So…you could be wondering what the two have in common. And you could be questioning who Sam Angel is. My first experiences with him goes back to the early Mirage days. He played very infrequently when I was dealing and when he did, he was a complete pain in the ass. Always barking commands and insults at everyone – calling you a cocksucker is a term of endearment to him, or demeaning depending on who he is using the term with -and that is in public, never behind closed doors. His vocabulary is always filled with profanity; to a point that it doesn’t add flair or spice to the conversation, it is the conversation.

In 1973 and 1975, Sam won the Razz event at the WSOP. In 1984, Sam took second in the WSOP NL Deuce to 7 lowball event and fourth in the same event in 1987. Interesting how people hit a high point and then just blow it all away. Good poker gone bad? It’s hard to tell what happens to people as they move over the path of life, but Sam seems to have fallen and hit the bottom of the canyon. In the years I’ve known of him, he carried a brief case full of cheap jewelry and tried to peddle it at all of the poker rooms/tournament events. The quality of the jewelry is so poor that it leaves the green rings on your flesh and is about the same quality as swap meet trinkets in Aruba. My last known experience with him at Bellagio, was watching him sit at an empty table about six years ago, drunk on his ass, demanding that Suzie Lederer (Suzie Weiss in those days) give him a full comp to somewhere in the casino. I believe he had to permanently leave that night although Suzie tolerated him pretty well; it was just the last straw.

About a year ago, when Wayne and I had been out to dinner and stopped by The Palms, Sam was loitering in/near the Sport’s Book and when he saw Wayne, he tried to sell Wayne some cheapo jewelry. When Wayne refused to buy, Sam called him a string of horrible names and went on his way.

Enter Saturday night at the Stardust. Marie and I were going to meet and play cards for a few hours. We did. We were there for about six hours actually. I was sure it would be my last time of playing at The Stardust before it bites the dust to become one with the desert and the launching pad for Echelon Place.

I hated the game. The only fun part of it was sitting next to Marie and visiting and trying to see if I could find a playable hand. I took several walks around the casino floor and up to registration, looking for anything that I felt I would have to have a picture of before the place went ‘dust’. I found this beauty:

Regretfully, I found this a few minutes later. Sam was sitting at one of the bars, on the end, and I tried to take a shot of him in a more relaxed mode, but a guy walked up and they did some sort of cash transaction, and after the guy walked, Sam was preparing to leave. I was about 20 feet away and while I don’t really care for the picture, let this be a lesson to all of you young bucks and does that hit it big playing poker in your first few years. Finish school, set some positive goals for yourself and set up money management so you don’t end up somewhere like this with another Linda down the road taking your picture after you’ve been to the big show and then fell into the canyon.

The sign on the wall counts down the days for the poker room employees. Some of them have been there since my first play at The Stardust. The whole place has a melancholy air about it.

This blackjack felt is particularly colorful and fun. If I was into collecting memorabilia, I would try to make sure I ended up with one of these. Instead, I will store it in my digital archives, that way it won’t collect dust and take up space.

And best of all, me and Marie, hanging out in the $3-6 H game at ‘The Dust’. More digital memories. Sweet!

I leave you with this thought. Poker is what you want it to be, you decide and you are the only one that can make the decision. Don’t give up your life to play poker, but if you decide to play for a living or for recreational value only, incorporate it into your life…don’t make it your life. See you there! TableTango on TonyG.Poker, late nights.