FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#857 – Steve Zolotow, Part I – House of Z

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PART I.A. – WHO LIVES HERE?

As enclaves to people with money, Scottsdale and Las Vegas have much in common. The first refugees from the East to civilize both places built homes that would not look out of place on the Main Line or Greenwich or Lincoln Park. For trees, grass and topiary, they made only modest compromises with the desert. The emphasis was on Big, Tall, and Lush. Everything had to be very Green, and there were some big palm trees tossed into the mix. Later transplants to both towns embraced the desert instead of trying to keep it at bay. The homes still had to be big, but red bricks and peaked roofs gradually disappeared. Saguaro and other native desert cacti and plants gradually overtook grass, both architecturally and environmentally.

Most of my Las Vegas friends live in “new” Las Vegas. You could tear up their homes and plant them on the vacant land next to mine in North Scottsdale and nobody would notice the difference. (Of course, the reverse is also true.)

The directions to the party made it clear that I would be visiting “old” Las Vegas. As I arrived on the long block of stately homes and mature trees, I looked for a place to park among what were probably a few hundred other cars decamped in Steve Zolotow’s neighborhood.

From outside the front wall, I could see nothing unusual about his property – in fact, I couldn’t see anything at all. After I walked through an opening in the wall, past a long driveway and several catering trucks and other service vehicles, I was met by a rolling piece of … Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania? Northbrook, Illinois? The spread of the lush grass and huge trees almost made me forget it 110 degrees, and it was so large that I couldn’t tell you the number of residences on the property. At one end, there was a tent set up that comfortably housed a party for 500.

My lingering memory of the place was the outdoor chess set. In front of one of the guesthouses, there were sixty-four stone tiles of alternating light and dark colors set into the ground. Arranged among these squares were three-foot-tall chess pieces. When I arrived, Howard Lederer stood at one end of the board, arms crossed, brow furrowed. At the other end were his opponents, Paul Magriel (a poker pro and former backgammon world champion) and Annie Duke, though it seemed Annie’s main contribution to the team was to encourage her children to pester Uncle Howard with diversionary questions.

PART I.B. HOW HE GOT THERE

Steve Zolotow has earned his place as a legend among modern gamblers. To not merely survive but to thrive in the often-hostile and ever-changing business of gambling for thirty-five years, you have to be very, very good at many different things. In addition, as befits a man who has weathered so much to enjoy these surroundings, he is also a first-class character.

I thought I read a few years back that Steve was about sixty. I can’t put my hands on the article, but why bother? Steve looks and acts younger, and has that ageless attitude that life is an amusement park and he’s going to get good value from his all-day ticket.

Zolotow was born and raised in New York. He received two degrees from New York University (BS in Statistics, MBA in Finance), and later was awarded an MA in Creative Writing. His parents, Maurice and Charlotte were both well known in the world of New York publishing. (They named their son Stephen for Stephen Dedalus, from James Joyce’s ULYSSES.) Maurice was an accomplished author, specializing in biographies of film personalities like John Wayne, Billy Wilder, and Marilyn Monroe. (He was the only published biographer of Monroe at the time of her death in 1962; that also happens to be an answer to a Trivial Pursuit question.)

Steve’s mother Charlotte, who recently celebrated her ninety-fourth birthday, was a highly-regarded editor at Harper & Row for decades and author of over sixty children’s picture books. Her alma mater, the University of Wisconsin, gives an annual Charlotte Zolotow Award to the author of the best picture book text published in the United States.

His family’s literary and scholarly background notwithstanding, there were a few hints that Steve might earn his living off bookMAKERS rather than book publishers. Maurice eventually wrote one book not concerning show people. It was titled CONFESSIONS OF A RACETRACK FIEND.

There was also the matter of Zolotow’s initial career choice. With his pair of business degrees from NYU and Wall Street beckoning, he decided to become … an actor. Although he got some acting jobs – including a few in adult films – he couldn’t make a living at it. He turned to his life-long interest in games and started playing for money: chess, backgammon, bridge, pool. Although he has and will play any game for money if the price is right, he has made a good living without going broke for more than thirty years, focusing on sports betting (until arrests in New York and Las Vegas) and poker. He is also a partner in four bars on Avenue A in New York: Nice Guy Eddie, Doc Holiday, Julep, and the Library (formerly named Psycho-Mongo’s House of Sublimation).

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