Card Protector

Many people ask about my card protector and most immediately assume I’m a horse racing aficionado, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

It all started in the height of COVID. Like many people during that tumultuous time, I got into bourbon drinking and collecting. I never really had a taste for bourbon beforehand, except when it was paired with Coke or Diet Coke. I was mostly a beer drinker pre-COVID. But times were odd and my brother-in-law introduced me to the art of drinking bourbon neat, or on the rocks. He already had a large collection and after tasting Eagle Rare, Blanton’s, Elmer T. Lee and a few others, I was hooked. Not in the alcoholism sense, but in the pure enjoyment and collecting sense.

So I started my collection in 2021 and never really looked back. I’ll generally have an ounce or two of bourbon a night, but never, under any circumstance do or would I ever drink while playing poker, 100% recipe for disaster.

In any case, in 2024 while playing a session at the Venetian in Las Vegas, I noticed a guy on my left who used a Blanton’s bourbon top as his card protector. We obviously discussed bourbon and collecting the entire session and I asked how he made it (as there’s cork and medal underneath). He explained and told him at the time I was going to steal that idea. He was on board with it and the instant I got back home to Houston, I made one.

So I’ve used it ever since and has become the talk of many poker sessions. As an FYI, for those of you who drink or collect bourbon, my Blanton’s card protector top is the letter “T”.