When I started going to casinos, the selection of table games was pretty basic. There were blackjack, craps, roulette and baccarat. Some casinos had Big Six money wheels, and sometimes you’d see Red Dog or other change-of-pace games.
I remember when Three Card Poker was a new game in the 1990s, struggling to carve out a niche. It had failed to make enough money to satisfy the house in a trial at the Stardust in Las Vegas, but it was a hit in Mississippi. The success of the game in Tunica was enough to convince operators in other states that maybe the Stardust experience was an anomaly.
An e-mail brought me a tale of woe from a pai-gow poker novice:
“My friend told me to make my bottom hand as strong as I can,” the player’s lament began. “But when I put a pair of Kings in the bottom hand and a pair of 9s in the top, I was told I arranged them wrong, and the dealer took my money.”
In pai-gow poker, you’re dealt seven cards, which you arrange into a five-card “high” hand and a two-card “second-high” hand. Both must beat the dealer for you to win your bet, but you get your money back if one wins. The deck consists of 53 cards, with the standard 52 joined by a Joker that can be used either as an Ace or to compete a flush or straight.
No player in the history of the game has done more to raise the profile of poker than World Series of Poker champ Chris Moneymaker. He calls Memphis home, but this jet-setting professional poker player visits some of the world’s most exotic locales—Monte Carlo, Macau, Australia—to play the game he loves. Chris took time away from the tables to talk to Down the Road about how he got his start, the famous Hollywood stars he’s played (and taken money from) and what he finds special about Tunica.
Recent Comments