© August 1, 2005
By Daniel Cox
Editor, Gaming Review On Line

Las Vegas – I have been playing poker for over 40 years now, since my father taught me five card stud at age eight. He got tired of me beating him at chess, so he chose a game where he felt he had a better chance of beating me. It worked for a couple of years, but I was playing in adult home games by the time I was 13. I began playing the card rooms in Gardena and Bakersfield, California, at 17 and advanced to the casinos in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe over 30 years ago. As a young private in the Army, I paid for my first sports car with my winnings from “payday” poker games. I have played cards across North America, and as far away as South Korea, mostly for low stakes – at casinos, in home games, with co-workers, or with fellow officers in the Army. One thing to remember is that by the turn of the millennium, and before Chris Moneymaker’s ESPN showing, Poker was nearly dead. One was hard pressed to find a game in Tahoe or Vegas.

Until November 2004, I resisted playing Texas Hold’em or Omaha. I felt 7-card Stud was the purest form of Poker to be found in casinos and card rooms. I had also never played in a tournament before that time, though I had been invited to one at a Casino Grand Opening in 1981 while on temporary duty in Las Vegas. Over 20 years later, while in Las Vegas to get married, I held a one man bachelor party the night before my wedding by entering a tournament at the legendary Binion’s, the original home of the World Series of Poker. I played “Hold’em” fairly well for a novice, holding a narrow chip lead shortly before a bad beat slapped me upside the head a few minutes before we moved to the final table. In the end, I did well playing an unfamiliar game, placing 7^th, and cashing out in my first tournament. Since that tournament, I have won satellites at the Commerce Casino for the WPT LA Poker Classic, won my first tournament at Casino Morongo and got close, but lost, at the WSOP satellites at Spotlight 29 in Palm Springs.

So, after 40 years of playing poker, I finally have my first celebrity bad beat story. I was at the Rio in Las Vegas at a little past midnight on the first Sunday of the 2005 WSOP. I was sitting at a $170 satellite table waiting for more people to join, when James Woods walks up. I ask him to join us, since I had heard about his poker play and enjoy him as an actor. He is an extremely friendly individual (“call me Jimmy”), not snobbish like some other celebrities I met while working in Hollywood in the late 1970’s. He chatted with us affably, though he let his irritation show with some of the inane talk directed at him by a British Pro playing in seat three. I gave him my business card for my new website, www.MerlinsGameRoom.com and told him I had just become an affiliate with Hollywood Poker, his online gaming venture with Vince van Patten. I must admit he is a better player than I expected, but after you read my story you will know why I have renamed him "Lucky Jack."

I started the tourney in seat two with Jimmy in seat five. About 45 minutes into the game, with a couple players already gone (one the obnoxious British Pro), I announce All In after the short stacked player in seat one shoves all his chips forward. Jimmy follows suit showing Ace – Jack, while the other fellow has Ace – 4. I turn over my pair of 8s, feeling pretty good knowing I have a 57% statistical edge for the coming race situation. The flop shows a Jack and I get no help the rest of the way. One player out, I lost half my stack and Jimmie nearly triples up. That was his first “Lucky Jack.”

Forty-five minutes later I have built my stack back up. There are five of us remaining and our stacks are within $300 of each other. I look down and find I am holding an unsuited Ace – Queen.  With Jimmie on the big blind, I raise him. This is a calculated raise, because while talking earlier, he said he normally will go All In if someone appears to be trying to steal his blinds. Planning on him going All In, as he did, I called. Again, his unsuited King – Jack should have been a nearly a 3-2 dawg. The flop or turn did not help either of us. On the river, a Jack pops up. With a second suck out, I am out of the tourney and Jimmy is jumping up and doing a little "I am a Poker God" dance.

I enjoyed the experience of playing against Jimmy and hope that I run into him again. This time, however, I want to outplay him again and hopefully out-draw him, too: Then he will have his bad beat story with me in the lead, and I can return the “I am a Poker God” dance.