Michael Craig's Journal

On Friday, I had high hopes for a day of interviews that could prove the most important I conduct for the Full Tilt book. I had back-to-backs scheduled with Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson. It turned into a difficult, barely productive day, that left me worried about the future of my book and, indeed, poker.

My spirits started high, and I assumed everyone would follow. The Pro-Am tournament I had been watching was a huge success. Full Tilt got involved at the last minute, but they had great celebrities, better pros, and Andy Bloch took home the big prize, minus $100,000 he promised to Don Cheadle’s efforts to bring peace to the Darfur region of the Sudan.

It was a great week for me personally. I finished helping Phil Gordon with his section on Short-Stack Play - he needed no help at all, which was the best part, plus I’ve gotten to know what a great guy he really is. I interviewed Gavin Smith on Big-Stack Play, and he turned out to be a phenomenal subject. Time is short but when I organize what he said from that interviews, he’s going to deliver a great, great essay. I also conducted the first half of one of the most important interviews for the book, Chris Ferguson on how to play after the flop in No-Limit Hold ‘Em.

I also interviewed Andy Bloch once more and got from him a remarkable tool, from which I created a table on how every two-card hand does against a random hand, a top 9% hand, a top 24% hand, a top 49% hand, and pocket aces. The table is gigantic, about 30 pages printed out, but the process of putting it together taught me a few things only a handful of other players know. Soon, as a result of this work, everybody will be able to know it! Portions of the tables will appear in the book and I’m going to try to arrange to have the full tables in this Journal, www.andybloch.com, and on Full Tilt Poker.

And it was all great fun. I met Shana Hiatt, Jason Alexander, Penn Jillette, and former President Jimmy Carter. I hung out with Andy Bloch (which is how I met Penn Jillette and his wonderful wife Emily as well as Jimmy Carter). I got to ask Ted Forrest about the white stretch limo he owns with naked women painted on it. I saw Clonie Gowen in her pajamas. (The secret of her beauty is the black silk pillow case she brings with her to sleep upon wherever she goes. She also keeps a small suede bag with hair strands and nail clippings of Jennifer Harman, Annie Duke, Barbara Enright, Kathy Liebert, Susie Isaacs, and Betty Carey.)

I was in such a good mood that I engaged in the questionable practice of telling inside jokes to strangers on an elevator.

Married couple enters elevator. Husband wears battered Jacksonville Jaguars baseball cap. He points to it ans says to his wife, “This cap is very valuable. They made it before the team ever played. The car company sued them for copying its jaguar.”

Wife: “So what did they change the team name to?”

Husband: “They didn’t.”

It seemed to me, less than a foot away from both of them, that they each missed something. The wife thinks they changed the team name, which they obviously didn’t. The husband doesn’t understand why she thinks that, so he does not respond to her puzzled look. He has told her a story but won’t come across with the punch line.

Here’s where I butt in.

“They had to change the logo. Actually, they used the same logo but they put a monocle on the jaguar.”

The wife looks at me like I helped answer her question. The husband looks at me like I’m a nut.

“Well, okay, they didn’t put a monocle on the jaguar. But wouldn’t it be neat if they did? Football helmets with a logo of a jaguar wearing a monocle? C’mon.”

Nobody lingered when we reached the ground floor.

The monocle line is actually a family joke, not that I expected these people to get it. Even though my two oldest kids are teenagers and the youngest is ten, we still all ask for the crayons and place mats at “family restaurants.” In addition to a children’s menu, the sheets usually have simple puzzles and some animals or restaurant-licensed characters to color.

Years ago, I started drawing things like sombreros, bow-ties, and, most important, monocles on the characters. It’s completely juvenile, and I think Jo Anne is ashamed to be with us when we laugh like jackals over our cleverness. For some reason, we get a quarterly baby clothing catalogue. Ellie has a long history of grabbing it when it arrives and doctoring the photos with scars, hats, logos, and hundreds of monocles.

Sometimes, we’ll see a picture in a newspaper and say, “Barbara Bush needs a monocle.” Or “We should give the Arizona Cardinals a monocling they’ll never forget.”

ANYWAY, I thought it was hilarious.

I got to Howard Lederer’s house and expected a relaxing afternoon, basking in the reflected glory of that great TV tournament, quickly finishing Limit Hold ‘Em, and snagging enough material from him to fill another hole in the manuscript just 11 days before the Deadline.

He met me at the door and I asked how he was doing.

“This is turning into one of the worst days of my life.”

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 1st, 2006 at 12:28 am and is filed under My favourites:.