Up Till Now: The Autobiography by William Shatner & David Fisher

Author:William Shatner & David Fisher
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Canada, Autobiography, Shatner, Entertainment & Performing Arts, General, Actors - Canada, Personal Memoirs, Actors, Biography & Autobiography, William, Biography
ISBN: 9780312372651
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2008-05-13T00:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

Now, I know that a true autobiography is supposed to reveal to the reader those signifi-cant events from which the subject learned the important lessons that impacted his or her life. The takeaway lessons for the reader. Lessons far more important than “Don’t take Esperanto as your second language in high school.” And so I am very happy to be able to do so.

I have learned some very valuable lessons in my life, lessons that are indeed worth sharing. For example, at one point I was invited to participate in a televised poker tournament, The World Poker Tour, which was being taped at Trump’s Taj Mahal Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City. I had never played competitive poker, truthfully I’d never quite understood what it was all about, so I agreed to do it.

I knew the basic rules of the game: twos, three of a kind, full house, straights, flushes—that I knew, but that isn’t playing poker. The true game of poker is a psychological contest, in which the weapon is bluffing and bidding. It is the delicate art of drawing your opponent into your net, or scaring him out of the game. It is the actor’s game, where the ability to create an image is more important than the cards at play. That was the aspect of this tournament that really intrigued me.

They gave me a $5,000 stake and three professional poker players spent several hours teaching me how to play competitive poker on television. This event was going to last three days, they explained, and we want you to stay in the game as long as possible. So don’t say very much because you’ll give yourself away, watch the table to see who is bidding what and try to see patterns, and bet conservatively. Always bet conservatively. I repeated their advice; keep my mouth shut, watch who’s betting what, and don’t bet too much on one hand. I have never been a very skilled or lucky gambler. My objective was to last at least one full day; if I was careful, I thought, I might last two days before I was eliminated.

I began to play at a table of ten people. I did as I had been taught, kept my mouth shut, watched the table, and bet conservatively. I won a pot, maybe two of them. I was beginning to understand that any hand was only as good as the player who drew it. As I settled in there was one player who got my attention, a real loudmouth sitting to my left. What an ass, I thought. He was a fat, ugly, absurd man who obviously wasn’t a very good player because he wasn’t following the rules I’d been taught by my professionals.

Finally I drew a strong hand, a pair of kings. At first I bet very carefully, reluctantly even, trying to sucker other players into the pot. I was very careful not to bet too much too quickly, but gradually I began raising it. The fat-ass guy keeps seeing me and I realized, I got him.

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