Thinking back...

Ahh... the loosely regulated “Good old days”, I remember during a early 70s WSOP, I walked into the cardroom at the “Shoe” on my day off from dealing, when the floor man asked me to deal a game during a busier than anticipated period because they were short dealers. But, only until the dealer he had called came in, he assured me, since I had really come in to play, not deal!

I happened to be wearing a shirt without a pocket. No problem… I improvised by placing each toke I received into the empty lower corner of the chip rack, intending to retrieve them when relived. When a relief dealer finally gave me the finger across the back signal, I thanked the players, (even, of course, including the one or two stiffs in the game) gave the customary hand clap, palms forward gesture, stood up and stepped away from the table. Suddenly remembering my tokes in the rack, I stepped back, reached around the seated dealer and removed the chips from the corner of the rack and placed them in my pants pocket. It was only then that I saw Benny Binion standing directly behind the dealers chair. Well, you should of seen the look on his face when he saw “that move”. All I could think of, was the stories about what happened to less than scrupulous dealers in the Horseshoe basement, more specifically what happened to their knuckles!  Fortunately however, Benny did a double take, took one look at the rack, then at my shirt, shrugged his shoulders, shook his head and walked away ….. WHEW!!!!!!

Another Chicken Man story…

One night Chicken and a friend drove from Chicken’s farm to a No-Limit Hold-em game about 100 miles away. On this night their opponents made all their draws, while Chicken and his friend missed all of theirs. Between the two of them, they had Ace’s cracked five times and were served food that was not fit for the pigs the game proprietor kept out back.

Upon their return drive home with chicken at the wheel, his friend, who was asleep in the passenger’s seat, suddenly awoke to find Chicken driving up hill near the crest on the wrong side of the road. “What the hell are you doing?” he friend panicky shrieked.  Chicken answered “I just wanted to see if our luck had changed!”

(see other Chicken Man story here July 22, 2006)