Lucky Dog Poker by Russ Scott

Spend a little time with Don Naifeh, and you'll be struck by his passion for poker, golf and the traditions linked to both games.

Indeed, if you have played in a qualifying satellite at the World Series of Poker, or if you read golf books, you may already know these two things about Naifeh (pronounced NAY-fee):

— As a World Series floor supervisor, he perhaps has welcomed more players to poker's biggest party than anyone this decade. "My 'Welcome to the WSOP' speech sums up my feelings about enjoying the game and its traditions," he said.

— His life-long dream of playing Scotland's mystical courses came true through a poker room friendship forged with writer Michael Konik, who spun their overseas adventure into the compelling 2004 book, "In Search of Burningbush."

Not bad for a guy born with a broken arm 54 years ago who learned to keep his life moving forward despite suffering from brittle bone disease — a rare, incurable disorder which causes extremely fragile bones.

"I can remember at least 12 fractures in my life, but I've been told the actual number is 15 to 20," Naifeh said. "I was lucky to have a pretty mild case of the disease."

The disorder restricted outlets for his competitive drive growing up in Tulsa.

"My older brother was a star athlete, and I was almost always recovering from some kind of injury, unable to do what the other kids were doing," recalled Naifeh, who recently had hip replacement surgery and is scheduled for knee replacement next week "so I can keep working the WSOP and playing golf."

Although contact sports were out of the question as a youth, he gave golf a try at age 10 at a par-3 course in Tulsa — while in a wheelchair recovering from a fracture.

He gave up on the seventh hole.

"I was mad and frustrated. I remember being in tears. I wheeled myself all the way back to the clubhouse where my mom was going to pick me up, just totally done with the game of golf. Some 20 years later, I made the only hole-in-one in my life at that very hole," he said.

With limited athletics options, he gravitated toward games.

"While manager-trainer of the football team, I was the guy running the penny-ante poker game between summer practices.

I'd make $4-$5 a day from the players," he said with a laugh.

Naifeh's pursuit of poker took hold after studying journalism at the University of Oklahoma in the early '70s.

"My grades were OK, but I was having a hard time mainstreaming in college," he said. "I never quite settled on a career path, so I left in the spring of my senior year. I ran away, I guess you'd say. I ran straight to Vegas to play and deal poker."

There were some detours along his poker trail, including a stint teaching golf to kids at Pebble Beach's Spyglass course and five years as a retail broker on Wall Street. "Once I burned out on that, I came back to Vegas in 1986, where I had kind of established myself before," Naifeh said.

He reconnected with poker as a dealer and floor supervisor, but not long before Konik's book came out he got into a frustrating battle with the people running the World Series at Binion's Horseshoe.

"They were trying to get dealers to work for slave wages. I just got fed up with poker," he said.

Meanwhile, the Scotland experience had rekindled his desire to teach golf again, said Naifeh, who carries a single-digit golf handicap.

"I really wanted to teach with the First Tee program for kids or do special-needs coaching using my experience as an injury-prone golfer who could play the game at a fairly decent level," said Naifeh.

Although the perk of playing free at some of the world's best courses was great, the pay wasn't. Moreover, amateur Chris Moneymaker's improbable 2003 World Series victory had ignited the poker boom, and Naifeh was missing out.

"I had to pay the bills, and the WSOP was the only place I knew I could make a living," he said.

He's also trying to make a difference.

"The game of poker is progressing, and I'm doing my best to keep up, but there are some traditions in the game that need to be given respect," he said. "I don't want to see the WSOP someday being played on the Internet. I want it played with professional dealers in the box, running the game as they should be."

Right now, he said, "the WSOP is doing great. But we must pay attention to the intangibles such as the entertainment value, the food, tournament presentation and so on — what I call the wow factor — that make the overall experience for the customer a genuinely memorable one."

Don Naifeh, ever mindful of poker's traditions, is doing his part to make that happen.

E-mail your poker questions and comments to russ@luckydogpoker.com for use in future columns. To find out more about Russ Scott and read previous LuckyDog Poker columns, visit www.creators.com or www.luckydogpoker.com.

COPYRIGHT 2009 RUSS SCOTT

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