Poker News / Short-Stacked Shamus / 22 October 2010 / Leave a Comment

"Neighbor, you sure have a funny way of saying things."

So said "Amarillo Slim" Preston to a reporter from England during the heads-up portion of the 1973 World Series of Poker Main Event. The two were among the crowd watching Walter Clyde "Puggy" Pearson battle Johnny Moss for the title and winner-take-all $130,000 first prize.

Comparatively speaking, the 1973 WSOP Main Event is one of the most thoroughly documented of all the WSOPs from the Series' first decade, making it not too difficult to track down details of what was an especially dramatic tournament, including a lot of wild back-and-forth swings occurring during heads-up play.

The WSOP's first three years (1970-1972) had passed in relative obscurity. But following Preston's win in '72 he made the publicity rounds, including appearing on "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson." By the following year press from all over the world would travel to Binion's Horseshoe Casino to report on what had become the world's largest poker tournament. In fact, CBS even filmed a documentary on the '73 ME which would later air during its weekly "Sports Spectacular" program, giving the public a first-hand look at the event.

Among those there in 1973 was the American writer Jon Bradshaw. His account of the final table -- as well as of some of the chatter from the rail -- appears in his riveting collection of essays about gamblers titled Fast Company, first published in 1975. Bradshaw's book doesn't get as much attention as do other "classics" of poker writing, perhaps because it doesn't solely focus on poker but other kinds of gambling, too. Still, I highly recommend it to those who enjoy inspired accounts of some of poker's more remarkable characters.

It is Bradshaw who reports the conversation between Amarillo Slim and the English journalist. After having been on the brink of elimination, some good fortune in the form of a lucky river card had enabled the 67-year-old Moss to pull back even with his much younger opponent. That's when -- reports Bradshaw -- Preston turned and asked the reporter what he thought was going to happen.

"Well, I don't know who will win," said the Englishman to Preston in response. "But I see this as a classic confrontation between the old sentimental hero come back against a man emanating killer death-rays. I see Johnny as the gentle giant about to do battle with Pug, who is one step removed from Cro-Magnon man."

Preston was probably right to wonder what exactly the journalist was getting at, likening Pearson to a primitive being capable of shooting "killer death-rays"? Erm, okay....

Play continued into the night, with Moss and Pearson remaining fairly even in chips. That's when Preston made his own attempt at describing what they all were witnessing.

"Gawd," said Preston, whispering his comment to Bradshaw. "This began as a gentleman's game, became an oil-man's game, and now it's the kind of game only South American dictators in exile can afford to be in. Now, neighbor, that's real high poker."

As you can see, Preston also had a funny way of saying things. Although I think his string of analogies is ultimately more penetrable than was the reporter's observation.

Thanks in part to the fact that the tourney was being played winner-take-all (as would be the case at the WSOP Main Event until 1978), Preston was right to point out that the relative "stakes" for which they were playing had progressively risen since the tourney had begun. Instead of 13 players starting with $10,000 each in front of him, two now sat with stacks both around $65,000.

And, if you think about it, the distinctive manner in which Preston chose to make his observation genuinely helps convey the idea in a way that sticks with his audience, while also communicating something further about the colorful persona Preston routinely projected back then during the height of his celebrity.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the relative value of the written word, particularly in the context of reporting on or discussing poker. Technological advances have meant we now live in a world in which writing -- and reading -- tends to happen less and less frequently. Especially here on the internet, most tend to gather information via streaming video, photographs, or perhaps audio, only rarely slowing down long enough to read through a lengthy article.

Indeed -- not to be overly self-reflexive, here -- but I think it is safe to say that by making it this far in a column you have probably distinguished yourself from many web surfers more apt to confine their reading to short 140-character bursts on Twitter.

That said, I still believe that certain ideas are still best conveyed via language, not pictures (moving or otherwise). Take that 1973 heads-up battle, for instance.

The CBS documentary of that year's Main Event, narrated by Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder, is fascinating to watch. (Hunt around on the internet -- you can find it without too much fuss.)

While obviously not up to the standard of today's poker TV -- no hole card cams, minimal editing, little variety in shots -- one nonetheless does get a feel for the intimate, even claustrophobic atmosphere there at Binion's in which the players were competing. And really, the documentary is a wonderful chronicle of the event, a remarkable achievement all things considered.

Even so, reading through Bradshaw's lengthy, detailed account of the '73 ME -- presented in the context of a broader character study of Moss -- relates something of greater depth than can be viewed in the documentary. Knowing details of Moss' ramblin' gamblin' past, his views on winning and losing, and his complicated value system, the reader gains a much more thorough understanding of what is happening beyond the cards that are being dealt. An earlier chapter in Fast Company focusing on Pearson gives the reader still more to contemplate, making him or her much better equipped to appreciate the many nuances of the "classic confrontation" between young and old playing out between the two.

As Pearson takes the advantage, Bradshaw notes "there was something savage in his play, a cold-bloodedness," adding that "the crowd's sympathies swung to Johnny." Of course, just a couple of pages before Bradshaw had quoted Moss saying how one time a doctor told him he'd have heart trouble when he was older, and Moss had replied "Not me, doc. I don't have no heart."

Both players were highly motivated -- Moss more so by the cash, Pearson by the glory of winning. Both were also highly skilled, crafty poker players whose deep reserves of intellect and guile confirmed they deserved to be sitting opposite one another, competing for what was then the richest prize in poker. And in my opinion, Bradshaw's account transports us back to that smoky, cramped poker room much more thoroughly than even a dozen cameras -- including a couple trained on the players' hole cards -- ever could. (Pearson would ultimately prevail, though Moss would be back, claiming the third of his three ME titles the following year.)

The fact is, sometimes a "funny way of saying things" can be better than a straightforward report, using the many tools of language to tease out meanings and insights that are difficult if not impossible to convey otherwise.

Of course, you want to use care when piling on those metaphors. Having cavemen firing death-rays might distract your reader from appreciating that great observation you're trying to make.

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