Michael Craig's Journal

It’s 10:45 AM. I’m playing in the Stud Eight-or-Better event in a little more than an hour so this has to be FAST.

I had dinner last night with Tony Holden, good friend, author of BIG DEAL, author of the still-being-written BIGGER DEAL, and expert at using writing as a means to avoid paying for things. I got him to pick up the check at dinner, so who’s the expert now, eh Tony?

After dinner, Des Wilson joined up. Des is author of SWIMMING WITH THE DEVIL FISH, a delightful, quirky book about European poker players. I’ve read portions of it and it is wildly entertaining. While Des was researching it, we had dinner with Tony at Foxwoods last fall and Des said to me, “Michael, many of these European players have never talked to the media. I’ll be standing there with my tape recorder in their face and they’ll say things like, ‘I have another family in Thailand, you know.’”

Des quoted SUICIDE KING a couple times. On one occasion, he changed the spelling of honor to honour. At least I think he changed it. Maybe it’s different in the European edition of THE PROFESSOR, THE BANKER, AND THE SUICIDE KING.

Oh, wait, there is no European edition, thank you very much Time Warner (world’s largest media company) and now Hachette (biggest publisher in Europe). So now I have the honour of hand-delivering most of the copies sold in Europe.

Don’t even talk to me about why there is no audiobook version of my book, okay?

Wilson and Holden are both great company, and even better together. They play off each other like old Vaudeville comedians. (I hope I used that reference in a previous brief reference to my Friday evening with Huck Seed and Ted Forrest because it was the same feeling.) They also play TO each other so when they are talking to me, their points are nuanced by what will get a certain reaction out of the other.

Big topics during the evening:

*How they are easily able to take advantage of my helpful nature (desire for attention?) for their various projects. I am one of the characters in BIGGER DEAL, which flatters me tremendously. Consequently, I am always playing to make my role bigger, and help Tony with whatever few pages I am not already on. Des is writing a history of poker next, and he’s doing it as a detective story. Each chapter will cover a portion of poker history/mystery. The final chapter is about the biggest game in history, and the mystery he will investigate is, “Why is Michael Craig sitting at the table?”

*Where the World Series of Poker came from. I’m going to write this up as a blog entry some time during the main event. You probably haven’t heard the stories about Tom Moore, the Holiday Hotel in Reno, Minnesota Fats, and Jimmy the Greek. I’m also going to explain the circumstances suggesting that the legendary match between Johnny Moss and Nick “the Greek” Dandelos never took place. (I’m not sure it never took place, but I’ll share pieces of information casting doubt on it.

*Harrah’s and its money-grubbing ways degrading the World Series. I may focus a bit more on this during the main event. (I’m going to give you lots of unique tidbits during the event, either about my own experience or the experiences of others, but so much of the “big hands, big chip counts” will be covered elsewhere that my goal will be to give you information you can’t find anyplace else. I’m also talking with Pokerworks.com about doing some of kind of pirate audio or video blog - which would be very much against Harrah’s media restrictions - from the World Series.) For instance - and Des and Tony, great students of poker history, were shocked by this - do you know how Harrah’s is inducting into the Poker Hall of Fame this year? NO ONE! They are ignoring the PHoF. Way to build that brand name, guys!

*Many, many, many ways to turn writing into free goods and services. Des is playing as part of Ladbrokes.com’s World Series team and told me their marketing person - and more to the point, her expense account - will be on hand. Tony told me his editor would be here (or maybe Des told me his editor would be here, or both - between the accents, the smoking, the drinking, the infectuous laughing, and the teeth, I sometimes needed subtitles to make out the finer points) and that he was talking with PokerStars-Europe about some kind of a deal in which he would be playing the European Poker Tour events, comped, with all expenses paid. I, of course, explained that I’m PAYING Full Tilt to write a book with me and they have a former Delta Force Ranger whose job it is to keep me from getting an egg roll from the VIP buffet.

*How much we all plan on using either other’s e-mails and stories in our work. In fact, check out Des Wilson’s blog to see what he said about this meeting.

I was going to tell you some stuff about my meeting with another pair of aces, Ted Forrest and Huck Seed, but I have to get going to play Stud SEOB. I have a great time every time I see Ted and it was terrific meeting Huck. I’m convinced that they are spiritual brothers. Once Huck opened up a little, he told me stories about the Greatest Bet Ever (his playing five rounds of golf in one day - it’s in SUICIDE KING but I’ll retell it with additional details later) and The Marathon Bet. As we walked out to our cars, Huck said, “Maybe I should write a book some day.” That was music to my ears!

More on Fun with Huck ‘n’ Ted later. (Oh, one more thing. After getting a 90 minute Razz lesson - which made it possible for me to outlast them both in the Razz event - I learned the chief piece of advice was “Don’t play Razz with Huck and Ted.” More on their advice, too.)

Wish me luck at table 180, seat 5, and look for me in LUXE LIFE WITH ROBIN LEACH tomorrow. Unless I make day 2, I’m racing back to Scottsdale and returning on Wednesday.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 24th, 2006 at 1:12 pm and is filed under My favourites:.