Monday, April 19, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

JANE ANN MORRISON: Nugget's new room gives professional poker player reason to return

Do you remember fondly people who, while not formal teachers, taught you without realizing they were teaching you?

Professional poker player Eric Drache is one of those people.

He taught me about the fun side of poker, as well as the business side. He taught me how personalities and antagonism influence business decisions.

When I first met him in 1984, he had been the poker room manager at the Golden Nugget since 1982 and I was the Review-Journal's new gaming reporter (who didn't gamble).

There was a lot to learn, and the occasional drink with Drache at the Golden Nugget became one of my best classrooms. He knew everyone; everyone knew him. After he would introduce me to someone, he would usually have a story about the person, often a funny story, never a mean one.

Drache (pronounced Drake) had that best of all skills: He could explain complicated things in simple English, without using insider terms that lost me. And he understood people's vagaries.

After leaving the gaming beat for another assignment in 1986, I rarely saw him.

In 1988, Steve Wynn closed the poker room at the Golden Nugget as part of the hotel's expansion. It was the last time Drache ever went downtown. "There was no reason to come here," he said 14 years later.

In the intervening years, he had managed the Mirage's poker room between 1989 until 1993, when he resumed making his living as a professional poker player.

Now Drache has a reason to return to downtown.

Not long ago, Tim Poster, one of the new owners of the Golden Nugget, decided to reopen the poker room because "to leave out poker would be a major competitive disadvantage."

"Uniformly, all the major guys I respect told me the best guy to bring in to open the room would be Eric Drache," Poster said. "He has the history, the experience and the following."

So after nearly 20 years, I met with the Nugget's new poker consultant in the midst of his efforts to turn part of the pool area across from the Carson Street Cafe into a 20-table poker room.

His challenge is to have it ready to open at 7 p.m. tomorrow.

Why the rush to open? The Golden Nugget wants to take advantage of Thursday's start of the World Series of Poker across the street at Binion's Horseshoe.

The plan: Lure tournament customers to the Golden Nugget during the monthlong World Series.

At 60, Drache still has his modified Beatles haircut, a little shorter than in 1986, and retains his zest for life and his family, especially his daughters, 13 and 11, both roller coaster devotees.

The seven-card stud player has had some financial ups and downs. "I gave up craps 12 or 13 years ago, I gave up sports betting more than three years ago," he said. "I can't do it small. I'm not into betting $1,000 on a game."

Right now, his rush comes from meeting the deadline to reopen the poker room. It's more involved than just throwing poker tables in a room. Finding poker dealers in a tight market is his biggest headache.

The Golden Nugget poker room will be prepared to handle every kind of poker player, from the guy with $20 to buy-in a game to the high stakes player with a $50,000 buy-in, Drache said.

Under the ownership of Poster and Tim Breitling, dot.com millionaires turned casino owners, the Golden Nugget sports book is accepting higher wagers, and blackjack games can accept wagers as high as $50,000 over three hands. "20-20-10 or 25-25," Drache explained.

Those kinds of limits help attract serious gamblers, such as Hustler Magazine owner Larry Flynt, who is expected in this week, Drache said. He hopes Mirage Resorts President Bobby Baldwin, who got his start as a poker player, will return to the Golden Nugget to play, since he doesn't play poker at properties owned by the MGM Mirage.

So what else did I learn during this sit-down with Drache?

Poker players like to play online because they can play more games faster.

In the poker room, the dealer averages 32 hands an hour. Online, it averages 60-70 games and hour, and you can play two or three games at once.

"That's 210 games an hour versus 32," Drache explained.

Another thing I learned: "Everyone has claimed to have played with Ben Affleck," Drache laughed.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at jane@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0275.