But That was Yesterday

I am often approached by people who know me, or maybe know of me from my columns in Card Player. Usually, they want me to write about an incident they think is interesting or an injustice perpetrated against them that they think the whole poker world would be interested in.

I always take the time to listen to them. Most of the time, I don't think the topics are what readers would be interested in, or they're something negative that I think should be handled on a private basis. The following incident is one that I thought would be worthy of writing about.

Jamil "Nick"

The incident occurred a few weeks ago at a casino in Los Angeles. There were two primary players involved: Jamil "Nick" (a local player who primarily plays stud and stud eight-or-better) and a man with the nickname Rabbit, who lives in Las Vegas and usually plays poker at Bellagio. Rabbit, however, spends a lot of time in Los Angeles, and when he's here, he plays mostly $30-$60 stud. On this particular day, Nick was playing $20-$40 stud, and a few tables over, Rabbit was playing in another stud game.

Everything was going normally until there was a commotion at the table where Rabbit was sitting. Nick explained to me that he was involved in a pot, when out of the corner of his eye he saw Rabbit standing at his seat, choking on what Nick would find out later was a piece of steak. Then, Nick heard someone yell, "Help! Somebody help him." All of a sudden, one of the chip runners wrapped his arms around Rabbit, attempting to perform his version of the Heimlich maneuver. Heaven knows whether or not he knew or was even remotely qualified to perform the Heimlich maneuver, but he was attempting it. The problem was that the chip runner was not a big person, and Rabbit, let us say, is a rather robust man. As valiant as the chip runner's attempts were, they were just not working.

Nick, who also is not an expert at the Heimlich, was somewhat familiar with the maneuver, having seen it performed before. He realized that the chip runner was not big enough to get his arms around Rabbit sufficiently enough to perform the maneuver. He also realized that Rabbit was beginning to turn a little blue. At that point, Nick, being a larger man with a bigger arm span, rushed over, took matters into his own hands, and began performing the Heimlich maneuver on Rabbit. Nick's first try failed; his second try – no results. On his third try, Nick gave it his all, and out flew the culprit – a piece of steak.

I guess that's what you call an act of quick thinking, and maybe a bit of old-fashioned heroism. I was quite impressed when I heard that story, but with all due respect, I didn't think Card Player readers would really be that interested in it.

A couple of weeks later, the "hook" for this story came when I ran into Nick at the casino. He called me over to the side and said, "You won't believe what happened."

"What?" I asked. "You saved someone else's life?"

"No," he replied, "but do you remember the guy whose life I saved?"

"Yeah, go on," I responded.

Well, Nick went on to say that he hadn't seen Rabbit in a couple of weeks, but earlier that day, he had seen him. In fact, they ended up playing in the same game. At the table, Rabbit explained to everyone how Nick had saved his life, and all of the players agreed that someone should acknowledge Nick's feat. Soon after all the kudos were given to Nick, the subject was dropped and the game continued.

Shortly thereafter, a large pot came up that started out multiway, but on sixth street, it was down to two players – Nick and Rabbit. Rabbit was first to act, and he checked. Nick bet, and guess what Rabbit did. Well, he did what any poker player would do when he has the best hand; he checked-raised Nick.

The players at the table, most of whom were regulars, went crazy. One guy who was laughing hysterically asked, "Let me get this straight; didn't you just check-raise the guy who saved your life a couple of weeks ago?" With that comment, Nick laughed, Rabbit laughed, and all the other players laughed.

By the time Nick had completed telling me his tale, I too was laughing. It reminded me of a line from the old Chad and Jeremy song from the late '60s that went something like this: "But that was yesterday – and yesterday's gone."

What a story, I thought. Only in the poker world could a lifesaving debt be repaid so quickly, in such a strange manner. The funny thing is, though – isn't that just the way it's supposed to be at the poker table?

For what it's worth …