Along the Rail
Disaster recovery meets poker
By Paul Giambroni

In case anyone was wondering if my lucky streak continued past the point of my last column, I’m proud to report that it has! Amazingly enough, it has manifested itself in ways that never could have been predicted.

I should start by prefacing this story with the fact that for the 16 years prior to starting this poker publication, we were dedicated to publishing a disaster recovery guide. The origins of that project lay in the fact that my old neighborhood burned to the ground in the 1991 Oakland Firestorm two years after the 1989 World Series Earthquake leveled most of our overpasses.

It was the aftermath of these two events that proved to be the genesis of our publishing company, and that leads us to the here and now.

Thus, we are especially thrilled to announce that Granzella’s Restaurant, “the Oasis at Casino Crossroads” will be reopening their facility at the end of July, less than a year after it burned to the ground. Granzella’s, home of the monstrous “McCarty Burger,” was one of this publications first distributors. They’ve always been a cornerstone for the North Sacramento Valley casino community, so we couldn’t be happier to seem them back in action. We encourage all hungry gamblers to stop by their new sports bar, grab a bite, and pick up a fresh copy of The Cardroom.

While we never dreamed our previous experience covering fires, floods and earthquakes would somehow intersect with the NorCal poker scene, it happened a second time when I recently visited Casino Marysville. As it turns out, I was sitting down to enjoy a steak dinner when Billy Phong sat next to me. Billy, Peter, and Tommy Phong run this dandy mid-sized cardroom and try to stuff me up with barbecue every time I show up.

As I sat there, carving up a fat ribeye, Billy mentioned an article we recently ran about Jerry Yang playing in a charity tournament at Fresno’s Club One Casino. (New owner Kyle Kirkland and friends raised a lot of money for several different charities while having a great deal of fun in the process. The event was a smashing success.)

I took one look at Billy and could tell that his interest had been piqued. Watching his wheels turn compelled me to ask him flat out if he’d ever thought about doing a charity event in Marysville.

Billy couldn’t say “yes” fast enough. The only question was: “how?” There are so many different charities, how do you pick the right one without slighting the others? After a moment of consideration, Billy responded, “How about earthquake relief for China?”

“Bingo,” I thought. The answer was so perfect and so obvious that it hit me like a ton of bricks. Here was a true mega-disaster whose wrath was still unfolding every day in our newspapers and on our televisions. While China may be on the other side of the world, the media had recently brought this disaster into all of our homes.

We felt that, as Californians, everyone could relate to the need for a massive rescue and relief effort—especially after surviving the events that have happened to all of us here in our own backyard over the years. I was humming like a tuning fork after Billy struck the “disaster recovery” note.

There was just one little detail—we needed a celebrity to help us attract attention. Billy asked, “What about Jerry Yang? Do you think he might help us?” I told him I didn’t know, but would certainly cross my fingers and ask him.

So that’s what I proceeded to do. Well, I’m proud to report that Jerry Yang, the 2007 World Series of Poker champion, couldn’t say “yes” fast enough. In fact, he seemed thrilled with the idea of raising awareness for the plight of millions of earthquake victims overseas.

He also found it interesting how “disaster recovery” had once again showed up in my headlights and ultimately our poker newspaper. Something about destiny.

In the end, we set the date for August 9 at Casino Marysville and Jerry Yang will be there to help us out. And to think that if it wasn’t for that fat ribeye steak, the whole thing probably never would have happened.