before one of the events. I heard a soft Southern accent at the next
table and recognized its owner. It was Barbara Lotief. Barbara and her
husband Rudy, as you all know, were the sweetest people in the world
when they came on the tournament scene about five years ago, and
they haven't changed. They are liked by all. For that reason, we all can
heave a collective sigh of relief that they are both OK, because Barbara
informed me that she and Rudy were in a car accident a few weeks ago. I
won't go into details, but the important thing was that their car left the
road, rolled over three or four times, and came to a stop upside down.
Miraculously, neither Barbara nor Rudy was hurt, for which we all are very
thankful.
After I heard the story, I told Barbara how glad I was to hear that
neither of them had been hurt, and then I said, "That must have been a
frightening experience." Barbara, in her slow Southern drawl, said, "Not
really. After we quit rolling over and had come to a stop, I looked over
and said, 'Rudolph, don't you think you should turn the motor off? I really
don't think we're going anywhere.'" I guess that after running all of
those satellites, merely rolling over in a car a few times is no big deal.
One of my favorite stories from this year's World Series of Poker is about
my friend and fellow tournament competitor Kenny Buntjer. The World
Series was winding down, with just a few events remaining. One day,
Buntjer and I were outside of the Horseshoe talking, and he was telling
me that he had been running badly in the tournaments. He went on to
say that he had been going to his room and becoming very depressed. I
told him that I understood, and on occasion had done the same thing. At
that point, he said, "No, Vince, you don't understand. I've been going to
my room and suffering deep depression." I couldn't say much to that but
-- wow!
A short time later, our conversation concluded and we parted. Now, I
must confess that I wasn't too worried about Buntjer. All of you regular
tournament players can understand that tournaments can be brutal. It is
easy to get down, so I basically forgot our conversation. A couple of days
later, I walked into the tournament area and picked up the results from
the previous day's tournament. It read, "First Place, Kenny Buntjer,
$268,000." I thought, good for Kenny, he's one of the nice people on the
circuit.
A short time later, guess who came strolling into the room? I'm sorry, but
I just couldn't resist the temptation, so I said, 'Hi, Kenny, how's the deep
depression?" He gave me one of those sly Kenny Buntjer smiles and said,
"Much better, Vince, much better."
Here's a story that Tuna Lund told me about his brief career dealing
poker. It happened many years ago when Tuna was just a minnow, long
before he became someone who doesn't miss a thing.
It seems that Lund was playing in a particular poker room in Carson City,
and had been playing in the same game daily. One particular day, the
dealer announced that he would be quitting his job. Lund later asked the
dealer how much a day he was making in tips. The dealer told him that
he was making about $30 a day. Hearing that, Lund told him that he was
interested in the job, and after talking to the poker room manager, he
got the job.
Four or five days later, the dealer who had quit the job came into the
poker room. Lund immediately cornered him and told him that he wasn't
making near the tips that the dealer said that he had been making. In
fact, Lund said that he was making less than $10 a day.
The ex-dealer didn't seem to be at all surprised. He went on to explain
that when the biggest tipper in the game quits, naturally, the tips go
down -- and he'd be lucky to be making $10 a shift.
My last story is about John Bonetti. It is common knowledge that Bonetti
and the dealers have a special bond. At this year's Queens tournament, I
was sitting at the table next to Bonetti's. Bonetti was sort of grumbling --
nothing real loud, but audible from my table.
At about the same time that one of those marathon hands came up at
my table, which I was not in, I leaned over to John and said, "We're
having a big banquet for the dealers tonight. Do you want to come?" He
didn't skip a beat and answered, "Yeah, I'll bring the food."
For what it's worth...
