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Filing-Cabinet Frenchies. After passage of the new gaming act. Crockford's was bought by an Old Harrovian entrepreneur, blond, beefy Tim Holland. 35, who brags of learning bridge when he was nine. He transformed the club's venerable second floor with $80,000 worth of silk damask wall coverings and 18th century candelabra, imported eight French croupiers and French-made plastic chips representing $1,500,000 (highest chip: $2,800) for four chemmy and eight poker tables. In return for a cut of the take. Businessman Holland persuaded foxy old Isidor Abbecassis. Le Touquet's casino czar, to preside over his remodeled Pandemonium. Since by English law the house has no legal redress when a gambler's check bounces, Abbecassis was hired mainly for his intimate knowledge of Britain's better-heeled bettors. "These Frenchies." says Holland, "have card-indexed steel filing cabinets in their heads." "These English." says one of his croupiers, "are crazy. They bet pounds as if they were francs."
One earl dropped $280,000, calmly borrowed another $280,000 and recouped $5,600. When a blonde baroness in a skintight red dress left the chemmy table one morning last week after dropping $5,600, she yawned: "Lovely evening, really." Lured by cut-rate Lucullan food (price of dinner: $2.50) and free breakfast with champagne, more than 1,200 top-drawer Britons have joined the club, which Tim Holland modestly calls a "gold mine." Last week, after his casino had been running only ten days. Crocky's new master had already earned the Biblical encomium pinned on Fishmonger Crockford in the 19th century: "He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he. hath sent empty away."
* A variant of baccarat, chemin de jer (literal meaning: railroad) is limited to two players, who alternate as banker. Each gets dealt two cards and may draw a third, with the aim of getting a count of nine or as close to it as possible. Tens and picture cards count zero.