But first an update from Tuscany...

Florence is a special place; if you have the chance to visit Italy, spend some time there. The city is carpeted with churches, towers and museums and as you walk around, it feels like you’re an extra in a Jason Bourne movie. At any moment, Matt Damon could hurtle around the corner in a stolen taxi pursued by polizia intent on delivering him to the local CIA field office and plow through a bread cart or a handbag vendor. Who wouldn’t want to see that?

Where’s Bourne?



If your budget can take the pounding, I recommend the Four Seasons Florence. The property, service and food are all among the best I’ve ever experienced and I’ve had the good fortune to stay at some nice hotels. When I finally commit to moving out of the Holiday Inn Downtown Fresno, I intend to renovate a house in the exact same style. When ya’ll come over to visit, you’re gonna like it.

Let’s relax for a while.



In Florence, we visited the Duomo, the main cathedral; the home of Dante Alighieri, the poet who wrote the Divine Comedy; the Palazzo Vecchio, the Medicis’ palatial City Hall (the bankers ran this town for centuries), and several other random buildings. We ate in the quaint pizzerias that punctuate the city, trying local pizza, pastas and wine. And gelato. In Florence, gelaterias are more prevalent than stop signs and certainly more effective in slowing traffic. While pretty much everyone we saw was carrying a cone or dish of this indulgence, no one is overweight, at least by US standards. The obvious conclusion is that Nathan Pritikin never spent time in Italy.

Mangiamo!



On the last day, we walked to the Pitti Palace, an imposing palace built the Medicis’ rivals and wandered through one of the more impressive art collections in the world. On the way back to the hotel, I insisted on climbing the Giotto bell tower, what I thought was the tallest tower in the city. Four hundred and fourteen steps later, I emerged on the roof, came to grips with vertigo, the spectacular views and my faulty research.

Bastards!



On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a market that stands on a major spot of Florentine commerce a few hundred years prior. There’s a tile marked with an X in the middle of the market where supposedly bankrupt merchants were dropped to their death from the ceiling as an incentive for other merchants to stay solvent. Election year politics aside, I think it would be an interesting solution to the current sub-prime loan crisis.

The view before impact



After three days in Florence, we took a cab to Buchine, the site of the Borgo Iesolana, a 10-room villa/vineyard where my wife could bond with her yoga friends and I could mourn my wounded balance sheet. While everyone else is finding inner peace, I’m lounging by the pool until some burly Italian woman yells “Mangiamo!” and I can justify opening another bottle of the vineyard’s exceptional red wine.

I'll be in my office...



We eat our meals as a group, and for a misanthrope like me, this is a challenge. Most of the participants are humble with their friendship and hospitality, but a couple of the women have decided that I’m an interesting conversationalist. In reality, I’m just making off-hand comments to combat their blather and struggling to keep from pelting them with bread chunks. My alternatives for dinner conversation have pretty much narrowed down to a pair of wishful thinkers that think every Italian man lusts for them or a cluster of aspiring yoginis fascinated with asanas, fish oils and colonics.

It appears to be an educated group, but they use the word “amazing” like Italians use olive oil. The pasta’s “amazing.” The view “amazing.” The wine is “amazing.” And the yoga, of course, is “amazing.” Come on, people, fire a brain synapse and come up with another word. That said, there are a couple of things here that are truly amazing—the internet service is only open from 8:30a to 7:30p (WTF?) and after two days of a vegetarian diet, I haven’t taken it upon myself to kill something. Amazing.

I’ll be honest, I’m ready for this pacifistic tour of duty to end so I can get back to flushing 3/6 kill players from the Fresno weeds and propping our bar which, given the daily numbers I’ve seen, has become a ghost town in my absence. Either that or the staff has forgotten how to use the register. In the spirit of forgiveness that surrounds me here, I’ll give the bartenders the benefit of the doubt and assume that the Club One bar is just not as fun without me in-house encouraging a heavy pour. In any event, I’m anxious to get back and will manage my homesickness by recounting the tail end of the CVPC series below.

The Last Desperate Days of the CVPC

As I recapped last time, the celebrity event was a solid success despite the “pros” inability to locate the final table. We had a nice turnout and the Club One regulars had fun brushing up to the greatness we know as shaundeeb, Adanthar and TT and taking their money. On Saturday, our Main Event was slated to start at the poker-unfriendly hour of 12:15p (a lapse of judgment by yours truly), yet we still managed to draw over 100 players from all over the state.

When we have new folks in the building, we like to throw as much stimulation as possible at them and this Saturday was no different. We had the CVPC Main Event during the day, the UFC 87 – Seek and Destroy PPV fight featuring George St.-Pierre vs Jon Fitch, on tap for the evening and some sort of karaoke/dance event in our banquet room to take us into last call.

For good measure, we intended to throw some Bud Light girls and a trio of lookers from Jack Daniels at the gathering. When the Brown-Foreman rep agreed to send the Jack Daniels ambassadors she did so with the following caveat: “You’ll need to promote Jack Daniels.” Uh, let me get this right…at no cost to us, you’ll send hotties to help do what I’ve done for years, by myself? Ok, hon, I won’t let you down.

Can we interest you in a Jack and Coke?



The Main Event

The CVPC finale, Event #7, the $50,000 Guaranteed Main Event, drew 125 entrants and a prize pool of $56,250. Shaundeeb, Adanthar, Jose all entered and again proved themselves incapable of plucking fruit from the branches I pulled down. Deeb and Adanthar routinely thrash fields of 2000+ hardened online multi-tablers. Here I set them up with 200 bets to start and neither could work his way past 125 live tournament players?

Both online ringers were out faster than a short stack in a Full Tilt re-buy and Canseco and his girlfriend Heidi followed shortly thereafter. The Grand Dames Barbara and Marsha played 15/30 until dawn the night before—both took a pass on the Main Event in favor of sleep.

The crowd and tournament favorites...briefly





Once busto, Deeb nonchalantly camped out in our 15/30 kill game with about 10-15 tournament tables running on his laptop. We set him up close to an outlet and rolled out a tray so he’d feel at home. TT joined him in the game and Adanthar hovered around to help him balance the online and offline load. Later after they left town, other 15/30 players asked me if it was ok to bring laptops to the cardroom.

“Of course not. I’d chase you into the street with a stick.”
“But you let them.”
“I have no recollection of that.”
“But there are pictures!”
“Photoshopped, obv.”

Those are called chips. We bet with them.



As I mentioned in Part II, Jose was gracious even though he took an early exit from the Main Event. When I bust from a tournament, my first thought is to burn the building down on the way out, and if I stay, it’s usually to taunt whoever knocked me out until he himself is sent to the rail. Jose showed more poise and humility in defeat. After busting, he found a seat in our 2/2 NL game and socialized with players until TV cameras showed for an interview.

Son, did I ever tell you about the time...



The Saturday TV interviews took me a little by surprise. At one point, our Head of Player Relations asked “You ok with TV?” and I said, “Sure, why not?” thinking that some local TV crew was filming an accident nearby and decided to use our restrooms. Turns out, when I gave the green light, she pulled the phone numbers of the two leading sports stations from their websites and lured them in with an “exclusive” interview of Jose. Next thing I knew, we had two cameramen and assistants jockeying for position and a hedge of mikes set up on an empty table adjacent to Jose’s.

I like to think I’m a good salesperson, but our marketing/player relations staff make me look like Willy Loman, whining about the racket and looking for a suicide out. Watching them work is like watching an episode of Planet Earth about spiders feeding. Some happy little creature wanders around his mindless life and stumbles oblivious into their shiny little web. Next thing he knows, he’s immobilized and scheduled to be the daily special. It’s fascinating to observe but unsettling to know I spend my workday in the presence of those who could and might turn me into a snack.

Basta. I finally cracked and asked proprietors of the villa to make me some proper food. I’m sitting in my apartamenta eating spaghetti bolognese, an over-grilled chicken breast and some strange fig pastry. By the most generous standard of Italian food, it’s a mediocre spread, but three days into a vegetarian experience, it’s heaven on Earth.

Back to the interview. Jose took a short break and let Heidi work his stack in the 2/2 NL game. Within a couple of hands, she flopped top set and tripled up when no one believed her action. After she ran the stack up another couple of hundred dollars, we pried her from the game to serve as Jose’s interviewer. We drafted a few softball questions and with some camera angle suggestions from Jose, she conducted an ESPN-quality interview worthy with some nice Club One compliments.

"It's like the Bellagio...without those noisy slots!"



Let's play "Find the athlete." You first.



Shortly after the interview, Jose stood for some final photos, and he and Heidi headed back to LA. I turned my focus back to my online specialists.

After they busted, Deeb and Adanthar turned to multi-tabling in the restaurant and attracted several onlookers. In retrospect, I’m not sure why I didn’t chase them back to the hotel since there’s no upside for us in allowing others to see what they can do. Best case, they’d inspire some local to play more poker, but at the same time prove that he can do so without ever visiting us. Worst case, some nit would rat us out for allowing online poker in our licensed venue. I doubt that any regulator would care, but in our industry, there’s always a concern you’ll be called before some public forum and grilled…”Isn’t it true, sir, that in or about August of 2008 you willingly allowed…”

Just checking email. Honest.



Adanthar always reminds me of Mr. Peabody from the old Rocky & Bullwinkle show, and seeing the two together drew visions of Peabody and his boy Sherman entering the WABAC machine to another time and place for a life lesson. Unlike the cartoon, though, they were oblivious of the change in their surroundings, and by 7p, the bar was packed with rabid fight fans screaming at the TV…with the two of them quietly facing the other direction. Over the next two hours, they didn’t look up but to confirm a drink order or wave for more chicken wings.

Contrarians



The UFC fight ended with headliner St. Pierre winning a decision over Fitch, and we made a final effort to push Jack Daniels on the crowd before they dispersed. The folks at Brown-Foreman were kind enough to send three of their finest brunettes (not that Adanthar or Deeb noticed) and we were committed to keeping our end of the bargain. As it turns out, we sold something like 30 times the amount of Jack Daniels that we usually do. Ok, they’ll be back.

Oh yes, the winners...almost forgot...

To encourage repeat entries throughout CVPC week, we handed out a bracelet to the overall points winner for the tournament series. We pirated the PokerStars leaderboard formula and asked the same folks who make the US Poker Championships bracelet to forge one for us. The winner of this impressive hardware was local John Ly. John won Event #1 and finished 2nd in Event #2 giving him 655 total points, almost 150 points more than the 2nd place finisher.

You'll be pulling the ladies tonight, sir!



We awarded John his bracelet and turned our attention back to the final table of the Main Event. When the final table sat, I braced myself for another couple hours of shove and fold poker as players jockeyed for the good money. To my surprise, the final table cleared like a brothel being raided and ended well before midnight. Heads up, local sushi restaurateur Frank Liang called a post-flop bluff shove with 2nd pair, jack kicker and took home the first place trophy and $14,909.

Dude, that's like 2,000 California rolls.



It was an anticlimactic end to the week, given that none of our notables did anything, well, notable. But given the feedback and stream of new visitors to Club One, we were convinced the tournament series was worth repeating and made careful notes for future improvements.

Sunday, a day of redemption

On Sunday, the online boys gave a MTT clinic by playing their usual Sunday complement and letting others watch over their shoulders in our conference room. While they were so occupied, I took TT on a brief tour of the area surrounding the casino.

There’s a minor league ballpark where the Fresno Grizzlies play and the Fulton Mall, an aging 1960s-era downtown shopping district that’s been turned into a pedestrian mall. There’s several million dollars of art scattered around the area, unlabeled, as the City debates pursuing historical monument status. I’m hoping the City comes to its senses and allows the area to be properly developed. It’s an outdoor mall not an historic point and would be improved with a Starbucks and proper signage.

I made a point to show TT La Grand Laveuse (aka Washerwoman). It's a sculpture directed by Pierre Auguste Renoir circa 1917-18 and one of only six original castings worldwide. The others can be found in Fontvieille Park, Monaco, the Tate Collection, the Philadelphia Art Museum and Washington University in St. Louis. Renoir celebrated beauty and sensuality in his work and the piece is pretty good representation of the style. There’s something sexy about the notion of a woman doing my laundry in the buff, and I’m glad Pierre had the insight and skill to capture it in bronze. For his part, TT was perplexed that it was outside, unmarked and unguarded.

“You’d think someone would steal it.”
“I'm not sure anyone knows what it is.”

Shaun&^%$#deeb

Later that night, I wandered into the restaurant and noticed Deeb playing FTOPS Event #9 $500 NL Heads up with Adanthar observing. Seeing them snicker about every obvious move by an opponent felt like the time when my wife decided that I should get a full body check for signs of skin cancer. I was standing naked in a room surveyed by medical assistants who giggled and made notes every time I displayed a body part.

Shaun eventually won the FTOPS heads up event with a Club One regular looking over his shoulder.

“Hey, you just win that?”
“Yeah.”
“How much you win?”
“Like a hundred fifteen.”
“That all?”
“Thousand.”
“Are you serious? Are you $%&^ing serious?”

The general back alley ambiance...

Deeb’s win came at around 1a on Monday morning and this is Fresno, so there weren’t too many people with whom to celebrate. Adanthar whooped it up by going to bed and our hostesses were in hiding. That left me to go upstairs to help Shaun celebrate. When I entered his room 421, just around the corner from my own at 418, the smell brought back a scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas….

The general back-alley ambiance of the suite was so rotten, so incredibly foul, that I figured I could probably get away with claiming it was some kind of 'Life-slice exhibit' that we'd brought down from Haight Street to show cops from other parts of the country how deep into filth and degeneracy the drug people will sink, if left to their own devices.

But what kind of addict would need all these coconut husks and crushed honeydew rinds? Would the presence of junkies account for all these uneaten French fries? These puddles of glazed ketchup on the bureau? Maybe so. But then why all this booze? And these crude pornographic photos ripped out of pulp magazines that were plastered on the broken mirror with smears of mustard that had dried to a hard yellow crust…and all these signs of violence, these strange red and blue bulbs and shards of broken glass embedded in the wall plaster…

Depraved is not a word I use often and certainly not on a public post where any local vice officer with a Google alert set for “Club One Casino” could read it. But in the spirit of intellectual honesty, it really is the only word to describe Shaun’s room. It looked as if some squatter had holed up with the Do Not Disturb sign on, and occasionally convinced room service to cram food scraps under the door. Sheets and towels were twisted together and scattered around the room in a crude attempt to seal the “contents” of the room from passersby.

There was an opened suitcase on in the middle of the room. Convinced I’d be obligated Shaun into vice if I saw the contents, I turned away before I saw anything incriminating. But there was no escaping the smell. The whole room reminded me of the local dump at my hometown in Maine. The only thing missing was a flurry of seagulls and a rusted pickup truck offloading items too shameful to put in the garage sale. I made a note to hand the general manager a handful of cash to avoid the embarrassment of a detailed bill for repairs.

The celebration comprised me watching the Discovery Channel and trying not to touch anything sticky while Shaun camped out in the bathroom. Around 2a, I left him to respond to some congratulatory posts on 2+2 and crossed my fingers that I wouldn’t be awaken by some predawn raid of his room.

Begone!

On Monday, I’d had enough and shuttled Adanthar and TT back to the airport for their flights back to New York and Las Vegas. I told the staff to monitor {b]Deeb's whereabouts in my absence and made a quick run down to Los Angeles to pick up clean clothes and check in on my wife and office.

I rolled back Tuesday morning for our 10a staff meeting and assessed the damage. On the one hand, the casino had the feel of a stadium after a season-ending thrashing and staff was wandering around like Katrina victims seeking shelter in the same. On the other hand, we’d held a week-long series with radio print advertising, attracted dozens of new players and a few celebs and managed to run seven quality events without embarrassing ourselves. An ugly win is still a win. We’ll take it.

I hadn’t heard from Shaun all day until a cryptic text message exchange confirmed he was still in town until his 11a connecting flight to LA the following morning. On Wednesday I hit the gym and hustled back to run him out to the airport. Still enthused with his $115k win, he had all positive feedback for Club One Casino.

“Dude, I run so good in Fresno. I’m coming back.”

Nice. No sooner had I dropped him off when he texted me.

“I suck at airports. My flight time was for the LA flight. Rescheduling now.”

Of course. Whatever…I knew he’d figure it out. I kept going back to Club One.

Aftermath

Remember back in college that sweet smell of your dorm room the morning after a huge party? How when you caught a whiff of anything alcohol-related, it made you retch so hard you thought you’d break a rib? And how you swore on everything precious that you’d NEVER do it again? Indeed, it’s been almost 10 years since I last experienced that feeling—the morning after a lustful binge of Jack Daniels shots and lemon drops one August night at the Manhattan midtown W hotel. That evening ended at 3a when a girl I later married threw me out of the hotel wearing only one shoe.

I got up the following morning and forced myself to run up Park Avenue and around the Central Park Reservoir in a pitiful attempt to sweat the foulness from my body before a late morning meeting. I remember being dizzy and sticky and leaving a stench trailing behind me that sickened every pedestrian on the east side of the avenue. I recall finishing the reservoir loop, leaning on a park bench, shaky and sweaty, and vowing to use better judgment with both liquor and women. Ah, the resiliency of the human spirit. Alfred recaps it nicely in Batman Begins.

“And why do we fall down, Master Bruce?”
“So, we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

And so, despite three separate occasions during CPVC week standing in the bathroom with my forehead against the mirror groaning, “Only four more days” or “Stick to one liquor” I find myself planning for our next event. We’ll certainly repeat the CVPC next year, and I’m thinking a weekend tournament in November might work. With improvements, of course. Note to self: start the main event later in the day; more Jack Daniels girls; install a projection TV in the event center; get ESPN Radio to do a remote broadcast; have maintenance install a drain in the middle of the casino floor so we can just hose the place down after…

Edmond

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