The Picasso Flop Read online

  Copyright © 2007 by Vince Van Patten and Robert J. Randisi

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Grand Central Publishing

  Hachette Book Group

  1271 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

  Originally published in hardcover by Mysterious Press

  The Grand Central Publishing name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  First eBook Edition: February 2007

  ISBN: 978-0-7595-1707-3

  Contents

  Copyright

  Part One: The Deal

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Part Two: The Flop

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Part Three: The Turn

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Part Four: The River

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Authors’ Note

  Acknowledgments

  To my father, who taught me how to play poker well at age nine and also taught me how to play at life

  —VVP

  To Marthayn, who pointed to the TV while we were watching the WPT and asked, “What about him?”

  —RJR

  PART ONE

  THE DEAL

  Gambler: An unusual way this word is often used is to describe the class (that is, the quality) of a poker player. When the word is used this way it describes the highest class of player.

  —Doyle Brunson’s Super System

  ONE

  In a city planted smack-dab in the middle of a desert, “waste” is unacceptable. Some say the Bellagio’s dancing fountain is a waste of water—certainly the most valuable commodity in a desert community.

  Gamblers believe that tourists who come to Vegas to see Hoover Dam or Wayne Newton or casinos more theme park than anything else, and who don’t gamble are a total waste.

  Those same coupon-clutching, gimmick-drink-carrying tourists think people who gamble are wasting their money.

  Jimmy Spain, however, knows the true meaning of the word “waste”: ten years spent behind bars, barbed-wire-covered walls crawling with guards . . . now that’s waste. . . .

  Tonight the poker room at the Bellagio is at its flashiest and most boisterous. It’s the eve of a major poker event, the World Poker Tour’s Five Diamond World Classic. Anyone and everyone who’s anything in poker is in this large, bright room. There’s at least thirty tables spread out and being played to full capacity. The clattering of chips, huge piles of cash out on the tables are staggering.

  Adjacent to this circus-type arena is the tournament section. This section is dark and empty, much like a stadium the night before a World Series or Super Bowl game. But within a matter of hours the room will be filled with the sound of chips on chips, voices over voices, rising and falling. Players and railbirds—onlookers who watch the games with rapt attention, who regard the players with the awe usually reserved for movie stars—add to the commotion.

  But for now the action is reserved for a special area in the middle of the poker room.

  This roped-off, three-walled centerpiece is the high-stakes area known as Bobby’s Room. The glamorous room consists of six or seven large photos of poker greats eyeballing the table from above. Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, Jennifer Harman, Gus Hansen, Dallas Jack Rafferty, among others. The luminaries of the fastest-growing game on the planet. This is where they all played. Named after Bobby Baldwin, also known as “the Owl,” in his poker days, Bobby was an old-school poker legend who gave up the flick of the cards when Steve Wynn, owner of the Bellagio, took him on. He was so impressed with Bobby’s shrewdness that he made him his right-hand man, chief operating director of the entire place. Bobby never looked back.

  The game was going strong with some of the superstars playing for fortunes, but off to the side, a mere fifteen feet away, another game for high stakes was getting some attention.

  Yes, there was a pecking order at tables in the Bellagio poker room. They stacked the bigger games around Bobby’s Room, kept the riffraff playing for five- and ten-dollar limits from getting too close. But now the looky lous were paying more attention to one particular table. The reason was it was shorthanded, very talky, and cash was flying around with reckless abandon.

  Five of the six players were professionals, some of the most colorful and fanatical on the circuit. The other was a movie star. That got people’s attention.

  Side games—also called money games—are nontournament games played for cash. Players compete for different reasons. Some play to stay sharp or to get into shape; others play to whittle away the time between tournament games. And still others make more money in these games than they make at tournaments. There are players who thrive during tournament play but can’t stand up to the pressure of a money game, and, by the same token, there are deadly money players who fold like a three-legged bar stool at tournaments.

  The players at this table don’t care what the format is. They play with the same skill no matter what the game or stakes. Tonight they’re all playing for money and bragging rights in a no-limit game where thousands are won or lost.

  Around the table-service trays are remnants of hastily consumed meals: stained, dirty plates; coffee cups and glasses; serving dishes coated with congealed grease, half-eaten rolls, cold French fries, and partially consumed burgers and sandwiches. The food eaten during a poker game has to be simple, one-handed meals that leave the other hand free to hold cards and chips. Bottles of water and beer or half-filled glasses stand in holders, the green felt tabletop reserved for the accoutrements of the game.

  Neatness doesn’t count here where there are no TV cameras. Here, there is only the game at its purest.

  To say Caveman Hal Florak was the largest man in the room was never an understatement. It was true on this night, in a room of three hundred people, and it would still be true in the morning, when eight hundred people sat down to play in the World Poker Tour event. The big man couldn’t help but attract attention, first for his size and then for his playing ability. And no one had ever accused Caveman of being a clotheshorse. He favored jeans and belts with large buckles that remained hidden because his shirttails always hung out, hiding them. He won with grace but was a notoriously bad loser. He hated when someone knocked him out of a tournament and then wanted to shake his hand. He preferred to stalk off somewhere to lick his wounds, drown his sorrows, or simply mentally replay questionable hands. If anything, his moods in money games were even worse.
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br />   Caveman’s least-favorite hold ’em hand to start with was sixes wired. Over the years, more often than not, he had ended up eating that pair of sixes. A two-time winner on the WPT circuit and holder of one World Series bracelet, he had learned long ago to resist the lure of that opening pair, and he mucked them.

  “The way you tossed those cards away,” James Woods, movie star/poker expert, seated next to him said, “they must’ve been sixes.”

  “Fuck you, movie star,” Caveman replied with good humor.

  This is what the railbirds wanted to see: wisecracking actor James Woods trash-talking the very ominous Caveman. No one went there except Woods, whose genius IQ had propelled him to one of the world’s best in a very short time.

  He was also the spokesperson for HollywoodPoker.com, a huge online poker site whose gimmick was that you could play online poker with celebrities. Woods was a staple in this poker world.

  Woods was passionate about his game—ruthless about picking on people, always tearing opponents down in a hilarious way, at the same time picking up tells. Woods had the railbirds behind him chuckling.

  “You’re easier to read than a fucking stop sign, you big, overgrown trash can.”

  Caveman just shook his head, not knowing if he should applaud the actor or kill him.

  “Woods is here. Am I the greatest? Now you’re steaming, Caveman. You could boil a pot of coffee on your head right now!” Woods laughed, looked down at his cards. Ace, queen of hearts. Pretty solid starting hand. “I call, you degenerate.” He splashed in about a thousand dollars worth of chips.

  Next was Scooter Thompson, an average-looking white guy of about forty who was slightly overweight. He wore one of those Gilligan hats, dressed like he just walked off a public tennis court—khakis, ragged white polo shirt with a hole under one arm—making him seem normal enough, about the most normal-looking man at the table. But what gave away his complete insanity was the full-sized dummy, dressed exactly like him, sitting on his lap. That’s right, one of those Jerry Mahoney deals. And the most peculiar thing was that Scooter wasn’t even a ventriloquist. Oh yeah, he tried but he was god-awful. Scooter and his partner, Skippy, were notorious freaks on the poker circuit. Scooter was never known to be without Skippy.

  Players and fans cut him some slack because Scooter Thompson was one of the most successful poker professionals to have come along in the last decade—a great side game player and consistent tournament winner. He looked down at his cards, peeking at a pair of nines.

  “What do you think, Skippy?”

  Skippy came to life and in an eerie, raspy voice replied, “I don’t know, Gilligan, you’re stuck a lot right now. Maybe these fools are bluffing.”

  Scooter retorted, “Don’t call them fools. That’s insulting. Let’s play our hand.”

  Woods couldn’t take it anymore. “Look, Punch and Judy, quit the freak show. You’ve had enough time, Jerry Mahoney!”

  Skippy the dummy spoke up. “Don’t rush us, Mr. Hollywood. We got a decision to make.”

  “We? What is this we shit? It should be one player to a hand. That’s the rule!” Woods said.

  Woods was starting to get antsy, but the onlookers were loving it, breaking out in laughter.

  Scooter finally pounded in a thousand dollars, and once again in that eerie voice the dummy said, “We’re gonna call, Mr. Hollywood. How about that?”

  Woods said, “Good, another weak call. I got you beat, pecker head.”

  The dummy’s head moved abruptly, as if deeply insulted by the remark.

  Tabbelousithana Thandy, also known as Tabby, smiled winningly as he held his large glass of white wine elegantly in the air. That full glass of intoxicant seemed larger than his actual head, which was about the size of a grapefruit. Tabby was an effete-looking metrosexual Thai man of about thirty who, at five foot two, had a perpetual smile, rosy cheeks, a nonstop cackle, and was never without his huge glass of Pinot. Win or lose, Tabby was a good sport and an excellent poker player but also one of the best all-around hustlers in the poker world. Even after horrible defeats Tabby was known to utter his very famous line, in his high-pitched, Thai accented voice: “Don’t worry, life short, have good time.”

  It was easy for him to say. He was always smashed.

  This time Tabby looked excited as he pumped up the pot with a pair of ladies.

  “No, no, no . . . make three thousand dollah to go!” Tabby took another hit from his glass and cackled loudly.

  Next came the only woman at the table. Except for the influx of Internet players, who had been earning their way into major tournaments for a few years now by winning online tournaments, the presence of Sabine Chevalier made this side game a microcosm of what would be going on tomorrow during the tournament. As would be the case tomorrow, but on a much larger scale, these were the best players in the world going up against one another for all the marbles on the table. For the most part, the dead money players—the first timers in any tournament—were usually gone by the time the final table had sorted itself out.

  Sabine looked across the table at the dark-clad man who had begun the betting. She didn’t know him from Adam. Barely thirty, she was the youngest player at the table. She had grown up in France, and she was considered by many to be one of the finest women players in the world, often mentioned in the same sentence as Cloney Gowan, Jennifer Harman, and Evelyn Ng. Her style at the table was very French. She wore gloves; her dress was both sophisticated and sexy. Despite the fact that she was a French beauty, everyone there respected her play. She honored them, as well as the pros they were, but this man unnerved her. Jimmy Spain had walked in, shaken hands with everyone as he was introduced, and when he came to her she thought he had the saddest eyes she’d ever seen—sadder than any man she’d ever sat across the table from. And yet, despite the eyes, his manner was light, his banter quick, and his charm powerful. But those eyes were watching her now, waiting for her to make her play, and she could read nothing in them. She looked away, down at her chips, not because she thought his hand had her beat but simply because of those eyes.

  “I fold,” she said and was annoyed that her voice came out in a barely audible whisper.

  Now all eyes fell on Jimmy Spain, who, if he was not a total unknown, was close. He had been away from the game for twelve years, and during that time it had changed dramatically. Texas hold ’em had gone through the roof in popularity ever since Steve Lipscomb had the dream of taking poker to the masses, creating the ultimate poker show, the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel. Largely because of him the game had exploded, and now copycat shows all over the world could be seen on TV at any time of night or day.

  But while the circumstances surrounding the game had changed, one thing remained the same—the cards. During the course of his hard life, the cards were the only things that never lied to him. Jacks and kings were his friends, the queens his lovers; they all took care of him. If they ever turned on him, it was never deliberate or with malice, and they usually found a way to make amends later.

  He looked at his cards now, studied the ones on the table and then the faces around him. He took everything into account and then said good-naturedly, “You people are just forcing me to go all in.” Making his play, he pushed his remaining chips—some nine thousand dollars’ worth—toward the center of the table. It was the first time all night he’d been dealt a pair of aces, and after winning several hands already with lesser ammunition, he had decided to trust them.

  Woods and Skipper mucked their hands, and when another ace fell on the flop to give Jimmy a set, it busted Tabby out of the game and sent him off to bed. As the Thai man got up he was still cackling, swigging from his wineglass, and saying, “Don’t worry, life short, have good time.”

  The big game started in the morning; they were all going to need to be well rested.

  That left five players to fight it out—Caveman, Woods, Scooter and the dummy, Sabine Chevalier, and Jimmy Spain.

  Among the group watch
ing the final five was the very dapper Mike Sexton, a true Southern gentleman, probably the greatest ambassador of the game. A long-time champion player in tournament and side games, he had stepped behind the microphone several years ago to start commentating games for the World Poker Tour. When he first spotted Jimmy Spain that morning he’d been stunned. He’d heard two things about Spain: one, that he’d gone to prison, and two, that he was dead. He had played in many money games against Spain during the late eighties and early nineties, before the man disappeared. He knew Spain to be a solid and deceptive player. But the man he’d seen earlier in the day was different. Sure, he was older, in his early forties now, had put on some weight. But it was the lines on his face and the look in his eyes that made Sexton sit up and take notice. This was a harder Spain than he’d ever known, and suddenly he knew the first story he’d heard was the true one. Jimmy Spain had been inside, and the reason made a chill run up and down Sexton’s spine. Spain had probably just recently gotten out. Sexton felt sure of that.

  Tabby went up to Sexton as he was leaving. His cheeks seemed to grow even redder whenever he went broke.

  “Oh, well, I bust. He play well! Who is dat guy?”

  He was referring to Spain. Sexton seemed nervous, talking to Tabby out of the corner of his mouth in his slight Southern drawl.

  “Jimmy Spain,” he said. “You’re a little too young to remember him. He was pretty regular in money games in the Midwest and the South about . . . oh, fifteen, twenty years ago. He was a kid then, not much younger than you are now, but he was good.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “I heard he killed a man, got sent up for it.” Sexton moved closer to Tabby, whispering, “Rumor has it, it was murder.”

  Sexton and Tabby both swallowed hard. Tabby then gulped down the remainder of his wine.

  “Murder? Glad I didn’t suck out on him on that last hand.”

  “You’re tellin’ me,” Sexton said. “But, yeah, looks like he’s back—and from the way he’s playin’ tonight, maybe in a big way.”

  Tabby looked disturbed and shook his head. He slunk away without his usual cackle.