Poker Articles

You Bet Your Life: A Poker Cop Mystery
By Robert Arabella

Part 3
You Bet Your Life - 1950's TV Game Show

Two high-stakes hold'em players have bet $500,000 that one can, in a week, teach a total novice, a "Poker Virgin," to beat the other in a winner-take-all poker game. Not trusting each other to pick the Poker Virgin, they have insisted that a neutral third party, Talbot, "The Poker Cop," pick for them. Betting begins on the outcome of the Poker Virgin's Game.

At the height of the 1635 speculative frenzy known as "The Tulip Craze," a single tulip bulb sold for the modern day equivalent of over $35,000 in the Amsterdam Flower Market.

At the height of the 1999 speculative frenzy known as "The Internet Bubble," a single share of the Sock Puppet Stock sold for over $600 a share on NASDAQ.

These two speculative frenzies pale in comparison to the betting mania that gripped the Majestic Poker Room for the Poker Virgin's Game.

The poker room betting line on the $500,000 winner-take-all, no-limit hold'em poker game between George "Rocky" Shaw, a fifty-year professional, and Arlen Spring, a self-confessed Poker Virgin, opened at 100-1. When the poker room's regulars found out that our Poker Virgin was even more virginal than anyone imagined: "Ma mamma neva' 'loud her childrin' ta play no poka," the line jumped to 200-1.

Having bet $250,000 that he could, in one week, teach a Poker Virgin to beat "Rocky" Shaw Jimmy Joyce, a fist-full-of-chips no-fold'em-hold'em player, set up his own poker school at a table in the back of the Majestic Poker Room. A crowd of poker room regulars, including me, gathered around to watch the poker lessons.

When Arlen Spring's answer to the question, "You know that one pair beats no pair and two pair beats one pair?" turned out to be, "Ah . . . well . . . no," the line when to 300-1.

Joyce wrote out a "what-hand-beats-what-hand" cheat sheet for Arlen which also explained the meaning of check, bet, raise and check raise.

"You and Mr. Shaw are each going to start with an equal amount of chips." Joyce puts a handful of chips in front of her.

"In the very first hand of this game Mr. Shaw is going to bet two black chips and you're going to bet two chips." He takes two black chips from his stack and tells her to take two from hers.

"Now, neither of us will look at these cards." He deals two cards face down for himself and another two cards face down for her. "Hold'em," he continues, "is all about lying and stealing."

"You see those big thick coke-bottle glasses that Mr. Shaw over there is wearing?"

Arlen turns and looks across the room at George Shaw, "Yas."

"They're not X-ray glasses. He can't see what two cards are in front of you. All he can do is react to what you tell him."

"What am Ah gonna tell 'em?"

"You're going to tell him that those cards in front of you can beat the two cards in front of him."

"Ah don' under . . ."

Push all your chips towards the middle of the table and say, "All in."

"Awl-en."

"Good, you've just bet all your chips on one hand. Now tell me, if you're willing to bet all your chips on that hand, what's Mr. Shaw going to think?

"If'n Ah bet all my chips? Wha, he'd thank Ah had a reely good hand. Maybe bettern' his hand."

"And what would he then do?"

"Ah . . . Ah thank he'd . . . er . . . give en."

"That's right!," says Joyce, "he would fold! And then his two chips would be your two chips! Now turn over your cards . . ."

Arlen turns over an off-suit 9 3.

" . . . and I'll turn over mine."

Joyce turns over J J.

"Who had the better cards?"

She takes time deciding, "You did."

"And who won all the chips?

"Ah did!"

"Miss Spring, you have just stolen a poker hand by being a liar."

Arlen looks shocked. She asks, "Lie'n an' steal'n? Jus' what kinda game is this?"

"The best game in the world. High-stakes no-limit hold'em poker."

"Wait! If'n am play'n lak this won't Mista Shaw know ha' to win?"

"No," says Joyce, "he won't have a clue. George Shaw's fatal flaw is that he's predictable. I know how he plays poker, what he holds and what he folds. I can't really teach you to play poker. What I can do is teach you to play one particular poker player. Now listen, this is the single most important thing I'm going to teach you about playing a Rock, a super conservative player like Shaw. I need you to remember what I'm about to tell you. If you repeat it every time you're dealt two cards against Shaw, you will always have a huge advantage over him. Are you listening?"

Arlen shakes her head yes. We all lean in to listen.

Joyce tells her. "Either fold, bet or raise. Never call and never ever check-raise."

The next night Arlen's poker lessons suddenly ended when Jimmy Joyce stormed away in a fury from the back table muttering "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" leaving her at the table in tears.

I'm no good at comforting crying women. I'm less good at ignoring them. Since we were now the only two people at the back tables, I went over to give her a shoulder to cry on. When she finally stopped crying, Arlen asked me to buy her a drink. And then another. And another.

The morning sun was streaming through the Majestic Sky Suite's balcony doors when I woke up next to Arlen. I slipped out of bed and was gathering up my clothes, which, intertwined with hers, were scattered all over the room, when she woke. "Suga," she said finding me standing there with an arm full of clothing, "wha don' ya jus drop them clothes and come back ta bed." I dropped the clothes. From then on Arlen and I spent every night together. One morning we were out on the twenty-first floor balcony of her Sky Suite having breakfast. I asked her if the drugs and jazz reputation of the Big Easy was true. "Ah wouldn't know, Talby," she answered, "Ah'm a good girl. My momma always told me if'n Ah wasn't a good girl Ah'd end up in the gutta."

Her poker lessons, watched by all, lasted twelve to fifteen hours a day. The betting line, posted on the poker room chalk board, kept changing, in only one direction.

When Arlen admitted, after an hour of explanation, that the concept of position made little sense to her, the line went up.

When Joyce threw a fit over Arlen's inability to do poker math (or for that matter any math) in her head, the line went up.

When Arlen asked why a pair could not be suited, the line went up.

When Joyce failed and failed and failed to make Arlen grasp the concept of pot odds (the E=MC 2 of poker), the line went way up.

Betting on the Poker Virgin Game, which had started off small, $500 here, $1,000 there, soon accelerated out of control when players from the Bellagio and Mirage poker rooms heard about the Game. By Monday $200,000 had been bet, on Wednesday, $600,000, by Friday, $1,400,000. On Saturday $2,750,000.

"This is insane," said Joey Rosenberg, the Poker Room Manager, to the bettors who lined up outside his office, cash in hand, to get a piece of the action. Bettors on the last day almost all took action on Shaw, "the sure thing," at 1-1,000. Some few took the Arlen, "the wild-thing" at 5,000-1. Joey Rosenberg warned each Shaw bettor, "At the poker table there is no 'sure thing.' People laughed. The 'you gotta be in it to win it' mania defied poker room math - players who would never bet more than 11-1 on filling an inside straight draw - betting 1-1,000 on "Rocky" Shaw. Take just these five examples on the "sure thing" bettors:

Kenny Zazlowsky, a retiree who kills time at the Majestic's $3-$6 limit game, drew down his home-equity credit line;

Al Colon, a three time a year visitor to the Majestic's $5-$10 limit tables, cleaned out his, and his wife's, retirement accounts;

Joe Lopez, a regular $25 entry fee tournament player margined his stocks and maxed out his credit cards;

Andy Fry, a part-time hold'em dealer/player, raided his kids' college savings accounts;

June-Marie East, a weekend $20-$40 limit player, "borrowed" from her employer.

On the morning of the Poker Virgin Game, Penelope Fallon arrived to "pretty Arlen up." She was about to knock on the door of the Sky Suite when I, still buttoning up unbuttoned things, opened the door.

Red Penny smiled, "What exactly has the Poker Cop been doing with our Virgin?"

I smiled back and told her, "Poker-Copulating."

Five minutes before the scheduled start of the Poker Virgin's Game, George Shaw sits down at the table and places $250,000 in chips on the felt. A crowd six deep surrounds the table. Jimmy Joyce arrives with $250,000 more in chips. "Where is she?" asks Shaw impatiently.

Penelope Fallon pushes her way to the table with Arlen following. The crowd gawks open- mouthed. The dime-a-dozen dishwater blond in blue jeans and a t-shirt is now a made-over, drop-dead-gorgeous golden blond in a low-cut black dress. She sits down, looks directly into Shaw's eyes, and, says, "Ah'm ready. Let's play poka."

Copyright © 2003 by Robert Arabella