Billy Outwits 'Em

The now defunct (thank you for law and order, Mayor Giuliani) Mayfair Club in New York produced some of the country's best bridge players in the '50s and '60s. During the '70s, all of the best backgammon players honed their skills there. By the time poker became the game of choice, there were already some pretty good poker players from the New York City area. They improved, and several new stars were created. In future columns, I'll talk more about who played there and how we all improved, but for now, I want to relate one of the famous tales from the club.

In the early days of the Mayfair Club's no-limit hold'em game, the players all dealt. Two decks of cards (red and blue, to avoid confusion) were used so that we could play as many hands per hour as possible. The procedure followed was that the previous dealer gathered the discards from that hand and started shuffling that deck. Meanwhile, the player to his left was dealing the other deck. By the time that hand ended, the other cards were shuffled, cut by another player, and dealt by the next player in line. This procedure, which evolved from the method of dealing in money bridge games, seemed to be quite efficient, and with three different players involved in dealing each deck (a shuffler, a cutter, and a dealer), it was designed to prevent someone with skill at card manipulation from doing any damage.

T

he Mayfair was ostensibly a private, members-only club. However, membership was easily obtained, and new players frequently played. It was rare, however, for a player to arrive from out of town who was completely unknown to all the regulars. At one point, two men drifted in from out of town and were playing their first session in the "big game." They sat next to each other, and one frequently wandered off to the bathroom. Upon his return, the other frequently won a big pot. I had lost a strange hand and thought something was wrong, so I wandered off to the local bar for a few beers and games of pool.

Just before closing, several of the other players trooped in and, with a fair amount of merriment, related the following threehanded pot. One of the strangers was dealing. Billy Horan was dealt two aces and raised. Jason Lester called with A-K, and the nondealing stranger, who by now had a large stack, also called. The flop was A-K-2 rainbow, and some spirited betting ensued. There was nearly $60,000 in the pot, Jason was all in, and the stranger had less than $2,000 left.

As the dealing stranger prepared to deal fourth street, Billy asked for a cut. The strangers both insisted that it was illegal to cut in the middle of a hand, but the house rules allowed it. In fact, it was allowed so that no one would ever feel that one of the players knew in advance what the next card would be. The cards were cut and some blank appeared on fourth street. Billy bet the last $2,000 and the stranger folded quietly. Clearly, the second stranger had stacked the deck on one of his bathroom trips, but the first stranger's win card was now unobtainable. They left shortly thereafter, were asked not to return, and were never seen again. Billy returned Jason's losses on the hand to him.

And that is why I love public cardrooms.