Celebrity sighting

I drove out to South Point last night, since it is a hotbed of rodeo-related events. As I had hoped, the place was lousy with cowboy hats. Strangly, though, there were virtually none in the poker room. My table had more of them than any other when its Cowboy Hat index briefly reached 2, but most of the time it was 1 or even 0. Disappointing. After a couple of hours, I headed off to the Orleans, and it was the same--cowboy hats everywhere except in the poker room. I don't get it.

Anyway, about halfway through my time at South Point our table was joined by the very minor poker celebrity pictured below. That's Antonio Esfandiari's father on the left, with his hand on his chin. I suppose he picked South Point because of its association with "High Stakes Poker" (though I understand production is being moved back to the Golden Nugget for next season).



Mr. Esfandiari is not as good a poker player as his son. I busted him with A-Q on a queen-high flop. I bet, he raised all-in for only about 50% more, I called. When all the cards were out, he saw my hand and mucked without showing. He left before I got a chance to tell him that I enjoy his occasional appearances on "I Bet You" (which is one of the greatest concepts for a reality TV show ever). He was perfectly polite and very quiet his whole time at our table.


South Point has issued its first commemorative poker chips for this year's big rodeo celebration. Previously, it was one of the few casinos that had no special chips anywhere in sight--just complete uniformity of generic chips. (Others that I can think of offhand include Binion's, Golden Nugget, and Sahara, and Excalibur before the electronic tables.)