Mig,
This guy said it better than anything I can write today, so if you don't mind I'm going free form this Friday. For background, Andy Glazer died suddenly last month at age 48. He was a world champion backgammon player, a guy who walked away from a lucrative career as a defense lawyer to do pursue his dreams. He was the best poker reporter out there and a better man than poker reporter. He won a couple of big tournaments in Australia this past December so his name may ring a bell to some folks down there. In my words, not only was he a winner in life; he played a far bigger game than most of us.
The following eulogy was written by Larry W. Phillips, the author of Zen And The Art of Poker:
I'd like to add my voice to the many others, about the death of
Andy Glazer. Just a few thoughts, and remembrances....
He was a gentle guy, and he was very dedicated to poker. It's a
reminder, if one is needed, that any one of us could be yanked out of
here at any moment, without notice-- to use that info however you
want-- put it to some use if you can.
As a writer, Andy was serious about poker tournaments. He was
there to get the facts, the chip counts, and whatever else went on,
get it down. This wasn't some brief love affair with the game-- he
was there to show up the next day and do it all over again. He took
the job seriously. At a final table he could tell you whether this
was hand #161 or #162. He was on top of it-- a difficult feat at
times-- and he was good at it.
We lost a few things when we lost Andy. We lost a solid .330
hitter-- because he was always there, a dependable hitter in the
lineup, a fixture, attired in light-colored pants and yellow knit
shirt and black goatee, always slightly pudgy, always leaned forward
peering down at a poker table, notebook in hand, head cocked always at
the same angle, as if counting down a chip stack. We lost the book he
would have one day written, the insider's report from both a writer's
and player's perspective. We lost the great introspective article
about how a young kid showed up to write about poker players and ended
being one of the ones he wrote about. We lost the memoir with all the
background stuff on all the other players he knew. We lost the
self-description of the WSOP tourney he would have one day won. We
lost the great player he was steadily becoming-- late, great strides
occurring almost visibly-- a player still on the way up. We lost the
point of view of somebody who had worn many different hats-- lawyer,
teacher, writer, businessman, player-- and could see things from a lot
of different angles. We lost a decent guy, who talked slowly and
deliberately when he spoke to you, as if choosing his words carefully,
and a guy who had time for you, too-- meaning he wasn't looking over
your shoulder thinking of the next place he had to be while he talked
to you. (Andy himself probably wouldn't like all the fuss-- in a room
filled with cameras, and people with their camera-awareness-
body-language-mojo on Andy was always just a guy standing there doing
his job. Perhaps it was because of this attitude that he was
approachable.) We lost a student of poker history, who has now
himself become part of that history forever.
See you in a far green country, Andy, with a swift sunrise.
