Confessions of a Poker Dealer
A Short History of Poker Played in Casino's Since the Late 1970's
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
Archie The Greek
It was around midnight, the time I usually got up to get ready for work. I cant remember the year...maybe 1993 or 1994. I cant remember what season it was nor even the month. It was my "Monday" meaning even though it might have been Wednesday, it was my first day of the week on the job.
I was a poker dealer at Binion's Horseshoe Hotel and Casino, at the time the home of the World Series of Poker among other things. I worked at the "Shoe" over 5 years and a total of 14 years working in card rooms and playing poker.And in that time, I was an actual witness to the greatest casino-gambling story in Las Vegas history.
Walking into the card room, I first noticed it wasn't busy at all. The usual $4-8 limit Omaha-Hi game was full and there was a weak $1-4 limit 7 card stud game. In the back of the room, along the wall with pictures of all the World Series Poker final winners was a 2 handed game that was roped off. As I got closer, I recognized one of the players...he was Bobby Baldwin, the 1978 winner of the final event in the World Series of Poker and now, the number two man behind Hotel-Casino Entreprenual Legend Steve Winn. I did not recognize the other player.
I walked over to the graveyard shift boss and asked what was going on with this game. It turns out these two guys played the night before...a "split" game meaning half the time, they play one game and the other half, another. In this case, the games played were Low Ball Draw and 7 Card Stud.
I was told one more thing about the game. The night before, Bobby Baldwin lost one half million dollars ($500,000). I was astonished but it was only the beginning of what unargueably was the greatest poker and gambling "rush" in history. This night, Bobby would lose about one million dollars($1,000,000). This stranger beats Bobby Baldwin out of one and a half million in two days.
His name was Archie the Greek. Im not certain where he came to have this nickname, whether he picked it up before or after the "rush". I was told he was always a "degenerate" crap player who lived in a seedy downtown motel room. Supposedly, he borrowed$30....yes...this all started with a $30. loan. He went to shoot craps andran it up to several thousand dollars. Either that day or the next, he ends up shooting pool with Bobby where he wins about $30,000. They then decide to go to the Horseshoe to play poker and the rest is history.
But his $1.5 Million "score" was only the beginning. That weekend, he beat the crap tables at the Horseshoe for approx. one million dollars and resumed playing poker on the graveyard shift on Monday.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
"Confessions of a Poker Dealer" is a short history of Poker played in Casino's since the late 1970's. It covers from the late 1970's when "Snatch" games ( the way casino's robbed poker players ) were eliminated to the growth of poker throughout the 1980's and 1990's and finally to the "Television" generation starting in 2002 and creating millions of new poker players. The book looks at what is still today the biggest win in gambling history, $18.5M including $10M in poker play between a "degenerate" craps player who borrowed $30. to start his improbable triumph and beat four of the biggest names in poker one at a time in the early 1990's. It's also about Robert Varkonyi, winner of the 2002 main event at the World Series of Poker and the most influential player in the history of the game. And there are other fun stories about poker and gambling in general from 27 years in Las Vegas and Atlantic City.
About the Author
I was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1952 and graduated high school in 1969. I attended college for two years without earning a degree. In 1975, I wrote a motion picture titled "Bookies" about three men involved with illegal gambling. Unable to sell it in New York, I moved out west to first, Arizona and six months later, Southern California. Unable to find interest from any studio or producer, I moved to Northern California. While there, I took a trip to Lake Tahoe and played poker in a Casino for the first time. I decided to move to Las Vegas in 1981 and get a job in a poker room. I worked on poker there until 1995 and the card rooms were The "old" Mint, The Freemont, The Riviera, The Union Plaza and Binion"s Horseshoe. Moving to Atlantic City in late 1995, I played poker for 12 years and working two years at the Tropicana.
With the "explosion" of poker on the television creating millions of new players, I decided to write this book. Being a prolific reader of history and politics and with more than 25 years involved in poker rooms and the fact that no book ive seen has been written on this subject, it was fun doing this.