Poker Stars After Dark

In the vein of access I acquire through my work, last night's camera shoot provided a bit more of private insight into the world of high stakes poker than has already been satuarated on television networks throughout the world. This night was not about betting millions of dollars or the high pressure tension of either taking command of a table or leaving your seat, not even those special sort of personal interviews inbetween hands during a television episode. A gathering of high profile poker stars had come together to show solidarity for a fellow poker player who was battling cancer and after having a series of Chemothearpy treatments had lost all her hair, therefore a night had been established where these other poker stars would shave their heads in tribute to her plight and to serve as encouragement in her struggle against cancer.

The first thing that blew my mind for those who follow poker closely was to find out that Doyle Brunson, who is pretty much the godfather of poker battled cancer in his late twenties, went through all sort of surgeries and hell in order to beat it, he talked about the experience in a barber's chair in a small side room where the camera operator and myself (audio mixer) crammed inside to record the event, other players came in and commented on the overall positive nature of the event as well as how a bet had been created amongst some of the poker players less willing to shorn their locks, nothing like another bet to get poker players interested, something to win, or lose for a good cause. The setting for this close shave was one of the villas located inside the Bellagio, poker player Phil Ivey's personal room and I take it not too many people get a look inside one of these places, where every kind of high end brand of liquor and wine is stock, bathtubs the size of small pools, marble tile, thick carpets, one extremely large patio outside with a gigantic pool/jacuzzi combination and plenty of pickup games of Texas Hold'em being played on coffee tables by groups of poker players who have already spent the past twelve hours sitting at tables in a World Poker Tour event down in one of the Bellagio ballrooms.

The mood is light, plenty of joking amongst the players as to who will be least likely to shave their head, bets go around, tons of action in this place, most of it going on a particular player who is known for winning coin flips, everyone does not want to be on his team, all the other players in the shave off card bet which consisted of black and red cards that determined which team you ended up on, Tee, the woman who was battling the cancer would pick out a card, whatever color was drawn represented the group who had to shave their heads and to add to the action, a couple of jokers were thrown in the mix, which if picked meant everyone had to shave their heads, jeez these guys have to burn both sides, if anything just for the sake of making things interesting. These were the kids back in school during chemistry class who mixed chemicals together cause he or she heard they might make cause a large explosion or who jumped their bikes of the roofs of the school, and maybe even bet twenty bucks that they could go into the principal's office steal his or her's keys then drive off in the principal's car, ditch it and come back to class, just to hear about it in the morning news report during homeroom.

Either way I could see why all these people played poker, the constant pressure, the dynamic highs and lows, the thrill of big money as well as the ability not to crack when the money was heavily lost which is one thing that has always fascinated me about poker players especially in cash games where I have witness millions of dollars on a table at any given time, players with backpacks full of a half million, maybe a million, pulling out a stack of a hundred grand at a time like it was monopoly money, this half mill, fuck it, chump change, wipe my ass with this stuff, blocks at a time, feed the dogs with hundreds, soak them in meat blood, so the dogs eat the bills in entirety. This is the prevailing mentality here with the poker player, one most people in society admire, try to emulate as evident by all the millions of online players, yet somehow cannot simulate because they lack an intutive nature combined with a don't give a shit attitude, players who go in with a larger desire to win it all, then to settle for something middle of the road.

No average people here tonight, only one of the guys on the team who did not have to shave his head who decided to do it anyway after all the other players hounded into it while feeding the guy loaded mix drink after mix drink. He had a pretty good head of hair so watching him go from half shave mental patient, to mohawk, to freaky art school dropout hair do wise had the fifteen or so people watching in tears. He had not looked in the mirror as he held a vodka cranberry in one hand and Jack Daniels in the other, double fisted freely drinking from both, his reaction from my laughter did not unsettle him, fuck it was his motto, in whatever, which I could appreciate, no big deal, but the others who knew his personality thought otherwise and relished at watching him have his head shaved as some sort of psychic recompensation for past poker matches where this guy may have gotten over on them.

Personally, it was great to see all the support for Tee, but she did look rather uncomfortable with the entire situation and the video cameras, though gratified to an infinite extent, but somehow, unsettled, like hey this is great why don't some of you guys come down with me and have a couple Chemo treatments, then you'll really know how I feel and from the look of scar near the front right shoulder bone things looked intense, she talked about during an interview, how they pumped this fluid inside of her, like antifreeze, that is what came to my mind, three weeks of the shit, day after day, dealing with this foreign invasion inside the body, this invisible fight amongst cells, biology, and chemisty, things that had been lost in college level classes, yet now existed inside her in a battle to either live or die, be it in pain to a varied degree. After that speech by her, the entire head shaving thing began to feel rather prankish, fraternity like, a gentle pat on the back to someone facing the chair or the needle, hey we are here for you, one hundred percent, you can beat it, but she was standing alone, others might have been through it, but she was living it, especially being in her mid twenties or early twenties, who the hell is thinking about cancer, even when smoking a pack a day at that age, but life is weird like that, things creep up on you, silent assassins ripping away anything that ever reminded you of being normal, of living life without the reality of thinking about breathing, the heartbeat, or mental breakdown. Tee was looking death in the face and I think it scared the living hell out of her, it scares the hell out of me and I am just crazy, nothing like cancer, some guenia pig for the medical field in hopes they will find an out, just like in poker, getting that river card on the turn that gives you a set and snatches victory away from the jaws of defeat, this is the hand she wishes to be dealt, the hand she needs to be dealt, but like all these great poker players, she'll have her best face on till the end.