When Worlds Collide

Teresa Nielsen Hayden has just blogged Steve Brust's weblog, quoting Steve's June 8, 2002, entry on his "notes for a new poker book" (for example, Chapter 4. How to prevent bad beats by always going in with the worst hand).

My personal favorite entry is this one:

Fri May 31st, 2002 8:39 AM

Yesterday I was sitting next to a drunk in the 4-8 Hold'em game at the Palms.
"What do you do?"
(Q6--muck)
"I'm a writer."
"What do you write?"
(KT offsuit--muck)
"Novels"
"What kind of novels?"
(J7--muck)
"Science fiction/fantasy."
"Oh. Uh...I know it's kind of personal, but how much do you make per book?"
(93--muck)
"Enough to make a living, not enough to date a cocktail waitress."

I know Steve quite well from the science fiction universe — Fourth Street Fantasy Conventions and Reinconations, the old GEnie Science Fiction Round Table, and so forth — but these days I feel more closely connected to him through the poker world than the world of SF fan- and prodom. I had a good, long chat with him at last year's World Series of Poker, for example; but when Debbie Notkin and I, along with Mike Ford, Elise Matthesen, Emma Bull, and Will Shetterly, were in Las Vegas for a vacation getaway a couple of weeks after BARGE in August 2001, we were disappointed that we couldn't get together with him.

Steve is a kind of triple-threat: writer, musician, and poker player, which I guess means he could quit three day jobs at once. Most recent thing of his that I've read was Freedom and Necessity (co-authored with Emma Bull); I liked it. Last I heard, Steve plays a lot at the poker room at the Palms.