Stuck 'n' Stinkin' for Three Days

Ted Forrest

It is 12:30 a.m. at Foxwoods, Monday morning. In less than three hours, I have to drive to Hartford, return my rental car, and brave a six-hour flight home. I can either grab a couple hours of sleep or see if Ted Forrest is still playing in the $400-$800 mixed game downstairs.



I had come to Connecticut the previous week to speak at Yale. When I tell my friends, they respond in one of two ways: "You?" or "About what?"



I guess they have a right to be surprised. This is normally the kind of thing I would brag about constantly. To make up for the uncharacteristic modesty, I have purchased a Yale sweatshirt that I intend to wear at poker tournaments until it rots off my back.



At Yale and Foxwoods, I also met up with Tony Holden. Tony, as I mentioned in a previous column, is the author of the classic poker book Big Deal, and is currently living and writing the sequel, Bigger Deal. (I also met up with another English writer, Des Wilson, who is working on Swimming With the Devilfish, a book about English poker professionals. Wilson recommended that Tony call his book Older Deal. The suggestion was particularly appropriate because Tony played in the seniors event at Foxwoods.) Tony has been reeling from his recent status as a rather notorious character in Japan. It seems a Japanese translation of one of his first books, The St. Albans Poisoner, showed up among the possessions of a teenage girl accused of murdering her mother in a manner identical to that of the subject of Holden's book.



I just said good night and goodbye to Messrs. Holden and Wilson, who spent two days in a hilarious battle for who would pick up the check. I don't know if they were fighting to pay or avoid paying; I managed to absent myself from those battles, something they will eventually (and unhilariously) realize.



I am torn between sleeping for two hours and organizing a search party to find my car. I arrived on Thursday and parked it in "The Underground City." Foxwoods is a beautiful facility, but it's like a prison, too: no reason to leave, nowhere to go, and, in my case, no way to find my car.



Then there is the matter of Ted Forrest in the poker room. Strictly speaking, I have no business reason for loitering around the $400-$800 game. Ted didn't so much invite me as not object to my claim that I might come by. But I never would accomplish anything in poker – "accomplish" being purposely vague here – if I went to bed early, or insisted on a positive expected value for my time.



I spend the next two hours just watching Ted in the $400-$800 game. For a smart player, watching Ted Forrest for two hours could be a career-defining educational experience.



At first, Ted was losing hand after hand at seven-card stud and hold'em. At one point, he bet all the way to the river on a busted flush draw, and was called down by an opponent with 8-2 who hit a deuce on the flop. A $6,000 pot with fifth pair? Ted whispered behind his hand, "I think maybe we're not playing high enough."



Forrest won it all back, several-fold, at Omaha and stud eight-or-better. Several people have told me that Ted is the best stud eight-or-better player in the world; a few said it isn't even a contest. While the dealer stood up and used both hands to push Ted a giant scooped pot, he turned to me and asked, "You play stud high-low, right?"



That was the last part of the ensuing conversation that I understood.



He proceeded to explain how his opponent made a common error in his betting pattern. (At least, I think that was what he was explaining.) Based on my blank but earnest expression, Ted provided an analogy involving betting open trips (or not betting them) against an opponent showing a made low hand (or not showing one) … or something like that.



I'm convinced that a stud eight-or-better player at a competent level could play at an expert level after a couple of comments like that from Ted Forrest. But I'm playing the game at "Hooked on Phonics" level, so it all just zoomed past me.

I was a more active participant in the banter when a tall, skinny guy on Ted's left asked a question that I recognized from the Guinness Book of Records. (Poker room managers should consider acquiring copies.) "What do you think is the record for solving Rubik's Cube blindfolded?"



After one player, who probably couldn't have cared less, said, "Fifteen seconds," Ted dismissed his contribution. "No, come on. It would have to be at least several minutes." He was certainly in the ballpark. It is three minutes and 56 seconds, although I erroneously said it was a minute and a half. (Sorry, Ted.)



I compounded my error by informing the players that it takes longer to make a baloney and cheese sandwich with your feet, nearly two minutes total.



Forrest was incredulous. "That doesn't make sense. Are you telling me a person can't make a baloney and cheese sandwich with his feet faster than a person can solve Rubik's Cube blindfolded?"



"Well," I improvised, "the sandwich also had sliced pickles and sliced tomatoes."



That mollified him, at least until I asked the next question out of Guinness: "What's the record for the longest card game?"



Skinny immediately recited the answer out of the book: 72 hours by a London bridge club.



"That's just not right," said the savvy East Coast player on Ted's right. He immediately had my attention, not just for his commonsense authority, but because of the piles of banded $100 bills in front of him, including one that another player threw at him. "There isn't a player at this table who hasn't been stuck 'n stinkin' for at least three days at some time in his life." This guy owned up to playing for a week straight one time, and I know Ted has played Slade West for 105 hours and Hamid Dastmalchi for 100.



I was hoping someone would chime in that they should try to break that phony London-bridge record, but they had a tournament to play the next day. More to the point, it was time for me to go spelunking for my rental car.



This was certainly a time for lessons, and I hope everyone has learned them: Foxwoods has great accommodations and restaurants (especially if you can get someone else to pick up the check), but always – always! – note where you parked your car; don't give your children a chemistry set, especially one that includes lethal amounts of thallium; if you are already a good stud eight-or-better player, Ted Forrest can probably make you into a great one; if you are a mediocre stud eight-or-better player, consider buying lottery tickets; and the Guinness Book of Records would make a great Christmas gift for Ted Forrest.

Of course, The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time would also make a superb holiday gift, but you already knew that. If you have any comments to share, you can contact me at [email protected].