Return to Paradise

Well, I went back to Costa Rica again, so of course I have to do another story about the place. This time it's different, though. Last time here I had to pay for everything, so I was free to make wisecracks about things like the suicidal taxi drivers and the way they teach smoking in elementary schools. This time everything was paid for by Casinos Europa in that extraordinary promotion it just had, so I guess I should be a little nicer.

It's not that being nice would take any effort, even for me; not when everything was on the house – airfare, beautiful rooms, delicious and imaginative food from different countries, any drink you wanted, and an army of hostesses hovering over you, asking every five minutes if you wanted anything. As organized, staged, and run by Nick and Janine Gullo, along with Stephen Primak, vice president of casino operations; Terry Severin, marketing VP; and card club manager Ken Judd, they had belly dancers, break dancers, different native costumes every night, a life-size camel with harem models for photos, and even a live Arabian horse in the dining room one night. All in all, it was a five-ring circus, and all you had to do for all of this was play a little poker. You've heard the expression, "I felt like I died and went to heaven." Now I know what that expression means. This was as close to paradise as you can get.

Of course, every Garden of Eden has its serpent. The snake here was Ralph the Rattler. Talk about lax airport security. I wondered how on earth they let him into the country. Then I discovered that he had slithered into a crate of bananas and hid. It didn't take long for him to earn the hatred of everyone at his table in the first tournament he played with his moves and stalling tactics that slowed things to a crawl.

Oh, well, this was supposed to be an upbeat story, so let's let sleeping snakes lie. Another thing I'll try not to do in this write-up is go over the same ground covered in all the Costa Rican stories already written by other columnists. For example, take the article in which Lou Krieger revealed how he went on a jungle canopy tour and a monkey grabbed his hat. Wow! Stop the presses! Lou Krieger lost his hat to a monkey! Big deal. Do you know how many shirts I've lost to monkeys in card casinos? Similarly, I'll try not to write the same things about Costa Rica that I expect will be flooding Card Player, because it seemed like half the staff was down there this trip freeloading.

There's one interesting travel note I'd like to throw in, though. For some reason, they do not have street addresses in Costa Rica. So, instead of saying, "I live at 123 Chiquita Street," the directions you get go something like this: "The Republica district, southeast, two blocks north and one block west of the post office, 150 meters past the banana tree, the green house on the left with a broken window." Charming and quaint, but a little like prehistoric times ("two miles past the volcano, just before the swamp, third cave on the left").

Men "The Master" was here, but he wasn't happy. He had gotten real excited and caught the first flight to Costa Rica when he inquired about the exchange rate and was told that he could get 330 colones for a dollar. He thought they said "Coronas."

Another player confused by the monetary system was Tom "Spider" Webb. He thought he was withdrawing $1,000 from the ATM, but it was actually only 1,000 colones. So, he got about $3 and paid a $4.50 service charge.

Tom McEvoy was here, too, and as usual he outdid himself in the fashion department. He wore a shirt that I swear to God was made out of tin foil. If Tom had worn that thing outdoors during one of Costa Rica's frequent thunderstorms, he would have drawn every lightning bolt from five miles around and ended up like those whole roasted pigs they served up at the buffet. His shirt did come in handy, though. Once, Barbara needed to freshen up her makeup and saved herself a trip to the ladies room by using the back of his shirt as a mirror.

It's really nice playing in the side games here. Costa Ricans are legendary for their friendliness and the atmosphere at the table is really pleasant. What's more, Nick Gullo has laid down a zero-tolerance law for unruly behavior. If a player so much as bangs the table, he draws a 30-day suspension. If they were that strict in many of the cardrooms I've played in, the tables would be half-empty in a half-hour. At Big Denny's Barstow Card Casino, you couldn't get a 30-day suspension if you shot another player.

I'll let the other writers tell you about the tournaments, which were hosted by the ultimate gentleman of poker, Howard "Tahoe" Andrew. Suffice it to say that in four attempts I never got that much past the two-hour end-of-rebuy break. But I will say that the tournaments are like nowhere else on earth. Where else can you buy in for $10 and add on for $300? One player compared these endless rebuy events to those peep-show machines in which you have to keep dropping quarters. So it would seem like winning one of these tournaments on one bullet and turning $10 into $20,000 or so would be like hitting the lottery. But it can be done. Mike O'Malley came in second with no rebuys in one event, and in past tournaments, Linda Johnson and Jan Fisher have posted wins for $30 and $40 investments.

In any event, where else could you get the chance to play with and study a table full of champions for $10? Hell, it costs that much to go see and have to sit through a Tom Arnold movie.

Then, they had a whole contingent of attractive young ladies in black cocktail dresses and evening gowns standing around among the tables, smiling sweetly but looking just a little lost at first. I couldn't figure out who they were and what they were supposed to be doing. My first guess was that they couldn't understand English, and were there to listen to bad-beat stories. (Big mistake; they were all college students, as personable and nice as could be, and were there to change ashtrays, fetch you drinks, or whatever was needed.) After a while they began carrying around soft, cuddly golden retriever puppies. If you wanted, you could even hold one in your lap and pet it – the dogs, that is, not the girls. It turns out that the puppies were for sale for considerably less than they would cost in the States. The catch was that it entailed a six-month quarantine. I was about to buy one for the Rattler until I learned that the quarantine applied to the dog, not the owner.

What else? Oh, yeah, Mark Seif, who was $9,000 richer after coming in second in the first tournament, was looking for a little action. "What's a good pickup line?" he asked the next day.

"I have a job," someone replied.

Well, my job is writing articles, and writing this one was a pleasure. I was stuck for a socko ending until the night I was playing in an Omaha game, and a local player named Oscar, who had made a nut flush but couldn't think of the term, announced, "I have a maximum flush." Well, this was a maximum tournament event.