ParisPokerNut

I always get a kick out of hearing high profile poker players declare it’s not the money that counts, but winning the bracelet. That sounds a bit strange when the essence of the game is that it has to be played for money. Clearly, poker can be defined as a series of monetary challenges as to who holds actual or potential winning hands. Chips are used in lieu of cash as a matter of convenience. True, these newly celebrated players are referring to tournaments where chips cannot be redeemed. Still, with prize money in the millions of dollars, it strikes me as a curiosity to hear players repeat they are competing for a garland of laurel leaves (bracelet) rather than for a lifetime of financial security.

Noble battle, monetary indifference and striving for excellence are traditional aristocratic values. Great Achilles sulked in his tent not because Agamemnon was enjoying the pleasures of the prize originally awarded to him, but because by taking the girl Breisis for himself, the commanding general had abnegated the public recognition of his chief warrior. Exalted Hector recognized duty to self as a man’s primary responsibility, greater even than devotion to family and country. Strange, you might think, that one might compare Mike Matusow or Phil Helmuth with the heroes of ‘The Iliad’, but do contemporary Texas Hold ‘Em players not achieve a degree of magnificence when they, like ancient warriors, strive after the Homeric value of arête?

For nearly two hundred years, financial ease has led more to aristocratic values than birth or education. Balzac said: beyond every great fortune lies a crime. After some vague ancestor has done the dirty work and gained the loot, a young man or young lady can adopt the manners and morals identified with the upper classes. Occasionally, a person with no or little monetary means rises to the crème de la crème, as if to confirm that, however rare, aristocracy and greatness can be inborn. While surely that is not the case with the majority of our current poker stars, the quiet dignity of Phil Ivy or the polished grace of Doyle Brunson indicate that certain champions would have exhibited a patrician bearing no matter what their field of endeavor.

Doubtless most of us who play poker would rather win millions of dollars than gain a bracelet that says in this particular year at such and such a game, I was the best in the world. It’s all a matter of ego, wouldn’t you say? While of course extraordinary men in art, science, politics or the military had great egos, as a rule they knew how to go about their business so that their achievements dwarfed any misguided sense of self. Understatement will prevail over hubris even if many of today’s poker luminaries are loud-mouthed brats with manners fit for a pigsty. Ah, but such is the beauty of the game that the men we most love to hate often undergo a transformation that sees them becoming veritable princes instead of the street rats they once were.

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One afternoon in a game of dealer’s choice, I won a hand that elicited surprise and admiration from nearly every player at the table. While the consensus among my opponents was that I had pulled off a brilliant coup, in truth all I did was commit a lucky error. What made the hand particularly pleasing was the expression of shock on the face of the victim of my stupidity. Universally detested, Charlie the Rat was the most ‘nouveau’ of all nouveaux riches, and pretty close to the richest. Quick to let everyone know how much he spent on jewelry, automobiles and women, the man would rather have been hit by a bus than treat you to a cup of coffee. If astute at business, he was proud to admit he was lacking in culture. Music to Charlie was the sound of machines in his factory grinding out buttons, while a book was something a judge threw at a person who got into trouble. As detestable as he was, in a way you had to admire the bastard’s frankness.

We were playing at the Lido, not on stage of the world famous cabaret but in an office on an upper floor. By placing a collapsible round board on top of a desk, a group of local businessmen had converted a conference room into what they called a poker parlor. A dozen metal chairs served as furniture, along with two waste paper baskets and a small refrigerator. All successful merchants, the game’s organizers were fairly well off, but nary a one of them was willing to cough up the few extra dollars needed to provide a minimum of comfort. Their only extravagance was cards. Hundreds upon hundreds of unopened decks were neatly arranged inside five large cartons of discount purchased playing cards.

The deal came to Charlie. The unbelievable cheapskate asked us if we weren’t fed up playing Texas Hold ‘Em all the time.

“If you want to play a game of luck, play baccarat,” he said.

What he did not say was that draw gives the dealer an advantage in position. Seated seventh of nine, that was pretty good for me. Charlie mumbled something I didn’t catch. I am sure whatever he said was negative. He was always carping and complaining. His habit of contesting any hand he lost got on everybody’s nerves. If he had not been so wealthy, the organizers would have kicked him out long ago. They were dreaming if they thought they would ever see a penny of his fortune.

It was hot in the crowded room. I was half asleep. A while back I decided to stop playing at the Lido. The only reason I was there was to recruit two of their wilder players for one of my other games. That was not going to be easy. A sucker is a game’s greatest asset. Those Lido bastards weren’t going to give up on their patsies without a knockdown, drag out fight.

None of the first six players opened. That was a good sign. We were playing low to high, or so I thought. I was dealt a pat straight. If Jo in the eight seat and Charlie in last did not open the game would revert from lowball to poker.

“Pass,” said Jo.

“Open at poker,” said Charlie. “Four hundred fifty francs.”

“Poker?” I said to myself. “The man said poker! Of course it’s poker! How stupid can you be, you ass? We’re playing high to low, not low to high. That tightwad son of a bitch Charlie knows it’s easier for the dealer to steal the antes at high than it is at low.”

None of the first six players came in. Maybe they had lousy cards, or maybe they didn’t want to risk $90 on Charlie. What did I know? It was my turn to bet and I was not about to give Charlie a chance to invoke the immediate-raise rule.

“Eleven fifty,” I said. A raise of $140 wasn’t much, but I was inviting the rat to follow.

Charlie did not hesitate to come in. For all I knew the bastard might have had a half decent hand.

“How many cards?” he asked.

“None,” I said smugly.

The rat nodded knowingly. His forehead was wrinkled and his lower lip was protruding.

“Two for me,” he said, “and chip on the blind.”

“I’m all-in,” I said, pushing my chips into the pot.

Charlie did not bother to look at his cards. Sure of himself, he announced he was paying.

I laid down my six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Poor Charlie! The color drained from his face. His eyes dilated and his mouth dropped open. His trip jacks had lost six thousand francs to my pat straight.

“What is the meaning of this?” he said. “What is wrong with you? How the hell could you pass in seventh position?”

“I had no choice,” I said. “I was not sitting eighth.”

Many years later I saw Charlie’s obituary in The Figaro. Once again I remembered the shocked expression on his face. He never found out that I had not opened that hand due to a misunderstanding. Happily, he made it easy for me when he declared he was opening at poker. Had the rat simply said: “open,” he would have died a few thousand francs richer.

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For a long while our afternoon poker game in Paris seemed to be going nowhere. Day after day the same eight or nine participants showed up with an attitude of passing time rather than enjoying the challenge of creative poker. Of course that was better than no game at all. Still, I suspected if things didn’t pick up, poker might die a slow death. Happily, Alain Bertier, Grandpa Pepe, and Roland the Corsican’s consistent losses were sufficient to keep us crawling along at a snail’s pace.

The game became duller still when our female player, Jacqueline Sels quit drinking. High on whiskey, her raucous stories and sarcastic barbs were a source of constant amusement. Now, she was going to stick to bottled water. At first, I thought it was drinking that caused her to quit Jerry and Carla Pritkin’s night game. Resisting alcohol is far more difficult in the wee hours of morning than it is in late afternoon. But then it came out that her consumption of alcohol had nothing to do with her decision. She was furious with a player who was a permanent fixture chez les Pritkins. Apparently Dr. Louis Mellot was fooling around with Eva, Jacqueline’s eighteen-year old daughter.

“Two pairs,” says Crybaby Freddie. Although he promises daily to stop playing he is invariably amongst the first to arrive at Madame Nicole’s café/bar.

“How high,” says Rollo the Corsican?

“You stupid Americans,” says Pepe. “When you finally had a half decent president what did you do but kick him out?”

“Tens over fours,” says Freddie.

Roland throws his cards away. “Better than my nines over eights.”

“You see,” Bertier says to Freddie. “You don’t lose every close hand.”

“Didn’t we go through all that a long time ago?” I say to Pepe.

“Pepe is right,” says the dentist, Arthur Sisse. “Nixon was a great man.”

“Who cares about politics?” says Jacqueline. “When am I going to find a new man?”

“Oh mother, please!” says Florence, Jacqueline’s younger daughter. From time to time Mama brings the sixteen-year old girl along as a spectator.

“Whose deal is it?” asks Claude Stahly, the other dentist at the table.

“Methinks it is the lady’s,” says English professor Pierre Pegon, employing the language of Shakespeare.

In first position I open a hand with three aces. Sandbagging is not my specialty. Suddenly my eyes fall on Bertier. That’s strange! In an effort to appear nonchalant, the art dealer is looking at the ceiling. Smiling coyly, he drops his cards on the table. It is unlike Bertier to feign indifference when he is not holding a good hand.

Pepe, Sisse and Roland fold. Weepy Freddy comes in timidly. Stahly lets out a farting sound to let us know he is not playing the hand. That’s the extent of his humor. I look over at Pegon. Seated next to Bertier, he is squirming in his chair. From my vantage point at the end of the table I see why the teacher is uncomfortable. Behind them, Florence has stretched out her legs. Slowly, Alain Bertier has dropped a hand and is caressing the young lady’s calves.

Jacqueline is drinking directly from a Perrier bottle. Shaking a finger, she indicates that she is folding. Fortunately, her view of Florence is blocked. Unable to come to terms with Louis Mellot’s fondling her older daughter, what would she think about Bertier touching her baby?

“Not only did he open the door to China,” says Pepe, “he brought about détente with the Russians.”

“Two cards,” I say. “Nixon was the only one who could pull détente and rapprochement off. You forget: for twenty-five years he led the opposition against both.”

“One card,” says Freddie.

Holy cow! I catch a fourth ace. Oh no! Will you look at that? Florence is touching the back of Bertier’s neck. His hand has disappeared under her skirt. The damn fool had better watch himself. Since Jacqueline has been on the wagon, she is more attentive to what’s going on.

“You tell ‘em, Pepe,” says Pegon. “De Gaulle started to kick the Yanks out. It is up to us to finish the job.”

“Why not begin right at this table?” says Claude Stahly.

Bertier pays no attention to their banter. His face is blissful. I tell you, one of these days the bastard is going to go too far.

“You damn idiots,” says Freddie. “Must you pick today to talk about politics? Here I’m holding four jacks and that American jerk doesn’t know it’s his turn to bet.”

“Four jacks?” I say. “I’ve got four aces.”

“You see, you see,” Freddie cries out. “Now will someone believe me?”

Bertier brings his hand away from Florence. He rubs his nose. Shifting in her seat, the young girl is looking directly at her mother.

“What is it, Cherie?” says Jacqueline.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“No one but me,” Freddie moans to himself.

“Cut out your constant bawling, will you?” says Sisse. “You haven’t given up a single chip when you should have lost your entire pile.”

“Who else can lose with four jacks?”

“We should talk about politics more often,” says Pepe. “It keeps the American distracted.

“That’s not why I missed my bet,” I say.

“Where’s Bertier gone off to?” says Jacqueline. “I’ve never seen him so quiet.”

Bertier attempts a weak smile. The deal comes to me. What the hell caused
Pepe to think of Nixon after all this time? That’s the French for you. Unfailingly, they remain loyal to the sole American president forced out of office.

“Let’s try to play a little faster,” says Roland. “You all seem to be asleep.”

He is right. We are moving at half our normal speed. As a group, we have been playing together so long we have become like an inbreeding family.

Florence stands up. Straightening her skirt, she moves away from the table.

“Cherie,” says her mother. “Bring me a glass of whiskey, will you? Just a small one to get rid of this taste in my mouth.” Jacqueline throws back her head and laughs. “Not too small, mind you,” she says.

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I was playing a dice game called Yam with Alain Bertier when a slim elegant gentleman wearing a pair of thick-rimmed eyeglasses came into his boutique. Bertier eyed him briefly before urging me to get on with the game.

“Make yourself at home, Monsieur,” he said to the gentleman. “Call me if you need any assistance.”

I was reluctant to throw the dice. Not because I was thinking of poker. More than an hour remained before the other players would arrive.

“What are you waiting for?” said Bertier.

“Alain, are you aware that one of the most important people in Paris is inside your boutique?”

“What do you take me for, an idiot?”

“Now that you mention it . . .”

“Make it snappy,” he said. “It’s your throw.”

“You must be mad. What about him?”

“You have no more sense of commerce than my wife,” he said.

“But that is Yves Saint-Laurent.”

“Keep your voice down. He is an extremely private person who does not like to be fussed over.”

The fashion designer remained in the gallery for half an hour before Bertier approached him gingerly. Conversing in hushed tones, the two examined a piece of glassware Alain removed from a cabinet.

“He’ll be back,” Bertier said after Saint-Laurent was gone. “Anybody wanting to buy art nouveau glassware is obliged to pass by Le Grand Bertier.”

Early shadows floated over the city. I looked at my watch. Bertier continued to fondle the glass sculpture admired by Monsieur Saint-Laurent. A Japanese couple entered the shop. Bertier nodded a greeting but paid them no attention.

“They are not clients,” he said.

“How do you know?”

“I can tell. Stop talking and start playing.”

We began a new game. As usual when I was winning, Alain wanted to double the stakes.

A laborer wearing a workman’s smock walked into the shop carrying a heavy bronze horse. Bertier told him to put the statue on his desk. That crowded the dice action, but the art dealer wanted to look the horse over. Satisfied, he slipped a few bills into the workman’s hand. He retrieved the dice and rolled five sixes in a single toss.

“Mark that in the Yam box,” he said, pointing to the lower right corner of the score sheet.

“How the hell do you do it?” I said. With a single roll of the dice he had recovered all his losses.

Tom Filer came in. Even though he and Bertier were arch rivals, they remained in close contact. The American was carrying the ‘Gazette de Drouot,’ the weekly magazine that announces art sales and auctions throughout the country, as well as the previous week’s results.

The two dealers went off to a corner. The American pointed to a picture in the Gazette. Bertier shook his head. Filer raised his voice. Standing toe to toe, the pair looked like boxers at a weigh-in. Again Filer pleaded his case.

“Nothing doing,” said Bertier.

“You’re a damn fool,” said Filer.

He glanced at me then looked away. Neither he nor Bertier wanted an outsider listening in. I kept a blank expression on my face, but I knew what they were up to. The American dealer was trying to arrange what is called a ‘revision’ in French and a ‘knockout’ in English, a tactic in which two or more dealers agree not to bid against one another at a public auction so that one of the parties may obtain an object at a bargain-basement price. Afterwards, he will pay off his fellow dealers, but at a cost far lower than had the bidding not been arranged. At times, members of the auctioneer’s team are co-conspirators. An expert can estimate an object at less than its true value or the auctioneer is capable of dropping his hammer prematurely. Either way, the seller comes up short. Or the converse might take place. Dealers, experts and auctioneers can equally contrive to bid an object up so that the seller, assuming he is one of the happy few, ends up getting more than he rightfully deserves.

Filer was barely out of sight when another American came into the shop. A frail man with a high-pitched voice, his face wore a yellow pallor that made him look like he was recovering from a tropical disease. Overdressed in a long winter coat, his eyes were rheumy and small. As soon as he set foot inside, he went to the bronze horse on Bertier’s desk.

“Alain,” he said in a surprised tone of voice. “This piece is not signed.”

Bertier opened his mouth but was unable to speak. His Adam’s apple danced along the edge of his throat.

“What, what are you doing here?” he said, stuttering.

The American continued to study the bronze. “Really, Alain, I do not understand.”

“It’s Wednesday,” Bertier said with difficulty. “You said you were coming Friday.”

“What difference does that make?”

“It would have been signed by then.”

The man left the boutique. A minute later I followed him into Madame Nicole’s bar next door. He told me the horse he had expected to find was sculpted by P. J. Mene and should have borne the artist’s signature before his death in 1877.

Bertier came running into the bar. His eyes were afire and his face was angry. Without a glance at the American collector, he grabbed my arm and pulled me outside.

“Whatever you see or hear around here, you bloody keep to yourself,” he said. “Is that understood?”

“It is,” I said.

He kicked the door to his shop open. The telephone was ringing, but he did not pick it up. I noticed the bronze on his desk was no longer there.

“Get inside and sit down,” he shouted. “We haven’t finished our game.”

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One afternoon a tall man with a fair complexion came into the bar where our afternoon poker games took place in Paris. Smartly dressed in a dark blue suit and a bright red tie, his long brown hair ended in a ponytail. He had light blue eyes and a small crooked mouth. A pair of ash blonde mustaches curled from his upper lip to his cheekbones.

“You’re Bill, aren’t you?” he asked me.

I said I was.

“I’m looking for the photographer, Herve Simeon,” he said. “I’m Bertrand Gimont. Perhaps you have heard of me?”

I admitted I had. More than once Simeon and Pedro da Silva had mentioned his name. Apparently, probity was not the man’s long suit.

“Are you expecting Simeon this afternoon?” he said.

“Not really. You can never tell with him.”

“He’s trying to stiff me for 35,000 francs. That’s seven thousand in your money.”

“When did he lose that?” I asked.

“Sunday. He lost a lot more. He says he’ll pay the others, but not me.”

I did not like the way he spoke out the side of his mouth, or his habit of sucking on his teeth. Clearly the man had seen too many gangster films.

“You can be sure Simeon will stiff you too.”

“I doubt that,” I said.

“Wait and see.”

“No way,” I said. “He feels comfortable with us.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Just what I said.”

“So that’s his game, is it? He’s telling everyone I cheated him."

“He never said that to me."

Gimont nodded knowingly. I declined his offer for a cigarette.

“Maybe we can work something out,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“If he wins in your game, you can put the money aside for me.”

“You know I cannot do that.”

“All right,” he said, shrugging. “I’ll have to do it my way.”

Motioning with my head, I called to Madame Nicole and pointed to the door. The damn fool had exposed the butt of a pistol. The bar owner looked at me with a strained expression. With my thumb and forefinger I made the sign of a revolver.

“You,” she said sharply. “Out of here. There will be none of that in this bar.”

Nor would we poker players tolerate any criminality in our games. A wannabe hoodlum such as Gimont was in no way amusing. His tough guy approach was a demonstration of how not to act when faced with a loser who refuses to pay. There was no surer way to alienate the local bourgeoisie. The French might pretend to be attracted to gangsters and sharpies, but nobody would care to find a genuine underworld character sitting at his table.

Many years later Gimont left Metropolitan France and settled in Guadeloupe. He purchased a second hand yacht that he scrubbed and painted until it looked like new. A fellow who remained in touch with him said the man lived for his boat. He learned where fish were running and how to pick up an occasional charter. He and his boat were always available for young ladies hoping to find a Caribbean adventure. Neither poker nor money interested him any longer. When not at sea, he was content to spend his time polishing and repairing his prized possession.

One afternoon the boat was not in its berth. Gimont went into a state of shock. He tried to recall if he had made an arrangement with another skipper when he had drank too much rum. Neither the harbormaster nor any of his fellow yachtsmen had any idea where the boat could be. There was no sign that a line had been cut, and no witness to foul play. For all anybody knew, Bertrand’s tub had disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle.

Gimont spent weeks scouring the island. Not a single harbor escaped his scrutiny. On foot or by sea, he examined ever hidden inlet and every exposed or unexposed cove. After a month of searching he returned home empty handed. Not only had he not found the boat, not a soul knew a thing about it.

Gimont took a room in a seedy hotel near the port. Every day he walked along the quays in search of his missing boat. The police were no help. After a while they abandoned their investigation. On a rainy evening, three months to the day following his loss, Bertrand Gimont put a revolver to his head and squeezed the trigger. Although all this occurred many years ago, I have never stopped wondering whether or not he used the same pistol he had shown me that afternoon in Madame Nicole’s Paris Bar.

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Have you noted this particular holiday season that many people are puzzled as to how to express their feelings? Apparently “Merry Christmas” is politically incorrect, while “Season’s Greetings” and “Happy Holidays” are nothing less than cop-outs. In matters pertaining to Christmas, the inmates seem to be taking over the asylum. Between religious fanatics on the one side and their anti-religious counterparts on the other, opposition to traditional salutations is causing confusion, resentment and anger in people unaccustomed to such nonsense.

One group, happily, remains immune to any misguided efforts of thought control. Traditionally nonconformist, poker players have their own priorities, their own semantics and their own set of values. Immersed in a game where language is limited to three basic words – fold, call or raise – poker players do little more than grunt out greetings such as: “have a good one” before concentrating on the next deal. I tell you, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if half the players at a table were unaware of the battles raging outside. For all I know, they are ignorant that it is Christmas.

Few human endeavors are as individualistic as playing poker. As there is no I in team, so no team exists at a poker table. While accumulating money in the form of chips is every player’s goal, it is a one in a million player who tries to do so underhandedly. In what other activity can a person go for a walk while leaving hundreds, nay thousands of dollars behind him with the full assurance that no one will touch a single chip? Where else but at a poker table are monetary goals second to the satisfaction received when exercising proper judgment? Who can be less conscious of trends or movements than a person who has wagered a month’s salary on the turn of a card? Political correctness! You’ve got to be joking. Tell a poker player to refrain from making a string bet, or not to hide large denomination chips behind smaller ones, but don’t tell him what to say on a Christmas card or how to convey his feelings.

Are poker players concerned with anything other than poker? Of course we are, but not during a game. We have family worries and health problems and even money woes. The fact that we are able to dismiss these for several hours is no doubt a double-edged sword. Certainly some of us should be looking for a job or paying bills or taking our wives to dinner rather than matching wits with others of our ilk. But one thing we have is inviolate. While we can accept the absurdity of a deuce of hearts causing us excessive joy or untold grief, in no manner can we tolerate the imposition of another person’s ideas onto our way of thinking or our way of life. So Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Season’s Greetings, Cool Yule and don’t play in games you can’t afford.

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Unlike we Americans who begin preparing for Christmas in early November, the French wait until mid December before unloosening their heavy artillery. That’s easy enough to understand. Rather than frolicking Santas, chubby snowmen and leaping reindeer, the holiday season offers the locals an excellent occasion to manifest their gastronomic expertise. In the spirit of the old Roman festival of Saturnalia that took place annually at the time of the winter solstice, Christmas on the Seine is just another excuse to eat, drink and make merry.

Ave Caesare! Did not the great man himself spend a half dozen years in Gaul? You can read about it in his memoirs. So what if he talks mainly about his military successes? Even the greatest of all Roman generals must have taken some time out to exchange gifts and feast during the few days set aside each year for such activities. Of course that was long before Versailles, Careme and Escoffier bestowed upon their Gothic brethren the ability to create masterpieces out of anything organic. Today, even Spartan Caesar would be hard pressed to deny that he came, saw and gouged himself.

I tell you those Frogs really go all out at Christmastime. In every outdoor marketplace, shoppers are treated to displays of Epicurean splendor not unlike those reserved for Oriental potentates. Earthenware dishes of foie gras line the windows of both gourmet shops and ordinary food stores. Plates of lacquered trout sit beside platters of chicken ‘en gelee.’ Mouthwatering slices of roast duck are covered with candied fruit. Fattened geese, turkeys and capons hang from large hooks while deer and wild boar gaze through glassy eyes. From floor to ceiling, candy shops are stacked with glazed chestnuts, chewy nougat and chocolate truffles. Boiled lobsters, whole or split, occupy beds of lettuce dappled with homemade mayonnaise. Placed in wooden crates and wicker baskets, oysters wrinkled or plain, flat or deep shelled tempt the palate with a tinge of brine. Feathers and fur yet un-removed, hares, rabbits, pheasants and partridges are crammed onto countertops. In steamy bakery windows, rectangular cakes and round Christmas logs exhibit flavors and colors that joggle the senses. Sculpted by confectionary wizards, vanilla, chocolate, marzipan, mocha, cherry and pistachio pastries form tiers of freshly spun sugar. Tangerines, hazelnuts, litchis and almonds are strewn across the fruit seller’s floor. Honey covered hams and spit-roast guinea hens fill the air with aromas difficult to resist. Food and more food greet the eye all over town. From Christmas to New Year’s the entire city becomes a great banquet hall, a fairytale land to eye and palate. I'm telling you, If I didn’t know better, I would be tempted to say that Noel in Paris is the one time of year the French outdo Las Vegas casinos.

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Is it possible for a player to lose with four aces? Of course! Many of us have seen it happen. What about losing with a straight flush? Personally, I’ve never witnessed it, though of course theoretically it can occur. Indeed, in Texas Hold ‘Em, how would you feel holding the seven of spades when the board displayed the eight, nine, ten, jack of spades and your opponent just went all-in? He might have the ace of spades or he might have the queen. Then again (fat chance!) maybe he has zilch but is hoping that you are not holding the queen. Okay, last question: can a player lose with a royal flush? “No way,” you’re inclined to reply, “that is the one hand that cannot be beaten.” Well, you might be wrong. It depends on where and with whom you are playing. Poker, after all, is a game of conventions, not of rules. In France, where I spent 30 years playing, a gentleman at my original table let it be known that no hand should be considered perfect. Everyone must be vulnerable. Thus, he concluded, a royal flush confronted by four deuces would come in second best. Since this seemed perfectly logical to our particular group of Descartes’ heirs, nobody contested the idea.

Of course we were playing draw poker at the time. Later, when lowball took over, nary a soul bothered to point out that the perfect hand (ace-two-three-four-six in our case) did exist, defying the belief that no player should be allowed to hold cards that could not be beaten. By the time Texas Hold ‘Em became the belle of the ball, perfection and reality had become intertwined. No different than anywhere else, everybody hoped to hold the nuts. Don’t ask me what would have happened if a flop included a pair of deuces and ten-jack-queen on suit with player X holding the other two ducks, and player Y holding the missing king-ace. The French might not like fisticuffs, but they can stretch a verbal confrontation to limits unimaginable on this side of the ocean.

In the long run we all play some sort of odds. If not card odds, then pot odds or edge odds or some other intangible that will effect our decisions to fold, raise or follow. Naturally, experience (deja vue) also affects our judgment. While this is all well and good in games run by respectable parties such as Las Vegas casinos, what happens in a private game when everything suddenly seems to run amok? Add one skillful mechanic (card manipulator) into a game and out of nowhere a plethora of losing flushes, full boats and fours of kind will turn those odds in your head into so much gobbledygook. I guess, suspecting that a good thing can’t last very long this sort of card shark is unconcerned that his prestidigitation will quickly bust a table. Inevitably, greed will outweigh intelligence. Even if it is his confederate (one of your pals) rather than the manipulator himself who is raking in most of the dough, sooner or later the table will collapse. In our case in Paris (details to follow in later blogs), the ‘mechanicien’ was an inveterate horseplayer who needed quick cash to pay off his debts. By the time we caught him (by sheer coincidence) it was nearly too late. Few of us felt like playing poker anymore. We were saved more by summer vacation than by a Polaroid snapshot catching the thief red-handed. Never, during his five-month stint did any of us suspect that the unusual run of cards that occurred whenever he was present was due to skillful fingers rather than a mathematical aberration. To be sure, such unpredictability is part of the beauty of poker. When Phil Helmuth makes an asinine remark such as: “take away the element of luck and I would win ever hand,” he is denigrating the game he – we – all love so much. If impossible situations did not arise we might just as well play Go Fish. Just don’t let them happen too often or you might discover they were not so impossible after all.

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One of the advantages of having a foreign spouse is that you get to learn new words and expressions all the time. Like with my German wife, commenting on my case of budenkoller. What is budenkoller? Doubtless a literal translation would be: ‘chamber wrath.’ On the Rhine or Oder, a bude is a small room, while koller is the Teutonic version of choler, an emotion personified by anger and irritability. It’s the root term for the infectious disease marked by nausea, dehydration and bile. More common to Anglophonic Ich, the expression stir crazy embodies the feelings brought about by a period of confinement due to illness, injury or penal servitude, sort of like the ones I have been experiencing since having been locked into a heavy plaster cast. Stir = jail; crazy = a person who prefers the melancholic angst of a Russian basso to the spontaneous joy of a Mozart tenor.

Sit in a room long enough and you too might take more pleasure conspiring with Ivan the Terrible than rooting for brave Tamino. So, leaping to my feet, I caught hold of myself and said: “Man, you gotta get out of here. Quick, like a bunny. I mean, schnell, vite, subito and pronto, before you crack into pieces.”

But I can hardly raise myself without going through a series of marionette-like motions. Grab left elbow with right hand. Position one foot six inches away from the other and slightly forward. Bend knees. Spring upward on the balls of both feet. Holy God, keep me from falling backwards! Bravo, baby, you have managed to stand up. Now what? On my own I have no more chance of moving around outside this apartment than I do of performing Otello at The Met. Reality quickly sets in. What is reality if not resistance? Too many factors are keeping me from going from Point A to Point B. Good Lord, what is wrong with me? It’s a broken arm, not a broken leg. Olympic paraplegics are more mobile than this. No, man, it’s something else. I’m beginning to think I like the idea of budenkoller. Where else can one lie back and dream of diamond flushes and apple orchards, of Tartes Tatins and Johnny Chan, of long-horned cattle and Texas doilies, of Maria Callas and whooping cranes, of Il Re de Pontus and supersystems, of pulling to a double belly buster and café au lait, of Buffalo Bill and wild strawberries, of Dom Perignon and broken bones, of winning the world series of poker on sacred ground, in Camelot or perhaps The Wynn, at The Rio or on Fremont Street, or in casinos not yet conceived of by the minds of occasional players or confirmed professionals? Ah yet were I to remain an invalid a thousand more years, I could not encroach on my wildest dreams. Stir crazy, who me? Not at all! If anything, I’m just beginning.

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Attitude is everything. Well, almost everything. Anyone would prefer to hold aces and kings in a docile mood to rags when feeling like an angry tiger. So yesterday, nine days after breaking my arm, I stopped off at The Palms to try my hand (the good one) at no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em. Which brings me to the conclusion that, if not everything, attitude means an awful lot.

I just couldn’t get with it. Vince Lombardi’s dictum: “winning isn’t the main thing, it’s the only thing,” seemed as misplaced as a Strauss waltz at a rock concert. Constrained from stimulating the action, I limped in with hands that merited a raise. I felt like a wounded stag surrounded by a pack of hunting dogs. When not nipping at my ankles, members of the pack went straight for the jugular. Naturally, I lost hand after hand. Okay! We all know there are times one can do nothing about that. The problem was, I just didn’t care. When some smart ass hit a flush on the river and wiped me out, I smiled and offered him meek congratulations rather than hypocritically proclaiming “nice hand” while preparing to remove the bastard’s heart from his chest. I kept eyeing my opponents with a feeling of weary indifference. Man, that is no way to play poker. Even if one’s cards are not good enough to attack with, at all times a player should be prepared to take over the action with a major or an all-in bet.

It is said that age makes one less aggressive. Something to do with hormones, a decreased testosterone level or another glandular function that transforms a raging warrior into an elder statesman That might be, but why then are so many female players kicking ass today? Could it really boil down to a question of what’s in one’s head and what’s in one’s heart? Is there actually something in the oft-repeated idea that a winning attitude generates winning cards?

Leaving The Palms a few hundred dollars poorer, I vowed to never again play if losing didn’t upset me a little. Even if I win $100,000,000 at lotto, I have no intention of giving money away graciously at a casino. There are other and better places for that. This game of poker is a microcosm of the game of life. If you are going to cook a meal, or write a blog or ski down a hillside, do it with determination and enthusiasm. Under those conditions, a losing day is a mere setback that can easily be rectified. I guess Mr. Lombardi knew what he was talking about after all.

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Yesterday on a visit to the Ramparts Casino in Summerlin, about 10 miles from The Strip, I fell down and broke my arm in three different places. While the pain is considerably less today, it remains bad enough to make typing difficult. I’m telling you I’d rather lose four aces to a straight flush than go through that experience again. Tomorrow morning I have a visit scheduled with an orthopedic specialist. Accordingly, I won’t be blogging until Tuesday 12/13 at earliest. Worse still, it looks like I’ll be grounded from poker from six to eight weeks. You might not miss me, but I will miss you. Email sympathy notes and other fan mail – negative or positive - will be welcome as follows: blmor@aol.com. Au revoir for the moment, but not forever.

Parispokernut

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Last night I went to Mandalay Bay again. Wait a minute! That sounds like the opening line of a book. There was a film too, directed by Hitchcock, starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. Yes, “Rebecca,” a novel by Daphne Du Maurier. But I don’t have it quite right. “Last night I dreamed I went to Manadalay again.” That’s how it went. No, not Mandalay, it was Manderley. That’s the way it goes.

There is no Manderley in Las Vegas, but there is a Mandalay Bay. Of all the mega resorts adorning Las Vegas Boulevard, the Mandalay is southernmost on the Strip. Exquisite looking from the outside - two golden towers rising majestically – it is equally impressive on the inside, even if the gaming room does seem a bit overcrowded. Along with the MGM Grand, the Wynn and the Bellagio, the best restaurants in town are in the Manadalay Bay. While dinner at the Aureole (Mandalay), Picasso (Bellagio), Robuchon (MGM) or Alex (Wynn) might cost you a month of mortgage payments your taste buds will be treated to an unforgettable experience.

So I went to the Mandalay Bay last night, only a week after I had stopped off for a drink with a friend from Miami. This time I wanted to check out the Texas Hold ‘Em games, while my friend Pedro da Silva was waiting to try one of the eponymous specialties in their celebrated Hamburger Bar.

“On the road to Mandalay,” I recited, “where the flying fishes play, and the dawn comes up like thunder outa China ‘cross the bay.”

“Huh?” said Portuguese Pedro, eying me queerly. “What China? What bay?”

“It’s a poem by Kipling. The English once controlled Burma, you know?”

“Hong Kong, too,” he said. “We kept them out of Macao.”

“Well you won’t keep the Yankees out. Or rather, the Chinese won’t. Steve Wynn is building a billion dollar resort in Macao.”

“He’ll have a client for each dollar. No nationality gambles as much as the Chinese.”

The director of the poker room told us that anybody wanting to play no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em at the Mandalay Bay had to buy in for $200.

“What if I’m losing?” asked Pedro. “Can I buy in for more?”

“No, sir. It’s $200 period. Of course if you have less on the table, you can bring it up to two hundred.”

“What about the minimum?” I asked.

“Same thing.”

“You mean it’s two hundred either way?”

“You’ve got it.”

“That’s crazy,” said Pedro. “A player can be losing thousands of dollars and still be restricted to buying only $200 worth of chips.”

“It’s the same at two-dollar-five dollar tables at the Bellagio.” I said. “Come in for two bills or don’t play. Only the Wynn and Binion’s have no maximums.”

“Why is that?” asked Pedro.

“I don’t know. I guess the others want to avoid wealthy wise guys from buying in for tens of thousands and muscling everyone else around. Still, you’d think they would have some sort of spread.”

“Let’s go eat,” said Pedro.

We supped on the specialty of the house. Pretty good burgers, I’d say. At nine dollars apiece I should hope so. Actually, they cost more than that. Our requests for cheese, bacon and other garnishes added to the cost. Cocktails and beer brought our tab up to $70 with tax and tip. We skipped desert. Since neither Pedro nor I wanted to be restricted by the house’s limited poker policy, we took a taxi to where I had left my car. That set us back another ten bucks. Pedro wanted to play Texas Hold ‘Em at a casino where the $2-$5 table buy-in was between one hundred and five hundred dollars. I figured I might as well go home. Still hungry, I stopped off at a Burger King on Tropicana Avenue where for $1.71 I gobbled down a double bacon cheeseburger with pickles and lettuce. You know what? It was the best meal I had all day.

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One similarity to poker playing and police work is that each requires a lot of patience. Any detective will tell you he spends far more time in observation than in confrontation. Plod along plod is the modus operandi, be the person a professional dick or a regular player in Las Vegas card rooms.

Timidity and discipline defined yesterday’s one-two no-limit game at the MGM Grand. Playing a hand was almost a chore. Boredom, ennui and yawns were the afternoon’s keywords. With five immovable rocks pitted against five stationary boulders, you would have thought betting was criminal.

I guess most competent players are aware that when one’s opponents are playing wide and wild it’s better to lay back and wait for good cards. Contrarily, the time to open one’s game and attempt a few bluffs is when everyone else is half asleep. So I figured yesterday’s game was as good a time as any to play some straddles.

In the world of finance a straddle is a tool whereby a speculator (usually in options) simultaneously takes a long and a short position. Like straddling a horse, get it? One of your legs is on the steed’s right side while the other is on its left. Hopefully, a trend will develop to indicate in which direction your speculation (one would be hard-pressed to call a straddle an investment) is moving. A sharp observer will then close the contrary position and ride the winning side home.

Other than speculation, I have no idea why doubling the big blind in Texas Hold ‘Em is called a straddle. Rather than a hedge, such a move is clearly one-sided. While it serves to stimulate action and to give the participant the final word in betting before the flop is turned, at no time are your legs on both sides of the beast.

The first time I put up this unnecessary over-blind two players came in. While that was only four dollars apiece, it seemed to scare the do-nothing people away. Lo and behold, I was dealt a pair of tens. Adding seventy-six dollars to my unseen bet, I went all-in. Player one dropped out while the other fellow scratched his head. Finally, he decided to call with a suited ace-nine, doubtless because I had twice shown the table I had bluffed winning hands holding cards nobody else would play.

Guess what? I won. No ace, no pair of nines and not a single heart for the man with the itch. Unfortunately, that was that. Although the wise guy on my left said we should all start straddling, nobody else did so. Dunce that I am, I continued to straddle every time I was in position. Of course that was only one in ten hands, but if you add up the sum involved over a period of time – well, you get the picture!

After a while I said to the smart aleck next to me:

“Hey! When are you going to follow your own suggestion?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “I suppose you also expect me to put up eighty bucks to protect a four dollar-blind.”

“Was that a mistake?” I asked.

“Let’s put it this way: you won’t catch me going all-in at twenty times my original bet.”

That was good news to me! Oh well, he was no more than twenty-five. I get the impression that young people today are being taught to avoid disproportionate bets. Somebody or some book must be telling them to double up or bet the size of the pot. Build pots up so that you have something to win! As smart as that might seem, it’s not the only way to go. If you do not make an oversized bet, you are inviting other players in. Don’t you want to chase them out rather than let them see the next card? Poker demands variance, in betting as well as in the choice of cards one plays. Stick to formula betting and you might just as well play blackjack, baccarat or craps.

I stopped straddling and asked the card room director to put me up at a higher stakes game. It took over half an hour until a seat at the two-dollar, five-dollar table was available. Just when my name was called, I was directly behind the big blind. ‘Oh well, one more time won’t hurt,’ I thought to myself, placing four blue chips in front of me.

I’ll be Nick the Greek’s great nephew if I wasn’t dealt a pair of ladies. After six players folded, an opponent who was heretofore invisible came limping in. Man, this cat: constipated, bespectacled, a bowtie-clad dodo who could have earned a gold medal for non participation hadn’t played two hands the entire afternoon. So when I went all-in for $65 and old tight-ass followed, I rolled my eyes, looked to the sky and prayed for another queen.

You know what? When a player gets it into his skull that he is going to pay, don’t try to figure him out. I don't have the slightest clue what was on this weird fellow’s mind. Can you believe it? All he had was the ace of diamonds and the six of clubs! Pinch me, baby, am I dreaming? And don’t tell me not to make disproportionate bets, or not to straddle. Because after I won that hand, I went to the bigger table and kept on straddling, and kept on winning.

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I liked the gentleman sitting at my left at yesterday afternoon’s no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em game chez Wynn. He spoke in a soft voice, had a sense of humor and showed me he had a king high flush when I dropped out against him with two high pairs.

“Good fold,” he said. “I guess I was too expensive.”

Whether he was or wasn't mattered little. I abandoned the hand since previously I had noticed him toying with a large gold ring when he held the nuts. As soon as he started rubbing that ring again, I figured I’d better honor my observation. Is anything more fundamental to this game than picking up an adversary’s tells?

A few hands later I won a moderate-sized pot against a young lady who seemed particularly agitated. The look she gave me sent the temperature in the room down several degrees.

“That’s twice you’ve beaten that girl,” said my neighbor. “Ease up on her. Can’t you see she’s a beginner?”

“I saw she was bluffing,” I said.

“How could you pay with a pair of sevens?” she asked.

“Intuition,” I replied. That was untrue. Her pattern of betting made it obvious to me she was holding zilch. On previous hands when sitting pretty her bets were far more sizable.

Two seats to the left of my altruistic neighbor, a gentleman long on chips but short on hair was arguing over a technicality.

“He said ten, not ten chips. That means ten dollars.”

“Correct,” corroborated the dealer.

“That bald headed bastard is at it again,” my neighbor whispered to me. “He loves playing the bully with less experienced players. Nothing would please me more than to wipe him out.”

I said nothing, but I suspected my neighbor was heading the wrong way. In this game it’s a mistake to concentrate one’s efforts on a single opponent.

I won another hand from the young lady when she raised a hand in which I was dealt wired nines. A nine came up on the flop. After she checked, I went all-in. While perhaps my action seemed foolish, it had a dual purpose. She might have thought I was trying to psyche her and pay me, or I might be demonstrating what a fine fellow I was by letting her off the hook.

“Good fold,” I said when she threw her cards away. “I was hoping you wouldn’t follow.”

“That’s a lot of bull,” said Baldy across the way. “You were trying to trick her.”

“Honi soit qui mal y pense,” I replied.

About ten minutes later, Baldy raised the three-dollar big blind to twenty-one dollars. Only the nice-guy next to me followed. The flop came up queen-jack of clubs, ten of diamonds. Baldy bet twenty chips or sixty dollars.

“I’m all-in,” said my neighbor, pushing close to $250 into the pot.

Baldy hesitated before deciding to pay. My neighbor turned over the eight of diamonds and the nine of spades.

“Small straight,” he said with a smile.

The turn was the ace of clubs. ‘What lousy luck,’ I thought to myself in French. ('Quelle mauvaise chance'!) That was about the worst card possible for my pal.

“Hell’s bells!” said my neighbor, thinking along the same line.

“Save your breath,” said his opponent. “I’m neither on a flush nor a straight.”

The river was another ace. There was no doubting Baldy’s victory this time. His trip queens had become a full house.

The fellow on my left let out a string of curse words that would have embarrassed the U.S. Naval Academy after a West Point touchdown. Maybe he wasn’t such a nice guy after all.

“And to that son of a bitch,” he concluded.

I held back from saying anything about his coming in with an unsuited eight-nine after a raise by a notably tight player. Seek ye trouble, trouble ye will find.

Calm reigned at the table for about two and a half minutes. Dealt wired aces, I made a half-assed raise to nine dollars.

“I’m all-in,” said the lone female at our table when, as the big blind, the bet came to her.

Poor girl. She must have had financial problems. Well, maybe not. After all, she had wagered more than a hundred dollars holding jack-ten of diamonds. Not at all her style, such a big bet.

I caught a third ace that I didn’t need. Nothing resembling a jack, ten, straight or flush appeared on the board. The only thing that came up was the young lady’s temper. While her vocabulary was quite different from that of the gentleman on my left, the inflection of her voice was pretty much the same.

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I was enjoying an aperitif at the outdoor terrace of the Café Deux Maggots when a series of loud blasts of an automobile horn interrupted the evening calm. While Alain Bertier was not the sole person in Paris who possessed a ‘La Cucaracha’ claxon, I doubt if anybody other than he would repeat such a frivolity five times. Double-parking his Peugeot convertible, he charged over to where I was seated.

“So that’s how you spend my money,” he said.

He sat down and ordered a double-vodka. He asked for a bowl of peanuts. ‘Bring some almonds too,’ he said, ‘and pistachios if you have them.’ What else could the house provide? Gruyere cheese? Parma Ham? Bertier was never modest when someone else was footing the bill,

“It’s the least you can do,” he said. “That was my money you won this afternoon.”

“When am I going to see it?” I asked.

“Never. I am going to win it back this evening.”

“How’s the art and antique business coming along?” I inquired.

Bertier grinned from ear to ear. “I’m making a fortune.”

“Perhaps you could help a painter friend of mine,” I said.

“I do not deal in contemporary art.”

“What if he has a Rembrandt to sell?”

“Nothing could interest me less.”

“You mean you would turn down a few million dollars?”

“Even if he - or you - had one, I wouldn’t bother with it."

“Why not?”

“That’s not my period.”

The waiter appeared. Before he could set the food on our table, Alain grabbed at the olives and almonds. At the entrance to the Saint Germain des Pres Metro, a mime clad in a white robe stood still as a statue.

“How does he do it?” said Bertier.

“Training,” I said.

“At one time I wanted to go into show business. I was with a troop of actors. That’s how I learned to speak English. We were going to perform at the American airbase at Orly.”

“What happened?”

“It took too long. I went into my own racket instead.”

“And you became ‘Le Grand Bertier’?”

“Le Grand Bertier,” said a voice behind us. “Just the man I want to see.”

Alain looked at his watch. “You’re late, Kruger.”

“Tell me, pal. Did you ever try to drive into Paris on a Friday evening?”

“Where’s the horse?”

“I dropped it off at your house.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Do you expect me to carry a forty pound bronze all over town?”

“I won’t give you a centime until I see it,” said Bertier.

“Fine with me. Rendezvous at your place in ten minutes?”

“Is that how long it takes you in a Porsche? I’ll be there in five.”

“In that dump truck of yours?”

“One hundred francs says I beat you,”

“It’s a bet. I’ll give you half a block.”

I sat next to Bertier. With a blast of ‘La Cucaracha,’ he floored the accelerator. Unconcerned by pedestrians or traffic lights, he was soon driving at seventy miles an hour. Kruger stayed on his tail. Try as he might, Bertier could not shake him off. The two drivers wove in and out of traffic, indifferent to the angry shouts of other motorists. Immediately before the Rue de Seine, Kruger’s low-slung sport’s car roared past Bertier’s Peugeot. In the blink of an eye, the Porsche reached the Rue Saint Sulpice and turned out of sight.

“God damn Alsatian!” said Bertier. “I’ll have to take the long way around.”

“Slow down, you maniac,” I said. “Can’t you see he has the faster car?”

Bertier sped past the intersection where Kruger had turned. Racing up the Rue de Tournon, he was soon opposite the Palais Luxembourg. Visibly upset, he paid no attention to my pleas to slow down. Stationed in front of the French Senate, a gendarme made a motion for him to pull over. Ignoring him, Bertier turned onto the Rue Vaugirard, raced across the heavily trafficked Rue de Rennes and continued down the nearly empty Rue Saint Placide. As the speedometer moved all the way to the right, I closed my eyes. Not until Bertier reached his apartment building did I dare open them. Kruger was leaning against his Porsche, pretending to polish his fingernails.

“What took you so long?” he said.

“Come back next week. I’ll bet you a thousand I win.”

“I’ll take one hundred francs right now,” said Kruger.

Madame Bertier was waiting at the entrance of the couple’s apartment. A small, plump woman, her mousy brown hair was set in a pageboy cut, the front of which was highlighted by a streak of blonde.

“What’s all that noise, Alain Bertier?” she said in a scolding voice. “I can hear you a block away.”

“Don’t be a pain, Cherie. I just lost one hundred francs.”

With a frown of resignation, he placed a bill into the Alsatian’s outstretched hand. Suddenly his mood changed. Standing in a corner, a polished bronze horse reflected the light from an overhead lamp.

“Nice,” he said. “Not the top of the line, but nice enough.”

“Don’t try any of your tricks on me,” said Kruger. “I had to drive from Strasbourg to Colmar to find this beauty.”

“That’s the same story you gave me last time.”

“Have it your way. Maybe I should bring it to Mister Filer.”

Bertier grimaced. The American dealer, Tom Filer was his chief competitor.

“How much?” he asked.

“Twenty-five thousand.”

“The man is deranged. I’ll give you fifteen.”

“Are you crazy? Look at that patina.”

“Okay, make it sixteen.”

“No way,” said Kruger. “Twenty-two thousand is my last price. Only because it’s you.”

“Eighteen,” said Alain. “I’m grossly overpaying.”

They settled on twenty thousand francs. Kruger got up to leave. The sound of a hissing kettle came from the kitchen.

“Coffee anyone?” asked Claire. “Alain Bertier, isn’t it about time you shaved?”

“No thanks,” said Kruger. “I’ve got a long drive home. Thanks for the hundred francs, pal.”

“Just wait till next time. I’m getting a new car tomorrow.”

“What’s this about a new car, Bertier?” said Claire. “We are overdrawn at the bank as it is.”

“You take care of the house, Cherie, I’ll take care of the bank.”

Alain picked up the ringing telephone.

“Really?” he said. “Right away. You, Bill, let’s get moving. Marcel Lasalle has a painting I want to see.”

“You are not going out again, Alain Bertier,” said Claire.

“Who is Marcel Lasalle?” I asked.

“A dealer. He’s got a good eye.”

“Did you hear me, Bertier?” said Claire.

“Don’t worry, Cherie. I’ll be home in less than an hour.”

“Where is your wife, Billy?”

“Visiting her mother in Germany.”

“You are not playing poker tonight, Alain Bertier?”

“Of course not, Cherie. I’ll be home after I look at that painting.”

Bertier honked out ‘La Cucaracha’ several times on the way to Marcel Lasalle’s. Driving nearly as fast as he had in the race with Kruger, he traversed the Place de la Concorde, crossed the Avenue de l’Opera and drove by the Paris Bourse. In this part of town the nocturnal sidewalks were nearly empty. Bertier narrowly missed sideswiping a truck before he pulled into a side street and parked in front of a driveway.

Marcel Lasalle lived above his tiny shop just off the Rue Montmartre. Dressed in gray slacks and a black sweater, a lock of hair fell onto his forehead. In his hands he held a portrait of a woman playing a stringed instrument.

“It’s an early Tamara de Lampicka,” he said. “1929 or 1930.”

“Who was she?” asked Alain.

“Not was, is. A Polish woman, she married a Russian. She and her husband came to France at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution. She must be seventy-five or eighty now. She was very popular in the 1930s. Prices for her paintings are bound to soar.”

“How much do you want?”

“Fifty thousand francs.”

Alain looked out the window. Slowly, he reached into his right front pocket. Without haggling, he paid Lasalle the equivalent of ten thousand dollars.

Bertier threw the painting onto the rear seat of his car. Scarcely exchanging a word, we drove across town to Jean-Paul Alphand’s house where our evening poker game was due to commence. For a change, the art dealer was driving slowly.

“Marcel is right,” he uttered in a low voice. “Her prices can only go up.”

“Why didn’t you bargain?” I asked.

“That, my friend, is a trade secret.”

“What does a Tamara de Lampicka painting usually sell for?”

“I have no idea.”

“You mean you paid all that money for a picture by an artist about whom you know nothing?”

Bertier remained silent. His thoughts were far away.

Today, more than thirty years later, Tamara de Lampicka is considered an important figure in Art Deco painting. A portrait achieved while she was a struggling young artist might sell for over one million dollars. As usual, Bertier’s instincts proved correct. Not that they stopped him from selling the painting several years later. He was satisfied to receive a twenty-fold return on his investment. Besides, his tastes had changed. By the time he sold the painting he no longer considered Mlle Lampicka a first-rate artist.

“It is pleasant decoration, but not great art,” he said.

Very likely his opinion was influenced by the many false Tamara de Lampicka paintings, and the countless reproductions flooding the market, some, no doubt, commissioned by Alain Bertier himself.

If you aren't playing with the author on the Strip, play with him at Pacific Poker

While my friend Pedro da Silva was busy playing blackjack yesterday afternoon, it took me close to an hour to be seated at a Texas Hold ‘Em game at the Mirage. The conversation at the table was focused on money, hardly an uncommon topic on the Las Vegas Strip.

“There is a rumor that Madonna is throwing big bucks away over at The Palms.”

“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 Palms, it’s Caesar’s.”

“Utter nonsense. Bill Gates plays blackjack at $5 or $10 a hand maximum.”

“That’s what I heard too. He was even thrown out of one of the big hotels since he was occupying a suite reserved for a high roller.”

“Nonsense again. One does not throw the richest man in the world out of a hotel. He was asked to change rooms.”

“Who cares? 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 made me change rooms I’d buy the damn place.”

“Precisely why you are not Mr. Gates. What the hell would he do with a Las Vegas hotel/casino?”

“He would only be repeating what Howard Hughes did when he was the richest man on the globe. Where did owning all those casinos get him?”

“They named a street after him.”

“No big deal, that. They named a bank after J.P. Morgan when he was the richest man in the world.”

“Morgan was exceedingly powerful, but he was never 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 one a mile down the road.”

“They wouldn’t let him play without limits. He would have employed the Martingale System whereby one doubles one’s bet after every loss.”

“A horrible system. All a player does is chase his initial betting unit.”

“True, but if that initial unit is $50,000,000 you can understand why Monte Carlo wanted nothing to do with Morgan.”

“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. When he died in 1913 his estate was probated at something in the neighborhood of $80 million.”

“Peanuts!”

“In a way it was. Or so Rockefeller commented. He said: ‘and here all along we thought he was a wealthy man.”

“Gentlemen, please,” said the dealer. “Let’s see some money on the table. A dollar for the small blind and two for the big.”

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Thank heavens John Updike taught us the word redux in his brilliant series of "Rabbit" books. So today, since I am taking another day off, I am titling today's comments: "Renewal Redux." All this because last night, 25 hours late, my wonderful friend of 35 years, Pedro da Silva (see "Marathon Game") arrived in Las Vegas. Pedro is a consummate master of complicating the most simple matter. Although yesterday's delay was not his fault, I was certain in advance it would occur. On my last three trips to Lisbon, Pedro was late - very late - picking me up at the airport. (Like me, Pedro left Paris for his home country after 30+ years). So now I have to show him around town. Since we stayed up till all hours last night drinking wine, we're starting out late. Pedro is a wild blackjack player. Surely playing at the stakes he is accustomed to (in Estoril: $25- $1000 a bet), and for 5 -7 hours a day, any casino on the Strip will be happy to offer him all sorts of comps. Good Old Pedro. At last I will be able to dine at Aureole (Mandalay Bay) or Picasso (Bellagio) or Alex (Wynn)without having to pay my own way. Bon Appetit and more later.

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Besides advocating civil disobedience (in certain instances), Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) also said: “renew yourself each day; do it again and again and forever again.” Pretty good advice, Monsieur! Accordingly, I am taking today off from posting blogs, remembering Paris, playing poker, or repeating whatever inanities I performed yesterday. How wonderful it shall be to discover new frivolities this morning, this afternoon and this evening. Who knows, there is even the possibility I might become a better person. If not, well, there’s always tomorrow and the day after and the day after and, shucks, Mister T- it’s never too late, is it?

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If there is any one point that contestants at a no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em table agree on, it’s the belief that wired aces have a tendency to win little but lose big. I don’t think there is a player alive - or dead - who has not suffered a major loss when holding a pair of aces. Certainly, I never met such a person.

My particular memory of getting ripped apart when holding those two cards occurred one afternoon in Paris. The New York Philharmonic Orchestra was in town. A cousin of mine was performing. Not only did I have front row tickets, the orchestra was playing one of my favorite pieces. As was permitted, I said at the beginning of the game that I would be leaving an hour before quitting time.

“We’ll be glad to see you go,” said a smart aleck who harbored no love for me.

At seven o’clock, I was ahead by eight thousand francs. That was sixteen hundred big ones.

“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. 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. That was no concern of mine. Far more disconcerting was the person on the blind. Eric kept examining his cards with a curious half smile plastered on his face. For a good fifteen seconds he sat there without committing himself. Finally, pushing his chips into the pot, he said he was calling.

“You know what I’ve got,” I said.

“Don’t we all?” said my heckler.

My opponent laid down a six and a two of diamonds. We sure had a lot of loose players back then. Eric was no more than thirty. He was single, soft-spoken and decidedly handsome. Everyone liked him. Not because he lost consistently, which he did, but because he never carped, complained or caused a problem paying. 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 clearly made them tons of money.

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

Neither had long to wait. The flop was the three, eight and king of diamonds. Eric showed no sign of disbelief, but did allow a full smile to appear on his face. Looking at me with an expression of guilt, he shrugged his shoulders almost apologetically. The turn and the River were of no help to either of us. While my adversary was gathering in the chips, I stood up and reached into a pocket for a check of his I had won a few days previously.

What an advantage we had in the Old World compared to games in Las Vegas. Facing the same suckers again and again, it was only normal that skillful players were sometimes laid low by wild opponents. So what? Pitted against them day in and day out, in the long run, how could top players – aces we liked to call ourselves – lose?

Yesterday at the MGM Grand a jackass with an unsuited ten-nine outdrew my wired aces. Apparently my substantial raise impressed him not at all. Shortly afterwards, he was busted, but not, alas by me. The man got up and walked away. More likely than not, I will never see him again.

Can you believe it? Less than an hour later I was again dealt a pair of aces. Before the flop I went all-in. Gathering up the small blind, the big blind and two callers, I was happy nobody challenged me. It’s a hot day in the arctic when two aces hold up against more than three callers. As I said, better to win small than lose big. Still, my bet seemed to confuse a young fellow seated opposite me.

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

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I just lost my head.”

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When asked to give his definition of justice, Thrasymachus (circa 459 – 450 BC) who appears in the first book of Plato’s ‘Republic’ replied: “justice is simply the interest of the stronger.” While the idea that might makes right is unpalatable to many of us, it is doubtful that anyone can come up with a better definition. Whether in the casinos of Las Vegas, the boardrooms of Wall Street or the wilds of the Amazon, power determines procedure. Happily, occasional exceptions exist, as Rosa Parks proved fifty years ago.

Last night at the poker table the subject of justice arose when a young man told us what had occurred at a game the previous evening. Apparently a gentleman had quit the table with a $500 profit then came back to his seat a few minutes later with the minimum buy-in of $100. Another player immediately complained.

“The rule clearly states that a person returning to a table with less money must wait at least an hour,” the young man explained. “I backed the fellow who objected.”

The consensus of opinion supported his position. If not breaking up, a game would become a farce if every player with a considerable lead put chips in his pocket while refusing to give up his seat. As it is, one occasionally catches sight of a player surreptitiously taking money off the table in order to reduce his monetary risk. That is definitely a no-no! If caught, he or she will either be asked to leave or replace the chips at once.

“That’s how it should be,” said the dealer. “A minimum buy-in is established so that enough money is in play to make a game interesting. If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

“What happened?” asked a pretty girl seated on the dealer’s right.

“They let him play,” said the young man.

“How come?” I asked.

“The table wasn’t full. The pit boss asked what everyone thought. The majority voted to let the guy back in.”

“But what about the rule,” said the girl?

“Rules are made to be broken,” another player said.

“That’s wrong. If I had been there I would have got up and left.”

“With your looks," said the young man, "you might have swung the vote against him.”

“No way,” said the dealer. “Players don’t care about a pretty face. They voted that way because they wanted the action.”

“Well they got it,” said the young man. “In no time, the bastard ran his hundred up to six hundred.”

“Did he leave again?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said the young man. “I was tapped out.”

“Well I hope you never go back to that casino,” said the girl.

“What do you mean? It happened right here. I’ll play anywhere if there’s a chance to make a quick buck.”

“Wouldn’t we all?” I said.

“That makes me a double loser. Not only did I miss out on the money yesterday, by way this game is plodding along there’s not much hope tonight.”

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I am a nasty, miserable, cantankerous son of a bitch. Anyway, that’s how I felt last night after a particularly lousy performance at no-limit Texas Hold ‘em. As if losing wasn’t bad enough, I had to stop off at the supermarket. Wouldn’t you know it? My checkout line could have been awarded the Guinness Book of Records for languor. The store was overheated and I was overdressed. Drops of perspiration were running 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 rang up. When I offered to make up the difference I was met with hostile regards by both shopper and cashier.

An onrush of cold air outside felt good. Not for long. I was shivering and I couldn’t find my car. Carrying two bags full of provisions, I was unable to zip up my jacket. Damn it all, instead of buying several dinners and a cartful of unnecessary junk, I should have stopped off at a pizza parlor.

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

I was about to shout the loudest insult the parking lot had ever heard when, turning towards me, the man at the shopping cart clasped his hands together like a Brahman Priest and bowed a greeting. Indeterminate of age, he was of medium height and slimly built. Wearing a woolen cap and an open sheep-lined vest, he asked forgiveness for occupying a space that was rightfully mine. Immediately, I thought of the Native American shaman, Don Juan. Years ago, that Yacqui face had struck me as simultaneously holy and enlightened, the same as this stranger’s face appeared to me now.

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

“Could you hold him a moment, please?” she asked in a voice suggestive of mountain flowers and morning dew.

Placing my bags in the car, I took the child from the girl who seemed scarcely of age to be the mother.

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

“Eight months. We nearly lost him. He had open heart surgery a few weeks ago.”
“He certainly looks healthy now,” I said.

“The Lord has been kind to us,” she said. “We are unimaginably lucky.”

“May He bless you, too,” said the gentleman who I suddenly realized was old enough to be the child’s grandfather.

I handed the baby to him. As a rule, a reference to the Lord, or the Almighty or any higher spirit other than poker gods (with whom I am all too familiar), brings out the cynic in me. Joyce’s comment in ‘Ulysees,’ “the islanders speak frequently of the collector of prepuces,” adequately mirrors my feelings regarding a monotheistic overseer of earthly matters. But not this evening. These people were not proselytizing or mouthing clichés. They were neither priests, nor politicians nor zealots. Spontaneously expressing a feeling from the heart, there was no doubting their sincerity.

I drove home feeling better than I had in a long time. And you know what? I felt totally indifferent to the day’s poker results.

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Of all the madmen I encountered in 30 years of poker in Paris none was nuttier than Marcel Favart. Universally called Baby Rose, Favart’s winning percentage was lower than a worm’s belly in winter. Fellow art dealer, Alain Bertier might have lost more money (he was richer), but even he was able to throw away a small pair or resist drawing to an inside straight. In afternoon sessions Baby Rose lost eight games out of ten, while at Jerry Pritkin’s night game he won only once. Obliged to drop out regularly, it’s a wonder he lasted as long as he did.

I thought I was pretty hot stuff when I started to play, and for a while I guess I was. My percentage of wins over losses was the opposite of Baby Rose’s. Then things started to go wrong. I began to lose game after game. Whereas I had previously bragged about my poker skills, I now thought this was nothing but a game of chance. After a series of consecutive losses at Jerry’s, I purchased a rabbit’s foot and arrived at his loft wearing socks of a different color. Intent on breaking my bad spell, I shied away from drinking my usual dose of cognac. That night the signs looked favorable. After a hiatus of several weeks, Marcel Favart was coming to play.

Baby Rose started off as a roulette player. He tried several betting systems, none of which worked. Due to financial problems, he quit playing for over a year. Once back on his feet, he had himself legally barred from all gaming establishments in France. Like most compulsive gamblers, he did not know when to stop. At least poker established a quitting time, which respected or not, allowed Marcel to believe that unlike casinos, private games offered a semblance of control. While he paid lip service to the concept of self-control, Favart was unable to put it into practice. Having learned the expression ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ from some Brits at Deauville, he adopted it as his personal motto.

Wild players like Favart do not crop up every day. One well-heeled maniac can support a table of professionals. Tonight, more than ever, I am counting on Baby Rose.

Jerry refuses to play lowball. At his house we only play straight draw. That’s fine with me. As it is, I am playing scared. My recent string of losses has led me close to the panic button. Again tonight the situation looked bleak. Behind all evening, I am bought in at twenty thousand francs. That’s a hell of a lot, particularly with the recent devaluation of the dollar. Man, I’m risking five thousand big ones.

It’s six in the morning. I’m tired. Again and again I count my chips. It’s been a dipsy-doodle evening. From 19,000 francs behind, I’ve moved to a thousand francs ahead. Thank God, we’re going to break up soon. Since Jerry shifted his game from Saturday to Friday nights, the artsy antique dealers are getting ready to go to the flea market. With only a few hands remaining, I’d be smart not to look at my cards.

Bertier and Favart are losing. The other players seem content to sit on their winnings. Who can blame them?

One by one, I pick up my cards. JLR opens the pot. As always, Baby Rose follows. Since JLR knows how to protect a gain he will not follow a raise unless he is exceedingly strong. Bertier throws his cards away. He looks at his watch and yawns. He is giving up for the night. Good! I don’t want him asking for a prolongation.

Without thinking I give my cards a quick peek. Queen-queen-queen. Doesn’t anyone here ever mix? My instincts are receiving bright red flashes. I’d better be careful. If I follow without raising I can avoid trouble. King, king! Will you look at that? You know what, man? Maybe we can recover some of those losses of the past few weeks. Crazy Favart has as much money in front of him as I do. Wouldn’t it be great if I could double my pile? The trick is to make Marcel think I am weak. Red Alert, Red Alert! Yes, I sense it, but this is poker, a game based on logic.

“Six hundred,” I say, raising the opener a mere two hundred francs. Baby Rose will not understand such a half-ass bet. He will probably think I have a pair of aces. There go the others, dropping out like flies just as I suspected. Who is going to risk a loss on the final round of the night?

“Damn!” says Favart. “Just me and the American? Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound.”

“Clever, clever,” I say to myself. I’m hooking him like a fish. Of course that’s not difficult with Baby Rose. The man should be considered insane. You never know what he will do next. He has jumped fully clothed into the Seine and rode a tricycle the length of the Champs-Elysees. He knows how to fly an airplane, but I doubt if anyone would go up with him.

Fortunately for Favart, he has Daniel Frey as an associate. Daniel keeps a sharp eye on his partner. He has threatened to dissolve the relationship if Baby Rose goes too far. Marcel bends over backwards to please Daniel. As Mr. Inside, Frey tends shop and keeps the accounts. That leaves Baby Rose free to search for objects all over town. The madman loves to buy, but he hates to sell.

Favart was married for several years to a sculptress named Denise. They had a son who they called Michelange. Shortly after the boy’s third birthday, Denise announced she was leaving Marcel for another man. Baby Rose was terribly upset. He thought the marriage had been doing well. When he learned that Denise was living with none other than Daniel Frey, he immediately recovered. If the two were happy together, Favart not only approved, he gave his blessings.

“Wonderful,” he said. “Aren’t we all one family?”

For a while Denise worked with Daniel in their shop on the Rue Jacques Callot. A pretty girl who liked to flir with male customers, her success as a salesperson exceeded either partner’s expectations. Favart was right. Besides being an excellent team, Michelange enjoyed having two fathers.

This arrangement might have gone on indefinitely had it not been for the Russian painter Yuri Sverdlov. Secretly, Denise was seeing Yuri. A born actor with thick black hair and a Rasputin-like beard, Sverdlov played the role of a Left Bank bohemian as though Mulder and Puccini had modeled Rudolfo after him. Unfailingly, he could be found drinking wine or Pastis at one neighborhood café or another, his face and hair smeared with paint. One notable difference existed between Yuri and Rudi: Sverdlov was making money, and a lot of it. Without a word of warning, he and Denise left Paris and went to New York where Yuri was due to exhibit at a major Uptown gallery.

Poor Daniel was inconsolable. He refused to bathe or shave. Time and again he threatened to stab himself with a Japanese sword Favart had purchased at the flea market. Baby Rose had to watch over him like a mother hen. An entire convent of sisters of mercy could not have equaled the compassion Favart lavished on his partner. Slowly, Daniel began to recover, but not until the pair reopened their shop in another location. Frey wanted nothing to remind him of la belle Denise who, never having obtained a divorce, remained Madame Favart.

If Daniel’s behavior fit the classic pattern of a jilted lover, Baby Rose acted in an entirely different manner.

“How could she do this to Daniel?” he raged furiously.

Favart swore he would serve Russian stew if that phony painter returned to the Left Bank. Believe me, I tell you as a poker player, the man was not talking idly. Favart had a particular tell of turning beet red when he held good cards and looking like Hamlet’s father whenever he bluffed. Mentioning Sverdlov made his cheeks catch fire. His pupils narrowed and his face grew mean. I believe the lunatic was capable of running that Japanese sword into the painter’s bowels. Do not ask me what he would have done to Denise. As I said, it is difficult to predict a madman’s behavior.

Following my raise, Marcel puts his money into the pot and asks for three cards. I pound my fist on the table to let him know I am standing pat. A few theatrics can do no harm. I want Baby Rose to think I am feigning strength rather than holding dynamite. You never know, the poor sap might pay me if he catches a second pair.

Favart looks at his cards. I can see his cheeks taking on color. His eyes fill with tears. His entire being is suddenly ablaze.

“Tapis,” he says, meaning, all-in.

“All-in?” I repeat. His disproportionate bet has caught me off guard.

“That’s what I said.”

I swallow hard. What is wrong with this jerk? How can anyone wager twenty-odd thousand francs to protect a six hundred francs bet? Examining him closely, I see it is Marcel Favart all right.

“Call,” I say.

One of the other players lets out a whistle. Suddenly everyone is wide-awake. A lot of money is riding on this hand.

“Two pairs,” says Favart.

I breathe a sigh of relief. For a moment the son of a bitch had me sacred. Good thing it’s Baby Rose and not someone else.

“No good,” I say, reaching for the fabulous pot. “Full house, queens over kings.”

Favart slaps my hand away. “No good for you,” he says. “Sixes over sixes.”

I can feel my mouth drop open. A pain arises inside my stomach. My eyes can see but they refuse to focus. Baby Rose Favart has made four of a kind.

“You know I never fold sixes,” he says.

I do know, I swear I do. Nor does he ever fold sevens, eights or nines. I remain in a semi-trance. If I had that Japanese sword I think I would use it on him. Better still, I should fall on it myself. How could I have let logic dominate instinct? We know the world intuitively, or at least we do so at poker. What do concepts and syllogisms have to do with the cards one is dealt? To hell with logic! To hell with Descartes! To hell with rational thinking! Favart is raking in my money and I have no choice but to sit back and smile. Come on, baby, show the others what a good sport you are. Be stoical in the face of adversity. Aren’t you an old trooper, Mister Professional? Smile, kid, it’s only a game. But it hurts, I tell you. Oh God, how it hurts!

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One evening during a prolonged winning streak in Paris, I invited a friend for dinner at Maxims. At the time, the restaurant was considered a temple of gastronomy, equal in both the quality of its cuisine and the esthetics of its Majorelle interior. All that changed years ago when the Michelin Guide downgraded the establishment by removing two of its prized three stars. In a highly publicized snit, Maxims demanded that rather than accept the new status, it not be listed at all. Just why Michelin acceded to this demand is beyond me. A critic’s role is to express an opinion, a joint venture in the case of Michelin. To back down simply because a restaurant disagrees with the rating is tantamount to succumbing to blackmail. Still, for well over a decade, the renowned restaurant on the Rue Royale has been non-existent as far as the bible of French gastronomy is concerned.

At the end of the meal, the bill included a charge of $6.00 for the miniature sweet cakes and éclairs called petits-fours that top restaurants offer their clients. No little surprised, I asked the waiter why the additional cost.

“You ate them, didn’t you?” he replied.

“Yes, but I did not order them. They were offered by the house.”

Even though the charge was removed, the evening ended on a sour note. For this, if no other reason, I was hardly surprised when Michelin came up with its verdict. While taking a customer for a sucker has no bearing on a restaurant’s cuisine, it is indicative of a lax attitude. Clearly Monsieur Vaudable, the former owner of Maxims, ran a much tighter ship than his distinguished successor.

My Sunday night’s experience at the Japanese restaurant at Caesar’s Palace brought to mind that long-ago dinner chez Maxims. Again, the quality of the food was not the issue. I use the term food rather than cuisine since to my thinking Japanese meals, being composed rather than cooked, should not be elevated to the same category as their counterparts from France, China, Italy or Thailand. Not that that takes away from the excellence of the natural products employed by Japanese chefs, or diminishes their skills in preparing meat, vegetables, fish and seafood. It’s just that, more direct than subtle, Japanese meals tend to eschew those combinations of spices and sauces that distinguish a great cuisine.

Price, quantity and attitude were the pitfalls of Caesar’s Japanese dinner. To begin with, the waitress urged our party to try a bottle of sake different from the one we ordered, different that is by more than twice the price. That’s like a French sommelier urging a diner to order a cru classe rather than a cru bourgeois. Then there were the choices. Other than the usual assortment of sashimi and sushi, only two fixed-price dinners were on the menu, one at $56 the other at $58. Oh man, I’ve been to Nipponese diners and all-you-can-eat sushi cafes where the selection put Caesar’s menu to shame. The three of us ordered two plates of sashimi, four different kinds of sushi and the $56 dinner. We assumed that sharing the chicken, steak and tempura vegetables would satisfy our appetites, hardly unreasonable seeing that the two ladies present generally pick away at a salad or split an order of satay at a Thai or Malaysian restaurant. Well guess again! The prix fixe meal might have been enough for a Geisha girl who had previously snacked on uni and unagi, but for a diner who hadn’t eaten since lunchtime it was woefully insufficient. I say there, Sherlock, mind passing along your magnifying glass?

Oy vay, did I ever make a mistake! Misreading the menu, one of the plates of sashimi I requested was for tuna belly (toro), raw fish that tasted pretty much the same as the other plate of sashimi we ordered, normal tuna fish. But whereas the latter was billed at $12.50, the former was marked: market price. Give me a break, will ya! I’ll take being gypped for a plate of cookies at Maxims any day compared to the beating we took over a dish the three of us downed in less than a minute at Caesar’s. Six dollars I can handle, but when our check arrived it included $65 for a few miniature slices of the underside of what Bumblebee serves in cans for $1.40. Sixty-five bucks! We could have dined on Peking duck and lobster Cantonese at a Chinese restaurant a mile away for less than that.

The final indignity was reserved for payment. Reluctantly permitted to settle the $205 bill with a credit card, the waitress asked if we could leave the tip in cash. Well I don’t mind paying filthy lucre in Buenos Aires. Argentina is undergoing a severe economic crisis exacerbated by a sharp devaluation of the peso. A waiter in B.A. needs the dough right away. But here in the USA? In Las Vegas? On The Strip? Come on, Honey, chips and plastic are so common out here that a lot of us don’t know what greenbacks look like anymore.

Returning home, my wife and I were happy to find plenty of leftovers in the fridge. While our visiting friend was packing her bags to return to Miami, Karin and I greedily devoured a plateful of meat and two pieces of pie. Not only had the entire Thanksgiving meal: turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie cost us $37 at a local supermarket, they were happy to accept Visa, and with no thought of a tip.

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The first evening I played poker at Jerry and Carla Prtikin’s I immediately recognized I had fallen into a cavern of riches. Their invitees were as unskillful as those who played in my afternoon game. In the poker business one’s assets are one’s opponents. Chez Pritkin I was facing a group of kindergartners.

Apparently, Jerry’s main objective was to show off to his wife. He could not restrain himself from gloating whenever he outplayed her. Since that aroused Carla’s anger, she would go after him by raising his bets. It mattered not that they were playing with common funds. Nor did they pay the slightest attention to other players who might be pitted against them. If a third party happened to win a hand, they would accuse one another of crowding the action. That attitude rubbed off on a second couple playing with common funds. Stasia and Louis were both doctors. Although they lived together they had no plans of getting married. A redheaded beauty of Russian origin, Stasia never addressed Louis by anything other than his last name. It was: ‘Mellot get me a drink,’ or ‘Mellot put in a chip for me,’ or ‘Mellot you play like an idiot.’ Louis Mellot, a yellow-papered cigarette dangling from his lips, would make a sour face but not say a word. Stasia was right. Mellot did play like an idiot. So did she.

Also present at the Pritkin table was a tall bespectacled gentleman known as JLR. Jean-Luc Ravel held a high position in a publishing house. A quiet, timid man, he played with great intensity, frequently examining his cards as though they held some secret formula. He claimed to be related to the famed composer, but few people believed him. I was an exception. Not about Uncle Maurice, but about the card he received when drawing to a straight or a flush. All you had to do was ask him and he would tell you. Not once did I catch him fibbing. That was important since Ravel was not afraid to bluff. After he bet, you had to study his face. JLR had such refined manners that whenever he bluffed he automatically smiled.

Rounding out the Pritkin table were two art dealers from my afternoon game: Alain Bertier and Marcel Favart, called, Baby Rose. Bertier did not seem pleased to see me at a table where he was a winner. Good old Baby Rose greeted me warmly.

“Ah, Bill, I think I shall get back some of the money you’ve taken from me at Madame Nicole’s.”

Damn that Favart! He turned out to be a better prophet than poker player.

*

I had a problem with Arthur Sisse. Although my archrival was in the army, he was in as a dentist, not as a soldier. Stationed on the outskirts of Paris, he was free on Friday afternoons and Saturday evenings. Time and again, he asked me to bring him to the Pritkin’s. Aware that the afternoon game was still my bread and butter, it was in my interest to convert Sisse from enemy to ally. Still, it was with a good deal of reluctance that I asked Jerry if I could bring him along.

“Sure,” said Jerry. “We are short of players tonight as it is.”

That was because Jacqueline Sels was recovering from an operation and Baby Rose was out of town. With their return the table would be full. Secretly hoping that Jerry would not like Arthur, I was in for a rude surprise. Arthur knew just how to play up to our host. Since both men enjoyed expensive cigars, Sisse was suddenly generous in sharing his Havanas. A strange bond exists between cigar smokers, even ones of opposing dispositions. Puffing away together, Arthur and Jerry went off to some smoky land of their own, allowing the dentist to become a permanent fixture at the Pritkin game.

*

Dangerous night tonight! Carla and Jerry are faring poorly. They have stopped attacking one another. Over the past several weeks I have won a lot of money at their house. Sisse and Bertier have been winning too, but not as much as me. Baby Rose has dropped out. A player would have to be a lot richer than he is to stay afloat after the losses he’s suffered. It’s Stasia, Louis and the Pritkins who have been losing regularly. A few hands ago I took a sizeable pot from Mellot. That prompted Sisse to make a nasty comment. JLR looked at him quizzically. He too smokes cigars. I will have to watch my step.

Jerry opens a hand at 100 francs ($20). JLR follows. The bet comes to me. I have decided to play foolishly.

“Three hundred,” I say, holding a pair of fives.

“Sauve qui peut,” (‘save yourselves’) says Sisse, implying that I only play locked hands.

Liar! He plays tighter than anybody here.

Louis Mellot hesitates but follows. Now it’s Stasia who has a problem. You can see she wants to come in. Thinking better of it, she throws her cards away with a display of ill humor. Damn it all! I am playing to lose.

Both Jerry and JLR call. Carla is busy making coffee. It’s four in the morning. We could all use a shot of caffeine.

“Three cards,” says Jerry.

“One,” says JLR.

If I were playing to win I would stand pat. I know I have everyone psyched. Then I would examine Ravel to see if he hit his hand. That would leave only Mellot behind me as a threat. But I am not playing to win. Wasn’t it Lenin who said: “sometimes you have to take one step backward in order to move two steps forward?”

“Three cards,” I say.

Stasia smacks her forehead with an open palm. I’ll be damned. For the first time ever, she did not come in with a pair of aces.

“One only,” says Mellot.

Jerry bets a single chip after the draw. No doubt he has a pair of kings.

“Five hundred,” says Ravel.

Ironically, I’ve caught another five. Like the police, cards are never there when you need them, but often present when you do not.

“My time,” I say, before going through my ritual. I had better not be mistaken. Just as I thought, there is no trace of a smile. The editor has hit his hand for sure.

“I pay,” I say.

Jerry throws his cards away out of turn. I do not like the expression on his face. Mellot shakes his head disgustedly. He shows us all that he has come up short drawing to a straight flush.

“Alpinist,” says Ravel. He has made a flush in spades. In French a spade is a pique, homonymous with the word pic meaning the top of a mountain, ergo a mountain climber or an Alpinist. The French try very hard to be clever.

“Ayieee,” I say. “I was sure you were bluffing.”

Ravel does not conceal his pleasure. He rakes in the chips. Behind all night, he has suddenly moved ahead. Next I will attempt to give some money back to the Pritkins. That is not so easy. A player cannot select his victims or his beneficiaries at will. The cards have something to say about that.

“What is wrong with the rest of you?” says Ravel, uncharacteristically verbose. “I have no problem beating the American.”

Bless him, bless him and bless him again! I could not have phrased it better myself. That son of a bitch Sisse has a smirk on his face ten meters wide. That’s what I get for bringing him here.

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