Westerns will never go out of style.
Sometimes late at night I turn to the GRIT channel or flip the dials until I come across a grainy black and white movie or television show about the Old West. There are horses, a stage coach, and someone will be carrying a .30-30 rifle.
There will be a closeup of downtown as men wearing guns trot slowly down the dusty main street and stop in front of the Last Chance Saloon or some other bar that offers beer, whiskey, gambling and women to souls hardy enough to enter the darkened premises.
The gamblers, gold prospectors and gun slingers from that era will never quite vanish from my mind. These were people, men and women, who were willing to take a chance. In the case of the men, fate was their mistress.
“Dear Geno,” a member of this website writes. “You have written many entertaining stories about your adventures as a journalist, gambler and author. But what is your life really like away from the tables? What do you believe in?” Jennifer F., Tampa, Fl.
Ah, Tampa. The smell of Florida, the palm trees, the miles of ocean waves crashing on white sand beaches.
It's nice hearing from Jennifer. She asks an interesting question: what do I believe in?
I have lived in Florida for years, both on the East Coast and on the West Coast. While I enjoyed West Palm Beach and Lake Park, where I spent several years working for a gambling publisher named John Carroll, I liked the West Coast -- Naples, Marco Island and Bonita Springs -- better.
What do I believe in? For starters, how about fate, luck, prayer and probability, not necessarily in that order.
In Florida, I was never far from a casino. Even back then I was writing stories about winners and losers. I wrote about slot players, dice players, tournament winners and horse handicappers. Each person I interviewed had a story to tell. Some shared their gambling secrets, while others took them to their graves.
They all had a mistress named Fate.
Regardless of their status and their financial condition, gamblers are lured by chance, adventure and the luck of the draw.
Some of the world's greatest authors and creativity experts were gamblers. John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, Samuel Clements, John Huston, Clark Gable, Leo Tolstoy, John Wayne and John Ford engaged in gambling for sport, profit and fun. Huston even taught Marilyn Monroe to gamble in Reno and Virginia City, NV. when he was shooting 'The Misfits,' Gable's final movie before he died of heart failure.
Sometimes it is fun just to think about gambling. You can plan your strategies and maybe a story idea will develop. It may take a turn toward romance or even violence. It will never be boring.
I like to gamble when I am totally calm. It helps my decision-making process. It took a lot of thinking, practice and bad beats to get me to this state.
I have been in gambling rooms that looked and felt dangerous. The walk to a poker or dice table can be long and lonely. Nobody is looking after you when you sit down at a table. The dealer and the cocktail waitress may smile but their minds are on other things.
I fortify my confidence with a joke. A glass of wine. Or a secret rendezvous with the blessed herb of the Caribbean.
Each time I pick up a hand, I am challenging fate. I have seven or eight other players to beat with my cards, my chips and maybe a bluff. If I am caught, it gets costly.
Nobody ever put a gun to a person's head and forced him to walk into a casino. If you lose, it's more like a velvet blackjack has landed. You don't even feel the pain until later.
Poker players know they are going to receive a mix of hands -- some good, some bad, some ugly. The trick is to get through the bad hands without suffering too much damage. When a good hand materializes, take advantage of it, but don't overplay it. Even good hands can lose.
What do I believe in, Jennifer?
Let me take another thousand years to think about that.
