{"id":1717,"date":"2025-02-04T19:43:29","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T03:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stand77.biz\/category\/casino-resorts\/winners-and-losers-amateur-hour-and-when-to-accept-youre-a-fish\/"},"modified":"2025-02-04T19:43:29","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T03:43:29","slug":"winners-and-losers-amateur-hour-and-when-to-accept-youre-a-fish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stand77.biz\/category\/casino-resorts\/winners-and-losers-amateur-hour-and-when-to-accept-youre-a-fish\/","title":{"rendered":"Winners And Losers: Amateur Hour And When To Accept You’re A Fish"},"content":{"rendered":"

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As news broke about a Supreme Court lawyer, indicted for charges that include making false statements to mortgage lenders in regard to poker winnings and failure to report poker winnings to the IRS<\/span><\/span><\/a>, I did a bit of snooping.<\/p>\n

I found something that made me nostalgic for the days of the poker boom.<\/p>\n

It was a gossipy 2008 Washington Post<\/em> story<\/a> in which the lawyer in question, a guy by the name of Tom Goldstein, was giddily referred to as a \u201chigh roller poker maniac.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, it was meant as a compliment to the full-time lawyer who played in high-stakes games alongside pros and sold his life story to Sony Pictures Television.<\/p>\n

Goldstein might be completely innocent of the charges \u2013 as per Bloomberg Businessweek<\/em>. His lawyers have said that he will \u201cvigorously contest\u201d the charges<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"ThomasAnd he might even be a winning poker player, but this story does make me think of other \u201chigh roller poker maniacs\u201d and how tough it is for amateurs to win money when swimming with serious sharks.<\/p>\n

Where the amateurs are concerned, I remember guys like Alan Meltzer, Jerry Buss, and Hustler<\/em> magazine founder and casino owner Larry Flynt.<\/p>\n

Pros were so eager to play Flynt, that they weathered the frigid temperatures of his Bel Air mansion. (Barry Greenstein went so far as to wear thermal underwear to the games.)<\/p>\n

As a music industry entrepreneur, Meltzer made a fortune in the business of CD distribution and, whether he liked it or not, he also distributed his hard-earned cash to young and hungry Las Vegas poker pros.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlayers used to say I was good for the game,\u201d Meltzer, now deceased<\/a>, told me when I interviewed him for a story on amateurs taking on high-stakes professionals. \u201cThey couldn\u2019t wait to sit down with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AlanThat\u2019s not a good thing and, from what I understood, their feelings toward him never became a past-tense situation. But he was a good loser and kind enough to fly around his opponents on a private jet.<\/p>\n

He called it Air Meltzer and once gave David \u201cViffer\u201d Peat<\/a> and I a flight to Teterboro Airport. Meltzer even provided me with a limo from the runway to my house.<\/p>\n

En route to Teterboro, he regaled me with tales about bluffing Brian Rast and rivering Johnny Chan.<\/p>\n

But when I asked him about his profits overall, he was honest enough to reply, \u201cI\u2019m not going to boast that I\u2019m a winning poker player.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, I knew what that meant.<\/p>\n

Accepting You\u2019re a Fish<\/strong><\/p>\n

None of this is to say that I am very far above the Meltzers of the world.<\/p>\n

There was a time when I too became enamored with the game, and I spent more nights than I should have at the tables of a venerable, quasi-legal poker club called the Mayfair in Manhattan.<\/p>\n

My losses were financially modest but emotionally brutal.<\/p>\n

One night I played in a game with the man who inspired the Joey Knish character in Rounders<\/em>. If Joel \u2018Bagels\u2019 Rosenberg (as the real-life iteration was known) didn\u2019t clean my clock, he could have.<\/p>\n

\"AndrewAnother time I was at the table with a Russian who beat me on a hand and sneered, \u201cI read you like a simple novel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon after, he did exactly that, telling me what I had before I turned over my losing hand.<\/p>\n

Able to relate to the Meltzers of the world \u2013 albeit, at lower stakes, against players who were far from the likes of Chan \u2013 I remember covering a WSOP<\/span><\/span><\/em> during the aughts, chatting with high-stakes cash crusher Andrew Robl, and having an unrecognized guy approach us and greet me by name.<\/p>\n

I had no idea who he was. Then he said that we played together at the Mayfair. I expressed confusion as to how he could possibly remember me.<\/p>\n

Knowing the guy, and knowing he was a fairly serious player, Robl howled with delight and resolved my uncertainty by saying, \u201cYou never forget a fish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initially embarrassed, I am now happy it happened. Nobody wants to be called a fish more than once and, if you\u2019re me, you do everything you can to ensure that it does not happen again.<\/p>\n

\"\" Michael Kaplan is a journalist based in New York City. He is the author of five books (\u201cThe Advantage Players\u201d out soon) and has worked for publications that include Wired, GQ and the New York Post. He has written extensively on technology, gambling, and business \u2014 with a particular interest in spots where all three intersect. His article on Kelly \u201cBaccarat Machine\u201d Sun and Phil Ivey is currently in development as a feature film.<\/em><\/p>\n

*Photos \u2013 Wikicommons via Legaleagle22, PokerGO<\/em><\/p>\n

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