I won’t be on the air this afternoon because I’m at the Rio in Las Vegas for the World Series Of Poker. When most people hear that, they assume I’m playing in the WSOP Main Event, because that’s what they see on ESPN each fall. But the WSOP is actually made up of hundreds of […]
Over the last several years, tournament directors have tried to come up with new ideas for poker events. There have been all-in-or-fold tourneys, where you either bet everything or release your cards. There have been ante-only tourneys, where there are no blinds, but every player must add to the pot on every hand. There have […]
Another in my continuing series of poker stories, this is about the odd sight of women who sit behind their boyfriend/husband, doing nothing while he plays.
Leo The Lion has been in the opening logo for MGM movies for a long time, but he wasn’t the original. Here’s a look back at the lions that preceded him. Watching this reminded me of the story of the MGM Grand Casino/Hotel in Las Vegas, which once used a giant lion’s mouth as its […]
Colson Whitehead and I have three things in common: 1) we have both played in the World Series Of Poker Main Event; 2) we didn’t pay our own $10,000 entry fee; and 3) neither of us won. Now that Colson’s book about his experience, “The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death,” is in paperback, […]
Every poker player has a bad beat story, where their opponent caught one of the few cards in the deck they needed to win — a four-outer, a three-outer, a two-outer. Every poker room is filled with people telling bad beat stories, to the point where we’ve all heard every possible permutation. One guy in […]