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POCKET ACES

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Maryann Guberman has been a writer and editor with many gaming publications, including Sports Form, Card Player, Poker World, Player's Panorama and Systems and Methods. She also has written and edited numerous books on gambling.

March 31, 2007

The Nice Things About Poker ...

Why do we have to wait for special moments to say nice things or tell people we care about them? -- Randy K. Milholland

Familiarity seems to breed disintegration, doesn't it? Love affairs dampen as one individual notices negative aspects of the other. Theme park attendance dwindles as the original fans outgrow them. TV shows run out of original themes and become stale.

Once a concept reaches staggering heights of success, people always seem to be ready to tweak it, to try to spiff it up or move it in a new direction, or figure out how to make it soar beyond the highest point available. Or they splinter it up and create spin-offs. Perhaps all that results from boredom or fear of failure. We'll have to leave that to the sociologists to explain.

Take poker, for example. In the earliest days of televised tournaments, cameras and color commentators focused on concepts, reasoning, potential. They explained how and why a player might be making a specific move. They let the camera pan into the faces trying to capture the intense nature of a thought process.

As time passed, though, focus shifted from the game to the player, with attention going to the chatter, to the audience, the high-fives and the cheerleading. Televised poker became, in a very short time, ego driven so now it's not some much as watching a card-playing competition as it is watching a personality contest.

Fortunately, like other concepts, poker has maintained its dignity and its class and its decorum. That's what I would like to celebrate today.

Today I salute:

George Epstein, the (recent) octogenarian poker player has written The Greatest Book of Poker for Winners and Hold'em or Fold'em? We all know (or should know) life doesn't end at 30 or 40 or 50 or any specific number and that age is no barrier to poker. George takes this fact one step further by offering his own poker classes for senior citizens in California. His most recent session runs May 11 through June 29. For a small fee, students get two textbooks and an hour and a half of poker expertise. He calls this session, taking place at the Claude Pepper Senior Citizens Center on south La Cienega Boulevard, Poker 202. By limiting the classes to 18 people, George will be able to give very precise information based on individual need and from what I've heard, he is a big hit as a teacher.

Susie Isaacs, author of numerous books including Ms. Poker: I'm Not Bluffing and the soon-to-be released Queens Can Beat Kings. Susie devotes a large portion of her living and breathing hours to the game of poker. She's loves the game the way some people love animals, with a fierce, protective devotion. She talks it, she displays it, she promotes it. In her hundreds of columns and on her blog (http://www.susieisaacs.blogspot.com/), she interviews players, cardroom managers, reports on games and tournaments, and shows the happy, upbeat side of the game.

David Schwartz and his staff of content providers, page editors, and other assistants who man the UNLV special collections library, particularly the gaming collection. It seems only fitting that the gaming capitol of the world should also house the larges collection of gambling-related media, and in following, it seems the logical place for the repository would be a university library. Anyone researching gambling (and of course poker) and in need of information from periodicals, books, artwork, and electronica, should make their first stop on the web at www.library.unlv.edu/speccol/gaming/index.html and then follow the clicks to whatever rings a bell.

Bob "The Coach" Ciaffone, Omaha champ and author of co-author of four or five poker books including Omaha Hold'em Poker. For years Bob has crusaded for a standardized set of poker rules. He compiled the first cardroom rulebook for the Hilton when the Las Vegas Casino had the biggest poker room in the world and later made his own version of the book available free on his website (http://www.pokercoach.us/RobsPkrRules10.mht) . Like Mike Sexton who labored for years to bring poker out of the back rooms and away from the snatch games, Bob has devoted a good portion of his time away from the tables promoting the sunny side of poker.

Of course, these are just a few of the folks who have made a positive mark in the world of poker. I know more and from time to time, I'll start hitting the keys on the keyboard that spells out their names and accomplishments. For now, add them to the list of people you'd like to play poker with. They'll make a good game and they'll probably have a lot of happy, upbeat nice things to say.