Here is a trivia question for you. What did Billy the Kid, Jess and Frank James, and Butch Cassidy have in common?
Answer: they were young, they were fearless, and they made their own laws in a part of America where lawmen were in short supply.
To some people the West is still that way -- a fairly lawless region where you can get away with things you wouldn't attempt back East. The recent shootout between a police officer and two criminals in Las Vegas, NV. is a good example. Over 60 shots were fired as the cop and the two bad guys blazed away at each other until the story came to a deadly end.
Sometimes I find myself wishing that I had lived in the Old West. Just me, my horse, a six-shooter, a Bible and a passion to wander across a Western frontier filled with passion, promise and danger.
These thoughts came to me the other evening as I watched the final table of the World Series of Poker unveil. I was playing poker along with nine other players at Wild Horse Pass Casino near Chandler, AZ.
There were only four players remaining out of the thousands who had paid their $10,000 entry fee in order to compete for a top prize of over $8 million.
As I watched the finalists go at each other, I realized something: none of them looked to be over 30 years old.
That bothered me. I mean, it really rankled me.
Poker is supposed to be a game that goes to age, experience and wisdom. Yet here were these kids who looked like they worked for McDonald's or Taco Belle with millions of dollars worth of chips playing against each other with all the intensity of John Dillinger or Billy the Kid robbing a bank.
It was disgusting and I made that remark to one of my fellow players.
He shrugged. 'You gotta give these kids credit,' he said. 'They learned the game and they have brass balls when it comes to playing no limit poker.'
'That may be true,' I admired. 'But where are the Doyle Brunsons, the Phil Hellmuths, the Johnny Chans, the Daniel Negraneaus and the other oldtimers of poker? What happened to them?'
One of the other players grinned. 'They've been replaced by the young guns,' he said.
Jack Schaeffer was a best-selling Western novelist whose books included 'Shane,' 'Monte Walsh,' and other novels that were made into movies about the Old West.
I met him in Tucumcari, N.M. when I was working as sports editor of the Tucumcari Daily News. He was a good friend of Herman 'Corny' Moncus, who owned the Elkhorn Drug Store and Museum.
Schaeffer had bought a ranch near Santa Fe, N.M. with the royalties from his books. Moncus was a historian who had published a book on the Spanish Conquistadors who populated New Mexico hundreds of years ago. He enjoyed drinking coffee with Corny and talking about the old times. He used some of the material Corny gave him in his books.
In one of his novels, for example, the plot involved a boy who was the son of the town marshal, a decent lawman who stood up for the town's citizens. But instead of appreciating his father, the kid admired a swaggering young gunman who had a fast horse.
Schaeffer told me over coffee, 'I tried to figure out what would motivate a young kid and I came up with the same thing that motivates young people in today's world -- speed. He was attracted to the gunman because of his style and his fast horse. After that, the story plot just fell into place.'
I have never played in the WSOP although I have covered it for several magazines. But I would love to get involved with the young guns and try to show them a thing or two about poker. They may take me down but they wouldn't accomplish it without a damn good fight.
Author: Geno Lawrenzi Jr.
(Geno Lawrenzi Jr. is an international journalist, magazine author and ghostwriter and poker player who lives in Phoenx, AZ. He has published 2,000 articles in 50 magazines and 125 newspapers. If you want to share a gambling story or book idea with him, send an email to glawrenzi@gmail.com ).
