Friday, May 18, 2012

The Bonfire Restaurant Story

  
                                              The Bonfire Restaurant Story
                                                               1965
                     A true story, the Mafia, and my friend Ritchie’s Lobster business
                                      Written 2010 Re-written 04/26/2016
                                                       Howard Yasgar


This true story about the Mafia owned Bonfire Restaurant that was told to me by my good friend Ritchie.
Ritchie, in 1965, had reopened the once closed restaurant.
Most of the first part of my story was common knowledge to people that were living in Miami at the time. The rest of the story was told to me by Ritchie himself.
In 1965, I had been living in South Florida for over two years, my wife and I had arrived in Miami in November of 1963.
At the time, whenever we listened to the evening news on TV, there was a particular restaurant that always seemed to be mentioned.
It was called the “Bonfire” and it was touted as being one of the best barbecued rib restaurants in all of South Florida.
It seemed as though every time a celebrity came to Miami they were followed by the news media and interviewed at the Bonfire Restaurant.
It seemed strange to me that the Bonfire Restaurant was given so much free publicity.
It was like the news media was  promoting the place.
Eventually it got to the point that  had heard the name of the Bonfire Restaurant so often, I no longer paid attention to it.
I always thought the restaurant was located somewhere on Miami Beach.
But whenever we drove around the Miami area, I always kept an eye out for the Bonfire but I never seemed to find it.
Then one day while my wife and I were driving to Miami Beach by the way of NW 79 Street causeway, we passed through a small town called “Sunny Isles”, and that’s when I spotted the Bonfire Restaurant.  
Sunny Isles was just a small town that attaches Miami Beach to the mainland of Miami.
It had several large restaurants, located on 79 Street and it had lots of  condominiums.
Sunny Isles was kind of famous for such a small town, it was constantly in the news because of corruption or scandals of one kind or another.  
At one time, the town of Sunny Isles hit the headlines because there was a Mafia style killing that happened in a restaurant right on 79th Street.
The restaurant was called “The Place for Steak”.
A hit man walked into the bar and shot a another gangster that was sitting there having a drink.
The hit happened right in front of everyone and the killer just walked away.
The news media played the killing up big, inferring that Sunny Isles was overrun by organized crime.
So as we drove through Sunny Isles, I was looking at all the different restaurant signs when I saw a strip mall on my right, and there it was, I had finally found the Bonfire Restaurant.
Now that I knew where the famous restaurant was, I thought it would be a good idea to take my family there for supper one evening.
I wanted to see what all the hype was about, after all they said it was the best barbecue place in Miami, and I like barbecue.
I also thought, you never knew, we might get lucky and spot a celebrity there.
The colorful neon sign over the front of the place was depicting a bonfire and some barbecue ribs cooking over it, what could be better.
So one night we went there.
As you entered the restaurant, to your left there was a long liquor bar, and to the right were tables and seating for perhaps 200 people.
That’s when the menu came, that’s when the disappointment came.
Nowhere on the menu did it mention barbecue.
As a matter of fact the menu was no different than any other ordinary restaurant, there was nothing on it that couldn’t be found at any other mediocre restaurant in Miami.
So the Bonfire Restaurant turned out to be a real let down, there wasn’t anything special to be had there.
It was obvious to me that the Bonfire had something going on, especially with the news media that give them so much hype and free advertising they were getting.
After that experience, we put the Bonfire Restaurant on the “Never go back again list”.
Several months passed, and one evening I was watching the local evening news, it was just bursting with a tremendous story about the Bonfire Restaurant.
It appears the restaurant had been raided by a police task force that included the FBI.
The restaurant was closed down and boarded up.
The headlines said that the Bonfire was being run by the head Mafia finance man in Miami, Meyer Lansky.
They said that the restaurant was involved in the numbers rackets, prostitution, extortion, money laundering and a whole list of other crimes including bookmaking and loan sharking.
I knew all about Meyer Lansky, as he was the head organized crime finance man who once ran the mob’s casinos in Cuba.
Meyer Lansky was always in the news, and I knew that he had been indicted several times.
I remember watching on television when Meyer attempted to leave the United States and go to Israel. I saw him as he was returned to Miami, Israel would not let him in.
Then I heard that Meyer who was living on Miami Beach had died of a heart condition.
After Meyer’s passing, I never heard anyone ever mention again anything about the Bonfire Restaurant.
Over the next several years, as I drove by it,  I saw that the Bonfire was still all boarded up, and I soon forgot all about it.
Now, comes the story from my good friend Ritchie.
I had met Richie because he was involved in a similar Automotive and marine parts business as I was, and once we met we became good friends.
One day, while Ritchie and I were talking, he mentioned the Bonfire Restaurant.
I was really very curious as to what he knew about it, so I asked him, and he told me the following story:
As a young man, Ritchie started shipping in live Maine lobsters from Maine to Florida and selling them wholesale, to restaurants.
Ritchie, also had a grandfather who was living in Miami.
Ritchie’s grandfather, who was about eighty years old, had formerly worked as the chauffeur for the Mafia mobster Meyer Lansky.
His grandfather still wore his pistol strapped to his ankle just like he did in the old days, when he drove Meyer around.
Ritchie’s grandfather told him that Meyer Lansky had entrusted him with the keys and leases to the old Bonfire Restaurant, and he still had them.
His grandfather suggested that he and Ritchie open up the old Bonfire restaurant.
His grandfather said that because Richard was already in the live lobsters business they could make the old bonfire restaurant into a lobster restaurant.
He suggested that Ritchie renovate the Bonfire Restaurant and set up for business.
His grandfather made it all sound simple, all they needed was Ritchie’s money and his lobsters.
Ritchie never questioned his grandfather as to how or why he ended up with the restaurant, but he really did  have the keys.
So they both went to look at the restaurant.
By the time they went, the Bonfire had been shuttered for several years and the interior needed a complete renovation.
Now my friend Ritchie, had no experience in the restaurant business, so everything about opening up a restaurant was new to him.
There were contracts to be signed, furniture and supplies to be bought, and because the building had been neglected for so long, just about everything needed to be replaced.
Not only that but the giant liquor bar that also needed to be restocked.
Because his grandfather was a convicted felon, his name couldn’t appear on any of the leases and contracts, so Ritchie signed them all personally.
They eventually opened up the Bonfire Restaurant again and customers started coming in, but it wasn’t long before Ritchie’s money started running out.
Running his lobster business, and also running the Bonfire Restaurant was endless work for Ritchie, he was working all day and all night.
On many evenings some of the local Miami drug dealers would come in and throw big lobster parties, and those parties lasted into the early morning hours.
Richard was working with little sleep.
Every day new supplies and food needed to be ordered, and Ritchie soon found he no longer had any time left for his family.
Then, Ritchie noticed there was never enough money in the cash register to pay all the bills.
Ritchie noticed that whenever there was a few hundred dollar bills in the cash register, his grandfather would remove some of them and stick them in his stocking.
Every day his grandfather, would go to the liquor bar with a ruler, and he would measure all the whiskey bottles to make everyone think he knew how much booze they had sold, his grandfather said it would keep the bartenders and waitresses honest.
But when Ritchie started checking the bar receipts, things just didn’t add up, so Ritchie started watching everything closer.
Every day the head bartender would show up for work early and put on a big show of cleaning and prepping the bar, Richard said the guy even brown bagged his own lunch.
What Ritchie didn’t know, was that the bartenders brown bag contained a large bottle of Vodka that he was serving from and pocketing the money for himself.
Next Ritchie started watching the waitresses, and he found that some of them had actually copied the restaurant receipt books.
Whenever a customer was going to pay for a big meal in cash, the waitress would write up a phony receipt for pie and coffee and turn that receipt in, pocketing the customers cash.
Everyone was stealing from Ritchie and the problems were becoming too great for him to handle.
It was just about that time that Ritchie’s wife divorced him, and when that happened, he thought that he was at the end of his rope, he was considering giving it all up.
One evening Richard was laying on the floor in the kitchen, fixing a leaking hose under the dishwashing machine.
As he loosened the old hose, the dirty water and garbage came flooding out all over his face and chest.
Just as that happened, a waitress came in the kitchen and told Richard that there was a drunk loudmouth customer in the restaurant that wanted to see the owner.
So Richard slid out from under the machine and wiped the garbage and water off his face with a towel.
As he walked out into the dining area, he was worrying as to how he was going to handle a drunk and complaining customer, his heart was pounding.
As Ritchie reached the customers table, the drunk asked if Richard was the owner.
Ritchie replied that he was his heart was pounding even more. The drunk then extended his hand to Richard, and said, “Best lobster dinner we ever had”.
Ritchie returned to the kitchen, and at that point he knew he had enough.
Ritchie had lost all his money, lost his wife, and he was in debt up to his ears.
The Bonfire Restaurant was then officially closed for good.



                

The Burning Military Tank Story

                                                   The Burning Military Tank Story
                                                                       1961
                                                                 A true story
                                             Written 12/2010 Re-written 4/27/2016                                                       
                                                               Howard Yasgar


     This true story is all about one of the biggest coincidences that I have ever encountered in my entire life.
      In 1957, I was nineteen years old, and living in Westville Connecticut, at the time I was working part time as a mechanic.
       I was fortunate enough to work for a highly skilled local New Haven mechanic named Ray.
      I had met Ray while I was working for his cousin Tony who leased a  Gulf gas station near my home.
      It was Tony who first introduced me to his cousin Ray.
      Once I met Ray, and I saw how good mechanic he was, I knew I wanted to go to work for him.
      Ray looked typically Italian, he was average height, slender build, with wavy black hair
      Despite his looking Italian he never acted like he was Italian, and he always told everyone that he was Irish, why he did that I don’t know.
     I  knew that his stepfather, was a railroad cop and he was Irish, and I knew Ray’s girlfriend was Irish.
      I had met Ray’s stepfather, the railroad cop, once, and he actually fit the Irish Cop stereotype.
     He looked exactly like what an Irish cop looks like. I knew that because New Haven had lots if Irish cops on the police force.
      They all were all overweight, all spoke with a heavy Irish brogue and they all had red noses from excessive drinking.
      Ray once told me a story about his stepfather.
      He said his stepfather almost lost his job with the railroad because of it.
     It seems that one evening his stepfather was patrolling the railroad yard when he heard someone breaking into one of the box cars.
     He pulled his gun and scared the crooks off,  but when he saw that the box car was full of men’s shoes he climbed inside the box car and he was caught taking a few pair.
      It was around early in 1958 when I started to get nervous about getting drafted into the Army.
      I became so worried about it, that I was thinking about joining the Army Reserves.
     I thought joining the Army Reserves would be a lot better than waiting for the draft board to come and get me.
      I already knew that I wanted to be a mechanic in the Army, and if I got drafted, I might miss the opportunity to go to mechanics school and I might get forced into the infantry.
      So as time passed, I knew that I soon had to make a decision, as to what to do and eventually it got to the point where I thought about it every day.
      The only person I felt that I could discuss it with, was my boss Ra, I thought I had once heard him mention that he had been in the Army.
      So one cold winter day, Joe and I were sitting in his small office drinking coffee.
      I mentioned my upcoming dilemma to him, I was hoping he could give me some good advice as to what to do.
      As soon as I mentioned the word Army, Ray rolled his eyes, and he said “I don’t think you should join the Army”. That was exactly what he said to me.
      So, I asked Ray if he was ever was in the Army, and why he felt that way? “Yes Ray said, I was in the Army, but they let me out”.
      How the heck did they let you out, I asked?
      “Well, Ray said, that’s, a long story”.
      Then he was silent for several minutes, and finally he said, “Several years ago, I was drafted into the army and I was sent to school to be a tank mechanic”.
      “Then after tank mechanics school, the Army transferred me to Germany”.
    “In Germany, I was assigned as a mechanic to a unit training with M46 tanks in the German countryside, he said that at the time, the Army was using mostly all M46 tanks which had gasoline 12 cylinder in them”.
      He said , one day, his sergeant, instructed him to weld a bracket on the back of a tank.
      The tank was parked on the edge of a big field. So, Ray said, “I drove my jeep over to where the tank was. My  jeep my welding torch on it”.   
      Ray started to weld the bracket onto the back of the tank.
     He then said, “I didn’t see it, or smell it, but there was gasoline on the grass, I think it was because the tank must have had a gasoline leak somewhere, and it caught on fire. I grabbed the fire extinguisher from the tank, but it didn’t work, so I frantically drove everywhere with my Jeep looking for another fire extinguisher.
     But by time I got back the whole tank was on fire, and it was completely destroyed, ammunition was blowing up and everything”.
   Ray then said “The Army blamed him for everything that happened, and they wanted me to reimburse the government for the tank which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. He said, the whole thing was totally unfair, they wanted to court-marshal me, but then instead of making me pay for the tank, they gave me a dishonorable discharge, and that’s how I got out of the Army”.
     Ray’s face was now very serious and I could see he was getting mad, then he said, “The Army just needed someone to blame for the accident, and that was me, that’s why I think you shouldn’t join.”
    That was the exact story just as Ray told it to me, while we were sitting in his tiny office that winter day in 1958.
      I was 19 years old at the time and I had listened intently to every word Ray had said.
      But I finally decided to join the Army Reserves anyway.
      Once I joined the Army Reserves, my unit was all drivers of  heavy fuel tankers, so I trained as a heavy fuel tank truck driver.
      All along, I thought it was a pretty scary job, it was like driving a bomb around.
      But eventually I went off to complete my eight weeks of basic training, at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
     After eight weeks of basic training all my buddies were assigned to active duty assignments all over the United States, but for some reason I was assigned to come back and report to a motor pool at Fort Dix.
     At first I wasn’t particularly happy about being a truck driver at Fort Dix, but soon I learned that being a truck driver in the Army was the best thing, you were treated like a big shot, everyone wanted to know you, because riding in the back of a truck was better than marching.
     Now my job working as a driver meant I hung around the motor pool until someone on the base needed a truck and driver.
     That meant that every day I could  be assigned to a different place on the base.
    Now, Fort Dix was like a city, you never knew where you could be assigned next. There were hundreds of buildings and warehouses there.
     Each of the warehouses usually had a Staff Sergeant in charge of it, and each warehouse needed A truck and driver.
     Usually the Staff Sergeant was a non-commissioned officer who had come up through the ranks, he was usually a soldier that had already traveled all over the world with the military, and most of them have seen some military action somewhere.
     When a Staff Sergeant came close to their retirement, they were usually put in charge of one of the supply warehouses, it was sort of a final cushy job to repay them for their twenty years of good service.
     All of the Staff Sergeants I ever met were pretty serious and pretty tough, and most of them had seen combat usually in Korea.
     It was on a very cold winter day when I was assigned to report with my cargo truck to a supply warehouse at Fort Dix.
     They had requested a 2-1/2 ton truck and a driver.
     When I arrived, it was 9 in the morning and everyone was standing around the pot belly stove to keep warm.
     On this particularly cold morning the five or six soldiers that worked in the warehouse were all huddled around the pot belly stove talking about nothing important.
      So I walked over and stood by the stove warming myself with them.
     As I stood there I saw the Staff Sergeant come out of his freezing office to warm up next to the stove.
     The Sergeant  was a short muscular guy about 5 foot eight tall, he had dirty blond crew cut hair and a ruddy complexion.
     His Army fatigues were tailored to fit him perfectly, and I saw he had paratrooper wings, which meant he had been military airborne.
      This morning he wasn’t smiling, his face looked like it was chiseled out of stone, he looked very tough, not the  kind of guy you wanted to mess around with.
      As we stood by the stove the Sergeant rolled up his trouser leg, and put his foot up onto the stoves platform to warm it up. I could see that his leg was horribly scared.
      It was really bad, it looked like he had a lot of skin grafts.
      What the hell happened to you Sarge, I asked?
    He looked at me, and his facial expression changed. He said, “I was a tank commander in Germany, and we were out on maneuvers, when all of a sudden my tank caught on fire and burned up.”
      “Because I was the commander, it was my responsibility to let my crew escape before I got out, but by then it was too late, and my legs were burned pretty bad.” Jesus, I said, “how did the tank catch on fire?”
       The Sergeant replied, The fire was caused by some young little Italian asshole mechanic named Ray from New Haven, Connecticut.”  I could have swallowed my Adams apple.
       He said “Ray was the mechanic working on the tank’s engines, and he forgot to tighten up the fuel lines. The gas leaked into the tanks engine compartment and caught fire when we started it up.”
      “I was taken to a hospital in Germany, and I later heard the little shit of a mechanic had been court marshaled. He said, “I’ll never forget that little prick”
      “I had been talking to him when he was fixing the tank, he told me he had a stepfather in New Haven that was a railroad Dick.”  
      The Sergeant also said “I spent six months in the hospital recovering from the skin grafts, and after I got out of the hospital, I went to look for that little shit in Germany, I was going to beat the crap out of him, or kill him, but I heard that he had already been dishonorably discharged from the Army.”
     He went on to say that, “if I ever catch that little bastard, he made his hand into a fist, but he didn’t say what he would do.”
     After listening to the Sergeant’s story, and seeing his legs, I wondered if I should tell him that not only did I know the mechanic from New Haven, but that I worked for him.
     That story he told me was a bit more serious than the story that Ray had told me just a few years before.
     I knew the Sergeant had no reason to lie to me, and he had the scarred legs to prove his story.
     I thought, what a coincidence my meeting this Sergeant.
     Considering the Army is so big and he was just one guy out of hundreds of thousands of soldiers that were stationed everywhere.
     I decided it would be better if I opted to say nothing more about Ray, and that’s what I did, I said nothing.
.     


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Wednesday, May 9, 2012

The Backgammon Tournament Story


                                             The Backgammon Tournament Story
                                                                                    1977
                                                                A true story
                                        Written 3/2011 and Re-written 02/04/2016
                                                             Howard Yasgar


It was late in 1976, when we were first contacted by an export company located on 5th Avenue in New York City.
The company was called Equipment Spare Parts or “ESP”, and they were exporting heavy equipment spare parts to South and Central America as well as the Caribbean.
The Company was owned by a Miami  entrepreneur named Avi Samuels.
Our company started doing business with ESP, and soon the owner Avi Samuels came by our office in to visit us.
When we first met Avi Samuels it was hard not to be impressed by him, he was a nice guy.
Avi spoke with a hint of an Israeli accent, he was impeccably dressed, wore a Rolex watch, drove a  Mercedes Benz, and told us that he owned a condominium in the fashionable Turnberry Isles resort.
Avi Samuels gave the appearance and impression of being a very successful business man he was very personable and you couldn’t help but like him.
Before Avi left our office, he invited my partner Don and myself to come and visit him at his New York City office, which was located right on 5th Avenue.
As we had already been planning a business trip to New York, we made an appointment with Avi to visit with him at his company office.
When we arrived at ESP’s prestigious 5th Avenue address in New York City, we were very impressed to find it was located in an elegant old apartment building.
The building  not only had business offices in it, but it also had apartments as well.
Avi explained that you never knew what personality you would be standing next to on the elevator, as his building had quite a few famous movie stars living there.   
After our afternoon meeting with Avi and all of the ESP staff, he invited us to join him at his private club for supper, which he said was just walking distance from his office.
It sounded like a good idea as neither my partner Don nor I had ever been to a private club before.
Avi’s club was not just a regular club, it was a very exclusive Backgammon club, and he, Avi, was an officer there, and we learned that he was  a competition Backgammon player.
My partner Don and I knew absolutely nothing about the game of Backgammon, other than it was some kind of parlor game played for amusement.
So as we all sat at Avi’s club, he attempted to explain to us how to play the game of Backgammon.
   Unfortunately, because Don and I were unfamiliar with the game, we didn’t have any idea of what the hell he was talking about.
But Avi, assuming we were interested in learning how to play the game told us that we were very fortunate, because on that afternoon the president of his Backgammon club, was there.
Turns out he was a world champion Backgammon player, and Avi said he would sit down with us and show us several Backgammon strategies for free.
So Avi then introduced us to the world champion Backgammon player, and we all sat down to about two hours of listening to some highly technical backgammon strategies.
We were finally rescued by the clubs chef, who announced that dinner was being served.
In the following year, 1977, I received a call from Avi who by now was not only our customer but a good friend as well.
He asked us if we would like to join him, he was putting together a group to go to the 1977 “World Backgammon Championship”.
He said that the championship matches were being held that year at the Britannia Beach Hotel on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.
It appeared that Avi, must have thought we were going to become Backgammon enthusiasts just like he was.
He didn’t realize that we  knew practically nothing about the game, nor did we have any interest in learning how to play it.
So my partner Don immediately came up an excuse as to why he couldn’t go, but to me, it sounded like a real adventure.
I had always liked Paradise Island in the Bahamas as my wife and I had been there several times, always staying at the Paradise Island Hotel and Casino.
I had never stayed at the Britannia Beach Hotel which is where the championship was being held.
I told Avi, that I would be more than happy to attend.
Avi said that he had already invited two other backgammon friends, who would be joining us.
On the appointed day, we all met at Miami International Airport, for the short flight to Nassau.
Avi introduced me to his two other friends who, like Avi, were also avid Backgammon players.
In our conversation on the plane, it appeared that Avi as well as both his friends, had traveled all over the world to attend and or play in high stakes Backgammon matches.
So it became apparent, to me that I was the only one who didn't know anything about what was going on regarding playing Backgammon.
As we talked more on the flight to the Bahamas, I learned that Avi's two friends had accompanied him to the last Backgammon Championship which had been held in Monte Carlo.
They said that Avi had made several hundred thousand dollars there, by winning the tournament.
I couldn’t believe it, here I was thinking Backgammon was just a parlor game for amusement.
His friends both told me that Avi was quite the personality in the world of Backgammon, a game which I was beginning to see was a lot bigger and more complicated than what I thought it was.
Once we were in Nassau, we took a Cab over the bridge to Paradise Island, where the Paradise Island Hotel and Casino and the exclusive Britannia Beach Hotel were located.
Once we were at the hotel, Avi went to begin checking us in at the front desk, so I thought I would take a walk around.
I had walked through the Britannia Hotel lobby before, but I had never realized that there was a giant underground banquet hall, as well as many large meeting rooms, and they were all located below ground. It appeared that the Britannia Beach hotel was much larger than I had ever thought.
As I walked around, I couldn’t help but notice that there were hundreds of people arriving, they were all shaking hands, and hugging each other, and they all looked wealthy.
I couldn’t help but hear a few of their conversations, and it was all about Backgammon.  
It appeared that many of these people had traveled to Nassau from all over the world, and they were here to either watch, play, or gamble on Backgammon, and that’s all they were talking about.
I was very glad no one spoke to me, because I had nothing I cold say to them about the game.
I returned to the lobby, where I could hear Avi who was in a heated conversation with the desk clerk.
It appears as was usual in the Bahamas they had no record of our reservations.
The Britannia Hotel ended up putting us in a complementary smaller hotel that was down the road but within walking distance. They said they would move us into the main building as soon as they found room.
After we all checked into the smaller hotel, Avi said we should  meet at back at the Britannia Hotel restaurant at exactly 6 PM.
He said, it was important that we meet not later than 6 PM, as the opening ceremonies of the Backgammon championship started at exactly 7 PM sharp, and we all had to be there.
As it was early afternoon and I had time to kill, I decided to walk over to the Paradise Island Casino next door, I wanted to try my luck at the slot machines.
I had brought about $1500.00 in cash which I felt was adequate to cover any expenses I would incur for the weekend.
I changed a $100.00 into $1.00 slot machine coins, and I started playing several different slot machines.
By about 5 PM, I had played most all of the dollar slot machines in the Casino, winning some and losing some but with very few winnings to show for it. I  ended up at a row of slot machines that put my back to the front door of the Casino.
Turns out, it was a lucky move for me, as I quickly won a $100.00 jackpot. Then I won another jackpot, and then another.
I started putting coins into the slot machines on my right and on my left, and I was winning on all of them.
Soon I was winning so many dollar coins that I had filled up the several $10.00 red plastic coin trays they had laying around.
Eventually I had so many of the red $100.00 money trays filled that I started stacking my winnings on top of the slot machines as well as on both of the chairs next to me.
It seems as if I couldn’t lose, and I think I had over $1000.00 in winnings.  
That’s when I felt Avi's two friends put their hands on my shoulders to tell me we were late for our restaurant appointment.
They had both walked in the front door of the casino, but I had not seen them, as my back was to them.
As I continued playing, they were now making me very nervous, because every time I put coins in any of the slot machines, I was still winning, I didn’t want to leave.
Then the guys started pressuring me to leave the casino.
So, when they both saw I was not leaving so quick, they started taking my trays of coins and putting all my winnings in every slot machine they could reach.
On one hand I wanted to stop them, but I didn’t want to appear to be a cheapskate, so I didn’t say anything and in about fifteen minutes they had lost all my winnings.
That’s when we all went to the restaurant to meet Avi.
The opening ceremonies of the Backgammon tournament, was In a large banquet room under the Britannia hotel, there were quite a few tables set up, with most of the tables having 10 or more people sitting at them.
Avi, had one of the tables, but there was just the four of us sitting there.
We appeared to be the only table in the room with just four people.
Besides from the tables, there were quite a few people sitting along the sides of the room, some were standing as well.
At the front of the room was a stage set up with a podium. Hanging behind the podium were big charts with lots of  names on it.
Avi leaned over to me and said that this was an auction and they were now auctioning off the Backgammon teams.
He went on to explain that if you bid and won a winning team you got to share a percentage of the prize with them.
I thought this sounded reasonable, until I heard one of the tables bid $10,000.00 for a team  and worse than that, I saw Avi was also raising his hand in the bidding.
That’s when I got a cold sweat. I was thinking that my share of a $10,000.00 bid would be $2,500.00 which I didn't have.
Fortunately for me, Avi was out bid on all the teams, until it came to the very last one, which I couldn’t believe Avi won for only $1200.00, it was the cheapest bid of all of them.
My share was to cost me only $300.00, and I was very relieved, that I didn’t have to wire home for more money.
Personally, I didn’t really understand what all the bidding was all about because Avi said that the official top prize for the winning Backgammon tournament was only $3000.00.
But the unofficial winning prizes were hundreds of thousands of dollars and could be in the millions.
He said that Backgammon gamblers from all around the world were here, and they were standing in that room with us, and at that very moment they all were making or taking side bets.
He said that most of the people sitting and standing in the room were either bookies or multi-millionaire high rollers, and he said he knew almost every one of them.
Avi said that the bookmakers were just now setting the odds, for the millions of dollars that would be bet on tomorrow’s  Backgammon matches.
Until that moment I had no idea how serious this all was. Millions of dollars were being bet on a game that I never even heard of before.
The next day I started watching the individual Backgammon matches, which I soon found were way too complicated for me.
I soon gave up trying to figure what was going on.
People were watching every move the players made, some were recording it on pads, and some people appeared to be memorizing the moves.
It was all very complicated for me, there were even officials calling out each move as they were made, and official score keepers were recording it.
I tried listened to some of the private conversations going on.
They were all talking very seriously about each player’s moves, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, as some of the moves the people were discussing they said had been made many years ago at other Backgammon tournaments, in other Countries.
It was all way over my head, so to look like I belonged there, I started following Avi around.
As we walked from table to table, Avi, seemed to know everyone, and they all would shake his hand, like they were old friends.
Avi told me that the team we had bid on for $1200.00, was considered the worst team playing in the tournament, which is just as I had suspected, but Avi said, anything could happen in a Backgammon tournament.
The next day we all met for lunch in the Britannia restaurant, Avi had invited an elderly gentleman from New York that he knew from the Backgammon circuit.
As we all sat down, Avi introduced me to him, as we were sitting next to each other.
So acting like I knew what I was doing, I started talking to him.
He told me he was a book publisher from New York City, and he followed, and bet heavily on the backgammon championships, he said he attended Backgammon tournaments all over the world.
As he spoke, Avi asked him “How do you feel after having lost $39,000.00 gambling this morning”.
The elderly book publisher’s reply was, “I didn't like it a bit, he said, but it won't change my lifestyle”, and to this day, I have never forgotten what he said.
At the end of the day, Avi told us, with a huge grin, that believe it or not, our team came in the money and our share of the win was about $1300.00 which covered the cost of what we had spent on buying the team, so I hadn’t lost any money.
About a year later I asked Avi how his Publisher friend from New York was doing, the guy that we had lunch with that had lost the $39,000.00.
Avi said, unfortunately the fellow had died of pneumonia that winter. It appears they had raised the rent on where he parked his Mercedes in New York, so to save his money, he moved his car down the street, and he caught pneumonia walking to his car in the winter.
And this was the guy that lost $39,000.00 in one morning, and said it wouldn’t change his life style.
He had died to save a couple of bucks parking his car.
It was quite a few years later after I had attended that Backgammon championship in the Bahamas.
Avi called me to tell me there was going to be a backgammon championship at Turnberry in Miami, and he was going to be in it.
I attended the tournament with my wife, but this time I parked my car nearby so we could leave quickly before Avi had a chance to get me to bid on a team with him.
I now proudly own a Backgammon game board, but I still don’t understand or know how to play.