Poker night with a few close friends

So now that I've paid service to my masters and the column is in print, I feel at liberty to regale you with the tale of how I became the Grand Prize Winner in Lotus and The Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa's First Annual NYC Poker Championship.

This all came about when a coworker was invited to the event by someone at Absolut, one of the sponsors. She figured I might get something there for my column and suggested we go. I said sure, not realizing that she'd actually sign me up to play. As I've said before, I'm not a gambling man. I have enough troubles with my alcoholism, the last thing I need to do is get involved with losing money on cards, horses, ponies or hooker fights.

And I'm particularly bad at Texas Hold 'Em. Prior to the event, I'd played once in real life with Karol, Jessica, Ari, Lisa and others. They trounced me. (But this was immediately after housing Jessica et. al in the chili cookoff so no big deal.) Other than that, the only time I've played Texas Hold 'Em was on my kid's gameboy during the Christmas break.

But I figured, what the hell. I won't be playing with my own money. I'll show up, get some free drinks, free food, get knocked out early and devote my efforts to eavesdropping or celebrity stalking. After all, that gossip column isn't going to fill itself up if I sit in my house downloading porn, now is it?

So we arrived at Lotus, my coworker and I, and I signed in and, drawing a blank on a worthy charity and figuring I was going to lose, I just wrote down American Red Cross. Then we started in on the free drinks. Normally a Jack Daniels man, I felt beholden to the event sponsor and decided to drink Absolut rocks for the duration. Serious poker players, of course, don't play drunk. A serious poker player, I ain't. And to prove this, I made my way to a back room where Borgata dealers were giving lessons in Texas Hold 'Em. This served to boost my confidence, not because they taught me anything the aforementioned girls hadn't already taught me, but because there were people asking questions like "Is a King a good thing?" and "So when's the Go Fish part happen?"

I then positioned myself near the kitchen door so I could grab all the good hors d'ouevres. There, my coworker and I ate meat on sticks and spring rolls, gossiped about other coworkers and came to the realization we had no idea who the folks were who had cameras and autograph seekers around them. (This happened with Irv Gotti, founder of Murder Inc.)

And then came time to play. I was at Table 15, upstairs, in the back. Seating was supposedly random, but I couldn't get over the feeling that I'd been stuck at the amateur table. Then my fellow players started showing up. One chomped on a cigar. Another was wearing leather pants and a poofy pirate shirt. Another sipped club soda from a champagne glass. And it was quite obvious they weren't there to dick around. There were 9 of us at this table. A total of 135 people were playing. Each started with $2,000 in chips. At the beginning of the action, blinds were $25 and $50.

I didn't bet for the first two hands. That's very unlike me, especially when playing with fake money and after I've had a few drinks in me. But they were crappy cards and I felt way out of my league. Then I started betting small. At one point I bet at the wrong time or did something that clearly marked me an amateur, because two of the serious guys smirked and shook their heads. The very next hand, I was dealt a couple of hearts. And the flop came up hearts. And, despite the booze, I became really, really nervous. And started betting. And won the hand, causing one of the serious guys to lean into the other guy and whisper "Can you believe that shit?"

Oh, if only he knew at that point how much shit there would be to be believed by the end of the night.

Then they broke us up. Nine losers had gone out at the downstairs table, so they sent us to the empty spots. I pulled up a c hair at my new table, sorted my chips and ordered another drink. I'll say this much about the drink service that night-it was a hell of a lot better than when you're playing the quarter slots at a reservation casino down in Louisiana. I was two hands in on the new table before I looked around to check out my new enemies. Among them was the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman and while I've found myself at dinner tables with Tony Bennett, Candace Bushnell, Joan Collins and Shannon Doherty, my first thought in these situations is still: "Hey, that's pretty damn cool." And then, "Don't stare." Eventually, though, Hoffman had to leave, as he was sitting in the presence of Pure Poker Talent Amazingly Stupid Luck.

Someone asked me last week the details of my hands, or of my winning hands. But I can't help anyone with that. After the first hour and a half, the night became a blur of colorful chips and clear liquor. At one point, I was shifted to another table.

Then it happened. The guy with the microphone said, "Ladies and gentleman, take a break, we'll be moving down to the last two tables."

There I was, one of the last 18 people. There was a television camera there. And folks started concentrating around those two tables. Usually, I might get nervous in a situation like that, but I had enough Absolut in me to quell any anxiety and, besides, I was in the zone. No, not the poker zone. Rather, the "this is just too fucking retarded" zone. Here I was, after expecting to last fifteen minutes tops, two and a half, three hours later at one of the last two tables. I'm sure I had a dopey grin going from ear to ear, just about to pop from being able to tell Karol and Dawn and Jessica and all those fools how good I'd done in the poker tournament.

And I saw the end was near. The guys at that second to last table cut into my chips pretty fast. As did the $5,000 blinds.

So I found myself with $9,000 in chips, a $5,000 blind and a 3 and a 4. I heard my inner Nick Nolte say, "Ahhhhh, fuck it." I went all in. Before the flop. I could literally hear the heads shaking behind me.

And I pulled a straight.

The guy on the mic, if I remember correctly, announced something to the effect of: "Oh, ladies and gentlemen, he takes the table after going all in on a 3 and 4."

And then, after being handed about seven pounds worth of chips, the last three of us were told to move it on over. To the last table. I was frantically trying to round up my chips. Feeling drunk. Feeling the pressure. Then one of the guys from Borgata came over-that night's equivalent of a pit boss, maybe-and said, "I'll take care of that sir."

For a split second, I squinted my eyes and bared my teeth and thought about saying, "Git yer filthy hands off my chips, boy." But I didn't. As it was, I'd already dropped one on the floor that went rolling off to god knows where and was thinking, "That could come back to bite me in the ass."

So it was to the last table. And there I found two of the card sharks from my very first table. And Chris Gotti. And some other guys. A couple of girls came and stood behind me. "We don't know who you are, but we're going to pull for you." I was flattered, but too drunk to care.

And I pulled another big hand. Then there were three, by which point, I had enough chips to sort of bully them out.

And that was it.

My dumb ass won the tournament. And a big fake check. And a little trophy. And a nine-seat poker table from Borgata, which I left at Lotus and have yet to pick up.

I made only a few drunken phone calls, mostly consisting of "Big Check" and "Can you believe this shit?" and "Holy fucking crap." Oh, yes, I'm nothing if not well-spoken during times of excitement. But really, you'da thought I'd won the Super Bowl or cured cancer or something.

I wish I could give the poker fans a clear picture of what went down, but it was all such a blur, partly because of the excitement, partly because I'm not a poker player and therefore wasn't keeping track of hands, and mostly because I was drunk. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised, if there's a tape of this, to find that I pulled a full house rather than a straight when I went all in on a 3 and a 4. All I know was that at the end of the night, I was staring at a pile of chips probably worth at least twice what I make in a year. I wouldn't know, though, because as the man once said, you never count your money, when you're sitting at the table. (But they didn't give me any time for countin' when the dealing was done.)

But that's the end of that story, well except for the bragging and the Page Six mention and taking up half my column with part of the story. So your humble, non-poker playing narrator bested the crowd.

All I know is that I've been wrangled, through work, into running the New York City Marathon this year and Hendrik Ramaala better watch his back.