marketing industry.  They will always come up with something new.  If not, there will still be poker.  That is one phenomenon that is not about to disappear. You can be sure that 8,499 of the 8,500 players in this year’s tournament will be joined by untold thousands of non-participants in hoping that next year will be OUR year.  It has to happen.  It’s human nature.

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?

ILLUSIONS

One way or another, it seems that we are constantly reminded that man cannot live without illusions. From the time of ancient myths and medieval tales, philosophers, minstrels and teachers have let us know that dreaming is every bit as important as food or drink. Even Elvis crooned: "you can burn my house, you can steal my car, you can drink my liquor from that old fruit jar, but don't you step on my blue suede shoes." I guess if a little footwear could lend a feeling of grandeur it is only normal that the resorts lining The Las Vegas Strip arouse extraordinary images of what might be.



The trick is to keep things in proportion. Rather than discard a fantasy ("lose your dreams and you will lose your mind," according to the lyrics of a 1960s Rolling Stones song) or allow reverie to dominate our every waking hour, can we not attempt a balance between what is practical and what is fantastic? Easy to say! Not so easy to accomplish.



Lest one think that Las Vegas is unique in offering smoke and mirrors, allow me to remind you of the many television programs featuring variations of poker. More than any other game, Texas Hold 'Em has captured the hearts and minds of people throughout the country. As could be expected, nobody is more susceptible to the lure of playing poker for a living than young people.



So here I was last weekend on a visit to Albuquerque, New Mexico where I dropped into a Native American Casino nearly as plush as those on Las Vegas Boulevard. Besides slot machines, craps and blackjack, there were a number of tables offering No Limit Texas Hold 'Em. Brother, it was no easy feat getting a seat. The list of potential players kept growing until the wait was more than an hour.



Finally seated at a $2-$5 no limit table, it did not take me long to remark that the quality of play in the heartland was definitely as good as that of any big time casino. I'm telling you those people knew how to bet and bluff, when to call and when to fold. Equally astonishing, other than a gentleman in his forties, none of the seven others at my table could have been more than twenty-two or twenty-three. Where the heck did they get their money? Unlike myself who bought in at the $200 minimum, these youngsters were all sitting with chips triple and quadruple the size of my pile. Two of them were young ladies, pretty at that, while two of the men were Native Americans, and another was of Chinese descent. That left a pair of callow country bumpkins who were clearly familiar with one another as well as with the different dealers, floor men and other players. That's right, I soon learned, all of them came to the casino just about every evening.



Nobody wiggled his ears when I said I lived six hundred miles up the road in Las Vegas. (The only reason I noted the mileage was so that they did not confuse my Nevada hometown with Las Vegas, New Mexico.) If I thought the mention of Sin City was going to impress them, I had another thought coming.



"I get up there pretty often," said one of the country boys.



"Really," I said. "Where do you play?"



"Upstairs at the Bellagio is what I like best."



For those who are unaware, the upstairs room at the Bellagio is to poker aficionados what Yankee Stadium is to a sandlot ballplayer. If one can single out any spot on the globe where an unknown can make a quick ton of money, Upstairs at the Bellagio has got to be the place. Of course you have to be exceedingly skillful, totally indifferent to the value of money and wildly lucky to stand a chance. But then, isn't that what Las Vegas is all about?



"There are some damn good games at The Commerce Club near L.A.," said his friend.



"I like high stakes games at The Wynn," said one of the girls. "I'm moving to Las Vegas next month.



"We're all moving to Vegas," said one of the Native Americans. "Except for Harry," he nodded at the Chinese lad. "He's going to Macau."



"No way," said Harry. "I'd just as soon play at Foxwood."



They all laughed before returning to the serious business at hand. I got lucky holding wired nines. A nine appeared on the flop accompanied by a pair of sevens. Harry was holding the ace-seven of hearts. Unperturbed by the dent I made in his chips he came back a few hands later raising on a flush draw. I went all-in with two pairs. Harry called. The club he was hoping to find turned up on the river. Wiped out, I left the table without saying a word.



Twenty minutes later I stopped for gas. Still upset by the hand I had lost, I hardly realized my tank was empty.



"So those kids are going to Las Vegas," I thought to myself. "Poor bastards! Like countless others, all they are going to do is chase after phantoms."


As for me, I had a better idea. For a simple dollar I could buy a dream worth considerably more. With the powerball jackpot at the multi-state lotto up to $100,000,000, I went inside and bought ten tickets. You know what? Once I collect my winnings, I just might try my hand upstairs at The Bellagio.

ACES

                                                     

              If there is any single point on which no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em players are able to agree, I would say it’s that wired aces have a tendency to win little and lose big.  Is there a player alive - or dead - who has not suffered a bad beat when dealt top pair?

 

 My personal memory of getting ripped apart holding two aces occurred one afternoon in Paris when The Boston Philharmonic Orchestra was in town.  Not only did I have complimentary tickets, two of my favorite pieces were on the evening’s program.  At the beginning of the poker game I announced I would be leaving an hour before eight PM quitting time. 

 

“You can be sure no one will be sorry to see you go,” said a smart aleck who harbored little love for me.

 

At seven o’clock I was ahead by eight thousand francs, or sixteen hundred U.S. Dollars.

 

“Last hand for me,” I said.

 

We were ten players.  Seated next to last, I casually picked up a pair of black aces.  The convention we employed at the time consisted of the dealer putting up fifty francs ($10) and the first player blinding twice that amount.  In this particular hand, one player called.  That put a total of fifty dollars in the pot when my turn arrived.

 

“All-in,” I announced.

 

You can be sure Monsieur Smart Ass snickered at the absurdity of such a bet.  If that weren’t bad enough, Eric, the blind kept on examining his cards with a curious smile plastered on his face.  After a while, he said:

 

 “I call.”

 

“I guess you know what I have,” I said.

 

“Don’t we all?” said my heckler.

 

Eric laid down the six and a three of diamonds.  Good Lord did we have loose players back then!  Eric was in his late twenties.  He was single, handsome and soft-spoken.  Everyone liked him.  Not because he lost consistently but because he never carped, complained or caused a problem paying.  As an only child, he was being groomed to take over the family’s manufacturing business.  Don’t ask me what they manufactured.  Whatever it was, it was making them all sorts of money.

 

“Hurrah for Eric,” said my Number One fan.  “Tear the American to pieces.”

 

            He did not have to wait long.  The flop was the five, eight and king of diamonds.  Showing no sign of awe or disbelief, Eric allowed his enigmatic smile to expand.  He looked at me before shrugging his shoulders apologetically.  The turn and the River were of no consequence.  While my opponent was gathering in the chips, I stood up and reached into a pocket for a check of his I had won the previous day.

 

            That was an advantage we had in Paris compared to games here in Las Vegas.  Facing the same suckers day in and day out, skillful players were occasionally torn apart by wild opponents.  What of it?  Soon enough the crazies were sure to give back whatever they had won.

 

            I thought of Eric yesterday at the MGM Grand when a jackass with a suited ten-nine outdrew my pair of aces.  Apparently my fifty-dollar raise did not impress him.  Shortly afterwards, the man was busted, but not by me.  As he got up and walked away, I realized it was unlikely I would ever see him again.

 

 Can you believe it?  Not ten minutes later I was again dealt wired aces.  Before the flop I went all-in. Gathering up the small and the big blind I was happy nobody called.

 

            “How the hell can you chase everyone out with such a good hand?” someone asked.

 

            “I don’t know,” I said.  “I guess I just got carried away.”

HOMAGE

  Yes, I played poker in Paris for thirty years.  Yes, poker paid the bills.  I guess by definition that made me a pro.  Maybe so, but I was a lousy one.  No matter what others thought, I did not identify myself as a professional. Unlike other pros, I limited my playing to six sessions a week.  In spite of all sorts of games in San Tropez, Cannes, Courchevel and Alpe d'Huez, I only played once during summer vacation, and never during winter or spring vacations.  While I loved the game and made a good living at it, my first love was always Paris. Don't ask me why?  The city seduced me totally.  Ten years before I discovered the French played poker, my sole desire was to establish residence in the City of Light.  Finally, in July 1969, one hundred and twenty months after first setting foot in the capital, I was invited to a game.  Never did I suspect it would last as long as it did.

 

           September is the most exciting month in Paris.  Revitalized by the return of vacationers, the city is en fete.  The grocer restocks his shelves.  Bakeries reopen.  Lines form in front of school supply shops and department stores.  Everywhere Parisians settle into a routine interrupted by a month in the mountains or at the seashore. 

 

Even poker underwent an annual recommencement.  Reassured that the games would continue, every September I would drive my motorcycle to a different landmark in order to pay homage to the city I now called home.

 

At five AM. a mist rises along the banks of the Seine. The Place de la Concorde is deserted.  Along the Rue Royale and behind the Madeleine all motion has ceased.  The trees along the Boulevard Malesherbes are still dressed in summertime green.  The iron gates of the Parc Monceau remain locked for the night.  On the narrow Rue Lewis, the street market is strangely empty.  Shops are tightly sealed.  Noise is absent.

 

The interior boulevards are equally silent.  The railroad tracks beneath the Rue de Rome remain dark.  At this time of day the back streets of Paris are as tranquil as a provincial village.  On tin rooftops pigeons coo softly.  The first light of day filters in from the east.  In a half-hour the Metro will open.  Cafes catering to early commuters are already partially lit.  By six o'clock automobile engines will shatter the serenity.  The spell that exists between the onset of morning twilight and the first rays of dawn shall be dispersed by the energy of a city coming to life.

 

This morning I shall go to the top of Montmartre.  I will wend my way along the Rue Lepic.  There is a song about this street, Montan's young voice extolling the serpentine route that connects the former suburb to the modern city.  At the top of the street I will leave my motorcycle and climb to the Butte on foot.   Only a few minutes of magic remain.  A century ago, this was the home of poets and painters who brought about a resuscitation of beauty previously reserved to ancient Athens and Renaissance Florence.  I remember their names from the time I was a boy.  Was it their voices that lured me to Paris?

 

I climb on trembling legs.  This is my pilgrimage.  I shall honor the ghosts who called me to this city of unparalleled beauty.  I hear them as I near the summit.  Figures in spectral light move through the morning haze.  Beneath me the immense metropolis reposes in silence.  The air I breathe now is the air they breathed then.  The city I gaze on is the city they knew.  Neither houses nor parks nor cobblestones have changed an iota.  I can feel my heart beating.  My flesh is simultaneously cold and on fire.  I know the ghosts are near.  For one frozen instant everything is the same as it was one hundred years ago.

 

I walk along the deserted square, stopping only when I reach the edge that overlooks the western part of the city.  Minute after minute trickles by.  The sun does not appear, but daylight advances.  Off in the distance streetlights expire.  Silver rooftops shield an awakening giant.  My eyes fall on the steeple of a familiar church. I recognize the Arch of Triumph.  Further away, the metal tower that defines the city catches the first rays of the morning sun.   It is my city now.  It is my city as much as it was theirs.  It is my mistress, lover and poker table.  The illusory world of poker and the real city of Paris have become intertwined.  Together they bring me a joy that exceeds all comprehension.

 

---

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MONEY TALK

It took me close to an hour to get a  seat at a no limit Texas Hold 'Em game yesterday at the Mirage.  The conversation at the table was focused on money, not an uncommon topic on the Las Vegas Strip.

"Rumor says Madonna is throwing big bucks away at The Wynn."

"Really?  At what game?"

"Texas Hold 'Em. What else?"

"I didn't even know she played."

"It's not Madonna. It's Bill Gates. And it's not The Wynn, it's Caesar's."

"Nonsense. Bill Gates plays blackjack at a maximum of $15 a hand."

"I heard he was even thrown out of one of the big hotels since he was occupying a suite reserved for a large bettor."

"Baloney! One does not throw the richest man in the world out of a hotel. He was asked to change rooms."

"What's the difference?  There's no money to be gotten from the very rich."

"Someone once said they are different from you and me."

"If I were Bill Gates and a hotel told me to change rooms I'd buy the place out."

"What the hell would Bill Gates do with a Las Vegas hotel?"

"Owning all those hotels didn't do much for Howard Hughes when he was the richest man in the world."

"They named a street after him."

"They named a bank after J.P. Morgan when he was the richest guy around."

"He never was.  Morgan might have been powerful, but he was not all that rich."

"Are you kidding? He was so rich they wouldn't let him play at Monte Carlo. I mean the casino in Southern France, not the place down the street."

"Not quite.  They wouldn't let him play without limits. He would have employed the Martingale System, doubling his bet after every loss."

"A very bad system.  All a player does is chase his initial unit."

"When that initial unit is $10,000,000 you can understand why they wanted nothing to do with the man."

"Nor he with them. He was a businessman, not a gambler."

"Can you imagine being a billionaire in dollars before The IRS existed?"

"The man was worth nothing near that.  His estate was probated at $80 million.  Of course in 1913 that was a sizable sum."

Not really.  Rockefeller said "and here all along we thought he was a wealthy man."

"Gentlemen, please," interrupted the dealer. "Let's see some money on the table.  That's a dollar for the small blind and two for the big."

---

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PAIN

  After more than a quarter of a century playing no limit Texas Hold 'Em, I often wonder if weird situations are not the rule rather than the exception.  Last night this suspicion was confirmed anew.  Not five minutes into a $2-$5 game at the Bellagio, I found myself in third place ? before the flop ? holding wired kings.  That's right, two of my opponents were dealt Ace-Ace.  Worse still for one of them, four diamonds appeared on the board.  That gave the other player an ace high flush.  (Not the nuts, mind you: those four red cards included the four, five, seven and eight of diamonds.  A wise guy seated two seats to my left said he was chased out holding a pair of red sixes.  In that case, perhaps the weirdest part of that hand was his refusal to come in for all his chips.)

 

            While I loathe playing catch-up, particularly so early in the evening, I did not have much of a choice.  Either I bought in for another two hundred or got up and bid the place adieu.  Reluctantly, I went into my pocket.

 

            Guess what?  Ten minutes later I went all-in with wired queens.  Called by (1) a bearded gentleman holding two kings and (2) an Oriental lady dealt a pair of jacks, I shut my eyes waiting for the flop to turn over.  Damn it!  Give me a chance at least, I said to nobody in particular.  No such luck.  The other two kings appeared along with "what the hell's the difference?"  There was no way my two ladies were going to beat four crowned monarchs.

 

            I went into my pocket and withdrew another two bills.  Down four hundred bucks after twenty minutes, I considered trying my hand at roulette with its tempting 36 to one payout.  If a lousy ten dollars could get me back to just about even . . .

 

Forget it, I said nearly aloud.  There's a zero in there and a double zero.  That's thirty-eight combinations, isn' it?  Casinos in Las Vegas are not noted for giving suckers an even break.

 

More than ninety minutes passed before I dropped the last chip of my most recent buy-in.  If you ask me which is more painful, losing quickly or losing by attrition, I'd have to say it's fifty-fifty.   Oh well, it was nice to see the Oriental lady had moved ahead, and the guy who had taken a bad beat with wired aces was also making a comeback.   How is it that some people are able to recoup losses quickly while others have to crawl through fire just to win the blinds of a single hand? 

 

At the end of a short story called "A Friend of Kafka," author Isaac Beshevis Singer has his long suffering protagonist say: "if there is no God who is playing all these tricks on me?" I guess that sums up the attitude most Texas Hold 'Em players have on a losing day at the tables.  Besides placing the blame on bad karma, does it not imply we might emerge victorious next time out?   But don't think such flippancy relieves one's pain.  Because I'm telling you, it hurts.  It hurts more than any non-poker player can ever imagine. 

---

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FREE PUBLICITY

The kid couldn't have been more than twenty-one or twenty-two years old.   His hair was bleached blonde and stuck out like the needles of an albino porcupine.  He wore what looked like safety pins on his eyebrows, and silver thumbtacks on both earlobes as well as a gold one in the center of his upper lip.  A generation ago I think this style was called punk.  For all I know it still is.   Whatever the name, his poker playing contrasted totally with his appearance.  Talk about conservative, I'm telling you the man hadn't played two hands all evening.

 

            A flop came up 10-6-2 in three different suits.  As big blind holding the 9-7 of hearts, I figured such a display was worth a try at stealing the pot.  Hell, if anybody followed me, wasn't there a chance of my catching an eight for a straight, or two hearts for a backdoor flush?   So I bet fifteen dollars, which was no little amount in this particular $1-$2 No Limit Texas Hold â??Em game at the MGM Grand. 

 

            As I suspected, my opponents dropped out like targets at a shooting gallery.  Player after player folded until the action came to Le Punk, as I called him in French in my mind.

 

            "I'm all-in", he said, pushing into the pot an amount five times my bet.

 

            No doubt about it, as far as I was concerned!  He had been dealt wired tens.  Such bad timing merited a quick fold, but I pretended I might pay him just to see his reaction.   Give the man-child his due: he didn't bat an eyelash. 

 

            "Good bet," I said, throwing my cards away.  "What did you do, flop a set?"

 

            The kid attempted a laugh.  It came out more like a snort.

 

            "That was pure bluff, man.  I didn't have nothing."

 

            Including proper grammar, I felt like saying.  That's the way it goes.  You can't always get away with larceny.  I'll be Jesse James's cousin if the kid didn't raise the next hand fifty dollars. 

 

            "Wow!" said a tall gentleman after everyone had dropped.  "I put you on wired aces or kings."

 

            "Wrong, pal," replied the young man.  "Try the jack of diamonds and six of clubs."

 

            "Pretty cards," I said.  "Two draws to a straight flush, one in each suit."

 

            Somebody laughed at my oft-cited cliche.  That struck the young man wrong.  Maybe he'd had too many drinks or smoked something he shouldn't have.

 

            "You're all a bunch of stiffs," he said nastily.  "I play as large as anyone here."

 

            "Sure," said the tall man.  "Who said you didn't?"

 

            The young man was not to be appeased.  Grabbing his chips, he left his seat and stormed over to the cashier's window.   Intent on the next deal rather than on the departed lad's feelings, I doubt if anybody gave him a second thought.

 

 Not long afterwards, I too left the table.  I was only down a few bucks, but some games aren't worth the effort.  Due to a lack of action, I figured I would lose more rather than get my money back.

 

         On the long walk to the parking garage, I thought about Le young Punk. Doubtless there was a feeling of animosity towards him.  Not because of his tight play, but because of the way he looked.  Damn, I thought to myself, isn't there enough conformity around as it is?  Why should it bother us how a man dresses or what kind of goo he puts in his hair?  This is a game of individuality, isn't it?   For all I care, a competitor can stick straws up his nose and pencils in his ears.  And you know what? I have yet to meet the player who gives credence to an opponent who doesn't show his cards.   Because I'm telling you, in the whole great world of poker, there is not one of us who wouldn't jump at the opportunity to gain free publicity.

---

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CHANGE OF MOOD

 

I am a nasty, cantankerous son of a bitch, or at least sometimes I act that way.   That’s how I felt last night after a particularly lousy performance at no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em.   As if losing money wasn’t bad enough, I had to stop off at the supermarket.  Wouldn’t you know it? My checkout line could have made the Guinness Book of Records for slowness. The store was poorly air conditioned and over lit   Beads of perspiration ran down my back. A clumsy oaf at the cashier’s desk couldn’t get his credit card to work. Finally I advanced to second in line. The lady in front of me insisted that an ad in the paper quoted a lower price than the one the cashier had rung up.   I’m telling you, when Murphy devised his law, he must have had a place like this in mind.

An onrush of hot air made me feel no better. It must have been close to 100 degrees outside.  I forgot where I left my car. Carrying two bags of groceries, I was unable to scratch a pesky itch.   Damn!   Instead of buying dinner and a cartful of junk, why didn’t I stop off for pizza?

No wonder it took me so long to find the car. Hidden between a SUV and what looked like a farm wagon, I walked by it twice before realizing it was mine. Blocking my vehicle was a shopping cart. The owner of the farm wagon was loading his truck from the rear.

I was about to spew out a series of insults when, turning towards me, the gentleman clasped his hands together like a Brahman sage and bowed a greeting.  In the poor light of the parking lot, I was unable to determine his age.  Medium of height and slimly built, he was wearing a woolen cap and a sheep-lined vest.  Good God, how could anyone dress like that in this heat?

He asked forgiveness for occupying a space that was rightfully mine.  At once I remarked the resemblance between his face and that of the celebrated Native American, Don Juan. Years ago, Carlos Casteneda's Yacqui shaman had struck me as being a  man of special enlightenment.        

 I attempted a feeble smile. From the cab of the truck a young girl emerged carrying a baby wrapped in tattered blankets.

“Would you mind holding him a minute?” she asked in a voice suggestive of a mountain bird.

Placing my bags inside my car, I took the baby from her.  The girl looked no more than thirteen or fourteen. 

“Hey!” I said.  “He’s pretty heavy.  How old is he?”

“A year and a day,” said the girl.  “We nearly lost him a couple of months ago.  He had open heart surgery.”

"He certainly looks healthy now," I said.

"The Lord has been kind to us.  We are unimaginably lucky."

"May He bless you too," said the gentleman, who could have been the baby's father, grandfather or great grandfather.

I handed the infant to him.  As a rule, mention of higher spirits other than those nasty poker gods brings out the cynic in me.  James Joyce’s comment about his countrymen speaking frequently of the collector of prepuces adequately mirrors my feelings regarding references to any possible overseer of earthly matters.  But not this evening. These people were not proselytizing or mouthing clichés. They were neither priests nor zealots. Spontaneously expressing a feeling from the heart, there was no doubting their sincerity.

Driving home, I felt better than I had all day.   Even the afternoon’s poker losses no longer bothered me.