Acey Doozy, Poker Ace

In my last column, I related my amazement at winning a poker tournament and then being unable to find any publication willing to give me the cover story I so richly deserved. I even made a special trip to Vegas to present my case to Barry Shulman, but he had a "sudden emergency" when he heard I was coming. On my way back to L.A., I stopped at the Barstow Card Casino to tell Big Denny about my disappointment.



"Gee, dat's amazin'," the big guy chortled. "You'd t'ink it would be on da front page of every newspaper in da world."



"Please spare me the sarcasm, Denny. This is my chance to make a name for myself in the poker world and get a piece of all those juicy endorsements and deals out there. Do you have any ideas?"



"Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do, Maxey. Da local paper here, da Barstow Bugle, is startin' a poker section. Dey hired some hotshot poker writer named Acey Doozy, or somet'in like dat, to write a column. I told him about ya, an' he'd like ta do a story. Interested?"



It was not exactly my first choice, but a start, anyway. So, I nodded my head, Big Denny phoned him, and within the hour he showed up.



Acey Doozy looked to be some kind of poker junkie. He was wearing a poker jacket, poker hat, and hooded sweatshirt a la Phil Laak, and was equipped with Phil Hellmuth-style headphones and Marcel Luske's trademark upside-down sunglasses. He shook my hand vigorously and began jabbering away:



"What an honor to meet a great poker player such as yourself, sir. I've read and heard so much about you that I feel I already know you, Dr. Stern."



"I am not Max Stern!" I shouted. "I'm Max Shapiro, the famed poker humorist."



"Who?"



"Max Shapiro, you dork. I write a humor column for Card Player magazine, and I just won a major tournament on the World Series of Poker Circuit tour at Harrah's Rincon."



"Harry Rincan? Never heard of him. Well, I guess you'll have to do. I was supposed to have interviewed Mike Matusow today, but he canceled at the last minute; said he couldn't think of anything to say. Anyway, let's get started." He stared at his notebook for a long time before coming up with a brilliant question. "As one poker expert to another, can you give our readers some hints on poker strategy?"



"Well," I replied, "I try not to play hands unless I'm suited."



"Suited? Why would you need a coat and tie to play poker?" he asked in bafflement. "You'd be pretty out of place at the Barstow Card Casino. All anybody here wears is overalls."



I tried to explain that I meant suited cards, then had to explain what suited cards are. I could only imagine how many poker journalism awards this guy had won. I awaited his next insightful question. I was not disappointed. "What's the most unusual thing that ever happened to you in a poker game?" he asked.



"Well, sometimes you find the same hands coming up time and time again in a way that defies all mathematical probability. For example, just last week I kept getting double belly-busters all night long."



"Oh, yeah, the same thing happened to my wife the other night."



"Really? Is she a poker player?"



"No, she was having menstrual cramps."



The brilliant questions continued. "What annoys you the most when you're playing poker?"



"Having to listen to bad-beat stories," I said, and then of course had to explain what a bad beat is. To my dismay, this set him off, and he began telling me about every bad beat that ever happened to him while playing at the Barstow Card Casino. I was tempted to tell him that he wasn't getting bad beats, but was simply being cheated, but I prudently kept my mouth shut. After patiently listening for a half-hour, I interrupted him and suggested that we get on with the interview.



"Oh, yeah," Acey mumbled in some confusion. "Where were we, anyway?"



"Who knows?" I responded. "You were asking me questions about poker."



"Right on, Dr. Stern," he said brightly. He continued asking the usual standard, hackneyed questions posed by every poker-illiterate writer doing poker interviews. "Who is your favorite player?" (Barbara Enright, of course, you dork!) "What's the biggest pot you ever won?" "What's your favorite hand?" After each answer, I had to explain the simplest poker terms, such as flops, pot odds, blinds, and so on. As the interview was winding down to its dismal conclusion, he finally asked me a good question: Had I written any books?



"Oh, yes," I responded enthusiastically, "my hilarious, best-selling poker humor book, Read 'em and Laugh."



"Great," he said. "Then you can run an ad for your book when the story runs."



I indignantly said there was no way I would buy an ad just to get a story. Doozy informed me that paying for stories with ads was standard policy at the Barstow Bugle, and that I could have a full-page ad for only $95.



I stood my ground. "I don't care how much or how little an ad costs. It's out of the question and totally unethical."



"Yeah, I agree," Doozy said. "Tell you what. Slip me 20 bucks and I'll get your story in without an ad."



I talked him down to $10 and the deal was made. Unfortunately, the Barstow Bugle's ancient printing press, which the paper had purchased years ago at a liquidation sale, broke down three weeks ago, and that issue still hasn't come out. But watch for it. It will be a collector's item when it does.