#828 – 2009 WSOP #86 – Vegas on $2,000 a Day #18 – The Unforgettable Archie Karas

[This is, essentially, a continuation of my notes from the $2,500 Razz, which started in "Buzios or Razz?"]

Of course, we all know now that I made it through Day 2 of the Razz, made the final table on Day 3, and finished runner-up to Jeffrey Lisandro. I’ve written and will soon post my observations about Jeffrey’s historic third bracelet of the Series.

Day 2 was eventful for many reasons. As I described in a blog written while it was happening, Miami John Cernuto put a scare in us all. I’m pleased to inform you, by the way, that Miami John  recovered sufficiently to play the Main Event, busting out, unfortunately, during Day 3.

There were plenty of interesting Razz hands to discuss.

OK, that’s an oxymoron.

I won’t tell you about any of the hands, except to say I took my 31,900 chips – top 20% at the time – and pissed away 40% of them in the first half hour before righting the ship.

Seated to my left during the first two hours was Archie Karas. Archie Karas is a Las Vegas legend. The most famous Archie the Greek story – maybe one of the most famous stories in the history of Las Vegas – is how he ran $50 into over $20 million and lost it all back, in just a couple weeks during the early Nineties.

The story is absolutely true, though particular details are occasionally in dispute. Archie was living in his van on his last fifty bucks (or something like that) when he got someone to stake him to play pool against Bobby Baldwin. I think they were playing $1,000 a game. Archie went on a tear, the stakes started rising, and once Karas was up $100k or so, his backer took his half and backed out.

Karas kept winning, and ended up ahead in pool by some amount between $200,000 and $2 million. (Again, numbers are very sketchy at this point – and does it really matter?) He took his new fortune to the Horseshoe, where he could play craps without a limit.

He went on an incredible heater at craps, aggressively increasing his bets along the way. I don’t know if it was over one day or a week or a little longer, but he got ahead of the Horseshoe by at least $20 million and maybe as much as $40 million.

And he had no interest in stopping. I heard one story that he had every single one of the Horseshoe’s $5,000-denomination chips in his safe-deposit box and Jack Binion asked to buy them back. Archie refused.

Friends encouraged him to quit while he was so far ahead, or at least take some money off the table. Supposedly, it was his ambition to WIN the Horseshoe. (The irony is that the property was worth much less than Karas’s winnings a decade later.) In any event, there was no stopping Archie.

He started playing heads-up poker with some of the best in the world: Stu Unger, Johnny Chan, Chip Reese, Bobby Baldwin. (My brush with the story was a night when I played $20-$40 hold ‘em at the Horseshoe and watched Baldwin lose to Archie Karas in heads-up Razz.)

There is some dispute over particulars at this point. He had at least early success against some of these great players. In general, though, between the repeated matches and trips to the craps table, he couldn’t get the best of it forever … and didn’t. He eventually lost back every bit of the money, and had no regrets about it.

I had asked a lot of people about the Archie stories during my early research for SUICIDE KING. Karas’s heads-up matches were for some of the highest stakes Vegas had seen, so it was at least important background to me.

One person told me a story I never used, so I never tried to confirm it, but that fact that someone would even make up such a thing probably says a lot about Archie Karas’s quest for action. It starts some night when a friend of Archie’s collapses into bed after a long poker game. But before he can fall asleep, Karas calls and asks if the friend will stake him $10,000 in extremely juicy game that just started up. The friend tries to beg off because he’s so tired but Archie promises he’ll be right over. He quickly picks up the $10K and his friend goes to sleep.

Archie kills the game, winning $50,000-$60,000. He leaves the game and pays him his share – waking him up on the process from his sleep.

Sometime later, while the guy is still sleeping, Archie calls and wakes him AGAIN. “Can I get that ten thousand from you again?”

So I’d heard all these stories, but I had never actually met Archie Karas. Until now. Although he was seated to my immediate left, there were no introductions. That’s not the poker way.

For the first half hour, while I gave my chips away, Karas quietly demonstrated his understanding of Razz. He seemed to pick up chips in every pot he played. He started with a small stack but, without anything dramatic occurring, had won chips from nearly everyone at the table.

When the new dealer came in at 2:30, he asked, “How is everyone doing today?” No one replied, so he said sarcastically, “Oh, that’s nice.”

I broke the silence by saying, “That’s probably the best response you can hope for in Razz.” Archie chuckled, and then started laughing hysterically. We exchanged a bit of small talk.

Aside: At 3 PM, Sam Grizzle busted at the table right in front of me and didn’t go quietly.

Things didn’t go so good for Archie Karas after awhile, either. As I left the table for the 4:15 break, he was in a hand for almost all his chips with Chad Brown. After his great start, Karas’s hands kept breaking down on later streets, or opponents chased him and hit what they needed by the end.

It was clearly affecting his mood, too. He twice asked for the deck to be scrambled, and when the 3 and 3:30 dealer pushes didn’t come, he asked for new decks and collared a floorman about getting a new dealer.

Not that any of it helped. He continued to run bad, flinging his cards at the dealer, picking up about 5 MPH velocity with every lousy hand.

When I returned from the break, it was clear that Archie caught the worst of it against Chad Brown. He had only a single 100-chip in front of him. Knowing we wouldn’t be playing together much longer, and not knowing when I’d get this chance again, I introduced myself and told him what a pleasure it was getting to play Razz with him.

He was gracious and, holding up his one chip, said good-bye in advance. I reassured him, “I know your story Archie. If anyone can turn one chip into a fortune, it’s you.” We laughed and he soon busted.

Ironically, in the ten minutes after he busted, we got two different dealers.

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