CHAPTER 3
Bet to Learn: Fielding the
Unfolding Future
Nick the Greek, and other lessons from the
Crystal Lounge
When I first started playing poker, I lived in Columbus, Montana, population 1,200. The nearest poker game was forty miles away in downtown Billings, in the basement of a bar called the Crystal Lounge.
Every day, I drove those forty miles, arriving by early afternoon. I would play until the evening, and drive home.
The game was filled with characters out of a clichéd vision of Montana: ranchers and farmers killing time in the off-season, filling the basement room with smoke wafting over the brims of their cowboy hats. It was 1992 but it could have just as easily been 1952 from the décor and the grizzled countenances of the locals. The only thing suggesting that John Wayne wasn’t going to mosey on in was a handful of misfits, including me (a woman and the youngest player by a few decades, on the lam from defending my dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania) and a player named “Nick the Greek.”
If your name is Nick, you come from Greece, and you gamble, they’re going to call you Nick the Greek, as sure as they’ll call you Tiny if you weigh more than 350 pounds. (And, yes, there was a guy named Tiny, real name Elwood, who regularly played in the game.) This Nick the Greek was of the small-time Billings variety. He was the general manager of the hotel