Coming Down in Gardena

All the big guns were there— "Jolly Roger Funsmith," Doyle "Texas Dolly" Brunson, Jimmy "Fury" Cassella, Jack "The Tall Man" Strauss, Bobby "The Wizard" Hoff, Aubrey "All Day" Day, "Iron Man Smith" and Thomas Austin "Amarillo Slim" Preston, Jr. Months of ballyhoo promoting the world's richest poker tournament had attracted 16 contestants to a claustrophobic alcove at Binion's Horseshoe Casino in downtown Las Vegas, most of them professional gamblers with Runyonesque pedigrees. Each was risking a $10,000 stake for the $160,000 prize waiting at the conclusion of the fifth annual winner-take-all marathon. They were playing a variation of seven-card stud called hold 'em, in which each player receives two down cards—on which he may bet or check—then three common cards dealt face up in the center of the table that provoke a second betting interval, followed by a fourth card face up and more betting and, finally, a fifth card face up and one more opportunity to bet. Winning hands were determined by combining any three of the five exposed cards with the two cards in the hole. It was a no-limit game that encouraged healthy wagers, while relying upon total concentration, sufficient stamina to endure grueling seven-P.M.-to-three-A.M. sessions and—most importantly—the critical ability to know how and when to bluff.

By the third night of last spring's competition, only five of the original field remained at the oval table situated beneath twin ornate chandeliers. Every scratch, squirm, twitch and move they made was dissected by the sort of absorbed audience one would expect to find watching a demonstration at a medical-school amphitheater. On one side, impulsive side bets and intricate analyses of each hand buzzed through three rows of bleachers occupied by some of the good ole boys (continued on page 116)Showdown in Vegas(continued from page 114) vanquished earlier. Dominating this group was Amarillo Slim, the publicity-conscious winner of $60,000 in the 1972 tournament. His velvet-lapeled, Westerncut tuxedo, ruffled-front shirt, flashing sapphire pinkie ring, patent-leather cowboy boots and pearl-gray Stetson tilted back on his high forehead were, shall we say, hard to miss. One of the pros was taunting him about being eliminated, two days earlier, in the first round.

"Jimmy the Greek says you ain't no better than diddly-squat as a poker player," he said, referring to the Vegas-based odds maker who with Jack Binion devised the rules for the game in progress.

A crooked grin creased Slim's weathered face. "You tell Jimmy the Greek this," he replied, measuring his words for maximum impact. "If he keeps talkin' about me like that, I'm gonna put some arsenic in his old lady's douche bag and kill 'im colder 'n a mackerel."

Consigned to raised bleachers directly across the room, a bevy of lipsticked, rouged, lacquered, wigged, big-cleavaged poker groupies gamely tried to follow the tide of chips flowing across green felt. But much of the time, like indolent Sweet Charity hookers, they were primping with tortoise-shell compact mirrors or scanning newspaper headlines reading: "S.L.A. Massacred by Cops in Shoot-out." To their immediate right, partially hidden by a row of casino officials, fistfuls of $100 bills were changing hands in games of razz—a version of seven-card lowball. The gamblers involved at these heretic tables apparently couldn't care less about the main event a few feet away.

To the groupies' left stood a gallery numbering several hundred. Among this rapt cross section of humanity, segregated four deep behind velvet-rope barriers, were geriatric couples who conceivably could have modeled for Grant Wood and farm-fresh gamins with saucer eyes straight out of Keane canvases, along with toothpick-chewing, tattooed cow-boys in Levis and armpit-damp T-shirts. And gawking tourists in aloha shirts whose jaws dropped in anticipation rose for a better view whenever one of the five survivors steered substantial stacks of chips into the pot. If Las Vegas had a subway system, these would be the passengers.

From among them bolted what appeared to be a wizened prospector, making a vain attempt to muscle past one of the armed guards stationed at the playing-area entrance. "I've been comin' here for 40 goddamned years, you son of a bitch," he bellowed through yellow teeth, while being hustled away.

If any of the players heard this commotion, they never acknowledged it. Their eyes, as they had been for hours, were riveted on the table. Texas Johnny Moss, a 67-year-old grandfather who takes on all comers at the nearby Aladdin Hotel and was the winner of two previous championships, wiped his moist hands with a towel while waiting out a hand. Baggy-eyed Sid Wyman, who was associated with Strip hotels when Vegas was in its infancy, kept fingering the corners of his hole cards before dropping out. Bryan "Sailor" Roberts, barely visible behind towers of chips representing $75,000, nervously rubbed his shmoo-shaped belly against the table while contemplating a $5000 call. Well-traveled Jesse Alto, born in Mexico of Lebanese parents and raised in Israel, somberly drank black coffee from a glass wrapped with a paper napkin. And then there was Crandell Addington, a 36-year-old Texas commodity speculator and real-estate developer, puffing on a seven-inch-long, hand-rolled Brazilian panatela as he awaited Sailor's decision. His searching eyes were barely visible beneath the brim of his $100 plantation owner's Stetson.

Sailor chose not to call Addington's $5000 bet and the gallery reacted with a muted bray of boos.

"You got no guts, Sailor," heckled one of them, watching him toss in his cards and grasp $300 worth of chips for the next ante. Just to rub it in, Addington flicked over useless hole cards—proving that he was bluffing.

For those intently following the early hours of combat, there persisted a blur of fingers tapping on felt, packs of cards being torn up and replaced with fresh decks, the inexorable exchange of neatly stacked chips, diamond rings flashing like prisms and a polluted haze of cigar smoke that called for periodic applications of Murine.

As counterpoint to the repetitive shuffling, dealing, betting, staring, folding and stacking, interlopers trying to share some of the big-event limelight provided incongruous distractions. First it was Bobby Riggs bounding into the card room, trailed by several of his retinue. In case you shouldn't recognize him, Riggs was wearing white shorts, sweat socks, sneakers, sun visor and a blue sweater advertising the Tropicana Hotel, where he is employed as resident pro. It was strange attire for ten in the evening, even in Las Vegas. Within minutes, Riggs was whispering in the ear of a kibitzing gambler, hustling a backgammon game that would involve a well-heeled pigeon the following afternoon. Nobody at the table turned to acknowledge his presence.

Two hours later, preceded by a surreal glow of hot color-television lights and accompanied by his own legions of cameramen, sound technicians, cable carriers and boom operators, cleft-chinned Tomorrow host Tom Snyder staked out a position no more than six feet from the table. Using the players as background, waving a microphone back and forth like a wand, he exchanged small talk with various Vegas panjandrums. Snyder's presence was also largely ignored by the players.

By midnight, Alto and Wyman had tapped out—each leaving the premises shaking his head and flashing a rictal grin to perfunctory applause. Their departure left Sailor comfortably ahead, entrenched behind $100,000 worth of chips deployed like the Maginot line.

"Sailor is bound to win," predicted Larry Perkins, a lowball expert. "He has better judgment and he's extremely aggressive. Besides, he's too far ahead."

At frequent intervals during the next several hours, Addington bulldozed all of his diminishing chips toward the center of the table, gutsy moves invariably accompanied by expressions of astonishment from the onlookers.

"He's all in!" they would murmur, edging forward for a better view of his potential demise.

Yet, somehow, he always managed to wriggle free. Superior poker players win more pots with bluffs than with solid hands—and that's exactly what Addington was doing.

When the third day of play ended at three A.M., Sailor counted up $89,900 worth of chips. Moss checked in with $49,900, virtually the same sum he was holding eight hours earlier. Addington trailed with $20,200.

"Well, I made it through the night." he sighed, rising from the table and yawning widely.

Sailor Roberts, astonishingly, failed to make it through the first 80 minutes of the following day. Shortly after the first hand was dealt at 11 A.M., Addington pushed in the remainder of his $20,200 stake on the last card—and Sailor, after anguishing minutes of soul-searching, failed to call. The same pattern occurred repeatedly, until Sailor's stack had diminished by one half. When he finally felt confident enough to call Addington's most formidable bet—a $50,000 gamble – his aces and fours lost to a straight, and Sailor was busted.

That left Addington and Moss to square off head to head. Their styles of play were as different as their personalities. Moss was all business, a shrewd, seasoned professional gambler for 50 years. He played more conservatively, preferring to snare smaller but surer pots—rather than opting for riskier bigbet temptations. As one expert observer put it, "He'll call you out of your mind, especially at the beginning, just to see what you're doing." His spectacles and receded gray hairline were reminiscent of a more famous Texan, Lyndon Johnson. If there was one idiosyncrasy that distinguished Moss from his colleagues, it was the busy handkerchief constantly (concluded on page 231)Showdown in Vegas(continued from page 116) blotting beady perspiration from his forehead.

Addington, on the other hand, was always the epitome of cool—seemingly incapable of sweating. His more flamboyant, bluffing style had made him the charismatic darling of the gallery. He looked like the Mississippi riverboat gambler in Hollywood's version of Show Boat. He wore a gold identification bracelet and a gold Patek Philippe watch on either wrist, gold and diamond rings, a diamond tie tack in his Cassini tie and—between hands, at least—a winsome, dimpled smile. His fresh manicure twinkled in the overhead lights.

Addington liteup another of the Suerdieck Caballeros he had brought from San Antonio, stuffed it into the corner of his mouth and the showdown was under way. Moss was holding only $53,000. But during the next four hours, he relentlessly nibbled away at Addington's $107,000 stock pile by forcing his opponent out of the more modest pots and successfully calling many bluffs. In the face of these reversals. Addington resorted to intensified psychological tactics. Each time Moss contemplated a critical bet, he was confronted with searing, combative stares lasting as long as several minutes. But Moss never blinked. When Addington ran out of cigars, thus eliminating another subtle weapon, he switched to sipping glasses of Fresca and chewing on melting ice cubes. But it wasn't the same.

The denouement came at 4:35 P.M., 29 hours and 35 minutes of playing after the tournament began. Each player anted $1000. Moss looked at his two hole cards and bet $3000. Addington called. The dealer turned up the three of diamonds, nine of clubs and ten of clubs. Moss bet another $4000, an indication of strength. Addington pondered his two hole cards. Then, in one emphatic gesture, he shoved all of his remaining chips into the pot, exactly as he'd done so many times before. But this time, he was betting $52,000. Every bleacherite immediately bolted upright from his seat. Gasps were heard among those straining behind the velvet ropes. Was Addington bluffing again or did he really have something? Would Moss fold his hand and absorb an $8000 loss, rather than gambling an additional $48,000? The stuffy room was suffused with an ominous silence. Moss pinched his watery blue eyes, already red from fatigue. Addington clenched his teeth, activating spasms in both cheek muscles.

"I got the best hand, Crandell," said Moss, softly, enriching the pot to $112,000 as he called the bet.

The dealer methodically turned up a queen of spades and a red nine. Addington's shoulders seemed to sag. His two hole cards were the ace and two of clubs. Together with the two clubs on the table, he had been holding a bobtailed flush—needing another club on one of the final two cards. It was all over. He had missed his flush. Moss, who was sitting with the three of clubs and the three of hearts in the hole, held the winning hand—three treys embellished by a superfluous pair of nines, making an unbeatable full house.

A thunderclap of applause accompanied by hoarse cheering brought both players to their feet for a friendly handshake.

"Any cardplayer would have made the same bet as Crandell," Moss said, savoring victory with a glass of Piper-Heidsieck. "But I knew I had him. Shit, I could have killed him in seven different ways."

"What happened to your hat?" asked one of the reporters present.

"I left it back in my room." Addington replied. "The fact that I wasn't wearing it was just an angle for the other players to be thinking about."

Moss was posing for flashbulbing photographers, holding a gleaming silver loving cup spilling over with $160,000 in new $100 bills.

Watching wistfully from the side lines. Addington shrugged and said, "Well, I got him out every time but the last one."