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#172 – WSOP #21 – The Education of Miss Shannon Elizabeth, Part II
PART II – AREN’T LUCKY CHARMS SUPPOSED TO BE MAGICALLY DELICIOUS?
I found Shannon Elizabeth one second too late.
I was prowling the floor late on a Sunday night on Day 1 of the $1,500 Pot Limit Hold ‘Em event. The top 72 would be paid; fewer than 100 remained.
I exchanged friendly greetings with Gavin Smith, who presided over a Taj Mahal of chips. He asked for some copies of the FULL TILT book to be sent to his home and I obliged.
I found Shannon standing up, turning from the table, a giant purse balanced on her shoulder. All-in with A-4, she was called by 6-3 and lost. We both harbored the fiction that I was her Lucky Charm, so I pretended to take personal responsibility for the loss.
I had watched her cash in an event at the end of the 2006 WSOP where she was forced all-in from the big blind and made a straight flush. (I wrote about it in my prior blog as well as the October 2006 issue of BLUFF; it remains one of my favorite columns and Ty Stewart actually gave it to Shannon as a gift when he first saw her at this year’s Series.)
Then, as I wrote in this blog in March, we pretended my getting kicked off the stage at the Heads-Up Championship was necessary for Elizabeth to make the semifinals.
So we walked from the Amazon Room talking about her rough luck at her first time playing Pot Limit Hold ‘Em. I was impressed with her maiden effort in the game and said so.
“Are you going to play limit hold ‘em tomorrow?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I want to play but I’ve never played limit hold ‘em.”
I desperately wanted to offer to teach her myself but I didn’t want to act like a dope. In fact, based on what followed, I probably DID act like a dope.
Not that Shannon noticed. She is used to men routinely shedding at least 30 IQ points in an effort to impress her. As we walked out of the room, I could feel the stares. One player said as Shannon passed, “You dropped something.” She looked at her purse and the floor, then at him. “My heart.”
“Wow, guys still use that line?” she whispered as we walked on.
I convinced her that life would be forever changed if she read THE FULL TILT POKER STRATEGY GUIDE: TOURNAMENT EDITION. Howard Lederer’s chapter was a comprehensive guide to playing limit hold ‘em.
In fact (against my better judgment and with my limited bankroll), I was just about to buy in myself.
She still wasn’t sure so I did something I still can’t understand.
“Read the chapter, Shannon. Please. I’ll pay a third of the buy-in, $500, for 25% of your action. That way, you’re getting paid to learn the game.”
Part of it was that I was momentarily flush because I cashed in the $1500 NLHE earlier in the day. Part was that I knew I could write about it. Part was that I wanted to see if she could turn a profit on Howard’s advice in just one night. (It was already after 11 PM and she had been playing since noon so I didn’t know how she could have realistically taken Lederer’s intense fifty-page course.) And part of it, I’m sure, was that she’s Shannon Elizabeth, a stunningly attractive and sexy movie star who is also a very nice person.
She was a little surprised by the offer – as was I. But she took me up on it.
I gave her a copy of the book and we returned to the Amazon Room, to the cage. I kissed my $500 good-bye, in exchange for being able to tell the world that, for at least one day, I owned a piece of Shannon Elizabeth.
