Michael Craig's Journal

I am in Las Vegas this week, in an unanticipated moment of calm amid too much work to do and sensory poker overload. I not only have a zillion words to write and a jillion hours of interviews to conduct, but Full Tilt is involved in a TV program that has most of its top pros at the South Coast, playing against celebrity amateurs who get a starting chip advantage over the pros.

I’m at the condo of Chris’s girlfriend Fabiola. We’ve been going at it intensely, covering about 40 hypotheticals involving no-limit post-flop play. Painters have come by to give an estimate, so I have a moment to take a breath.

Let me tell you a few of the many interesting things I saw today. I’ll try to add more later. These are really fun.

1. I spent 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the South Coast, a new casino resort about 5 miles south of the Strip. Full Tilt came into this project at the last minute - I heard another site bailed out and Full Tilt stepped in - so a few things were rough. They had space for an audience but hadn’t recruited one.

I served as an audience member until the first tape change, one hour. It was charity work. They didn’t have monitors up so we couldn’t see the action, the hands, or the board. We couldn’t really hear very well either, except for Cheryl Hines, who was really nice, has great teeth, and talked A LOT.

2. There was a little delay after the players got to the table. Within a couple minutes, Negreanu, Ivey, Lindgren, and Juanda started a game of Chnese Poker.

MORE LATER - the painters have left. back to work on tournament no limit hold em!

I am back at my hotel. I left Chris and Fabiola to their devices. Chris and I started the interview at about 5:30. I hadn’t realized that no lights were on; the sun was still streaming through the windows. I guess I adjusted to the waning light because I was momentarily blinded when Fabiola came downstairs and flipped on a kitchen light. “You two didn’t have anything romantic going on here, did you?”

She made a similar joke before I left. Chris said, “In the light, it just didn’t seem like such a good idea.”

3. In the green room before the taping, Ivey, Negreanu, Lindgren, and Phil Gordon (who was doing commentary for the show) were talking about golf. Misc. lines. Gordon plays avidly, but not, I gathered, for the ludicrous stakes of this threesome.

Gordon: I don’t have that kind of money.

Negreanu: Neither do we, but we will someday.

Here were a couple miscellaneous pearls:

Negreanu: I get the best advice about my swing from Phil Ivey. He has the same lousy swing I do, so he knows what’s wrong.

Negreanu: The guy says he’s a bogey golfer. Isn’t bogey 90? He shot 76 against me. “That was the round of my life Daniel.” The guy’s done that to me about five times. He’s always having the round of his life against me. [I thought that was similar to my walking into a poker game with Daniel, Ivey, Gordon, and Lindgren and saying, "I don't get it. I can't spot the sucker. Guess this is one of those rare non-sucker games." But I thought the better of it.]

4. I told Howard Lederer about the latest ad from Doyle’s Room. (See my blog on the ad.) He then told me the story of Sam Grizzle getting off one of the all-time great lines. Sam was playing with Doyle and won a pot. Grizzle had apparently played the hand terribly and gotten lucky at the end. Doyle, incredulous, started questioning how Sam could play that way. “Listen,” Grizzle said, “you play your money and I’ll play THEIR money.”

5. I asked Phil Ivey a question about a nice watch he was wearing. (I collect watches.) After a brief conversation, which ended with him starting at my Blancpain flyback chrono, he said, “You aren’t going to write what kind of watch it is, are you?”

I won’t now.

6. Erick Lindgren, who I’ve been chasing for an interview since March, told me at the South Coast today that we could get together for lunch on Tuesday. As of 10 PM, I stil hadn’t heard from him, so I gave him a call.

“I am ridiculously drunk” were the first words I heard.

We’ll give it a shot on Wednesday.

7. During my hour in the audience, I discovered that one of the production assistant’s main jobs was to attend to the needs of the three hot babes seated in front of me. If that guy has any authority over the camera shots, I’ll get enough screen time to get my SAG card.

8. Howard Lederer sees a lot of movies and enjoys analyzing and discussing them. A lot of that breaks down in the discussion about Jackass II, which he had seen and enjoyed. “They do things with rockets … that you just shouldn’t do.” “So they have this container with horse semen. And the point of the bit is what they do with it.” Phil Gordon, who hasn’t seen the movie, is wincing. I haven’t seen the movie either, but I say, “Phil? Nothing good happens with it. I know that much.”

9. Between tapings, as I was getting ready to leave, it was getting crowded in the Green Room. Someone jostled me with their shoulder as they were going by. I was going to say something, but that was when I first realized that one of the celebrity amateurs was Jose Conseco. They guy looks like he was chiseled from stone, is as wide as a house, and we know from his book that ‘Roid Rage is no problem for him. I turned the other cheekbone.

10. It’s not for sure so I hope this doesn’t jinx it, but I may be visiting with Jimmy Carter tomorrow evening.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 25th, 2006 at 9:57 pm and is filed under My favourites:.