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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.

Aug. 18, 2007

Remembering

God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December. -- J.M. Barrie

During the early days of poker in Las Vegas, when the only publication for the game came out of California, when you were hard-pressed to find a good Vegas game that didn't have one or more suspicious characters at the table, I met a stereotypically tall and lanky man named Tex. His real name wasn't Tex and he wasn't from Texas. He was Drexel until someone couldn't quite get that two-syllable name out of a 2-year-old mouth and he hailed from Chicago.

I was standing at the rail watching the World Series of Poker at Binion's Horseshoe. That's when the makeshift poker room came together via the replacement of a bevy of slot machines and spectators, fewer than three deep, had an aisle between them and the blackjack pit. This guy I'd later know as Tex Sheahan was standing to my left. He was two heads or more taller than me but he held reporter's notepad in one hand, a pencil in another, at my eye level. He wrote playing card shorthand without taking his eyes off the action. I watched as he deftly recorded the action without the aid of an announcer.

The following year Tex began a series of columns for a new poker publication and we met again at the World Series, this time as fellow contributors. Soon we were bumping into each other in cardrooms, me struggling to learn hold'em, Tex waiting around for a tournament to start. Tex's wife favored bingo so when partner's tournaments began to spring up around town, Tex invited me to be his partner. As a result, I learned more about poker from him than I learned from actual experience, and I got to share in some cash when we managed to finish in the money.

Despite the popularity of hold'em today, the game had yet to become the phenomenal success promised by the future. During the early days of the game he had concluded that the game was "a pasteboard version of Russian Roulette." His initial experiences resulted in confusion and loss. But he talked to the experts, Brunson, Moss, Slim and the like, and eventually found the skill he needed to play and win.

By the time I met Tex it seemed as if the entire poker community knew him. He was on a first-name basis with every living champion, with dozens of poker managers and countless dealers. He once called the legendary poker innovator-manager-player Bill Boyd on the phone to ask how to spell another player's name. Boyd, reportedly in a high-stakes game and stuck, took the time to answer the call and provide Tex with the information. Shortly after a brief conversation with Stu Ungar, Tex won a 100-1 wager by selecting The Kid to win the championship in his first try.

Tex wasn't a great player or a great writer but he was a consistent winner in both areas. In print his columns and books looked at the current state and crop of players. His powers of observation were keen and on target and his descriptions of the people of poker were right on target. At the tables, even when he did not win, when he came up against great plays, good plays, bad plays and total suck outs, he remained the consummate gentleman. He never got ruffled, never lost his cool, never made opponents feel anything but grateful for a good game. When he won, he congratulated the loser with a warm handshake and a good-luck wish, accompanied by a positive message about his play. He lived in a time before fist pumping and high-fiving became synonymous with every winning pot. That's likely why he was welcomed so warmly by everyone he met.

This isn't another diatribe on the current crop of enthusiastic, expressive young players; we've already been there and resolved that issue. Tex lived in an era when even the guys who were known to throw cards at dealers, dump tables in frustration, pinch cocktail waitresses, drink the hard stuff and smoke a pack at one sitting populated some of the higher limits. But even these guys nodded to, shook hands with and took time to talk to Tex.

I stopped by the poker room at Boulder Station last week and watched the play for a while. I saw a fellow who, from behind, resembled Tex, and that's what made me think about him and to start recalling the early days of poker in Las Vegas. In retrospect, nothing has changed much. We still have the gentlemen (and ladies), the jerks, the action players, the contributors, the show-offs and the hyper-actives. We have men and women, young and old, of all persuasions and ethnic backgrounds. And they are all playing poker.

A poker room really does resemble the melting pot that America sometimes pretends to be, and that's something Tex would salute as positively true.