Marc Antoine's Poker Skills Resulted In CD Title

Guitarist Marc Antoine is ready to introduce his new CD, Hi-Lo Split, to fans. The album is his first for the Peak Records label, and the title track single is the first to radio. Antoine, who lives in Madrid with his wife and young son, says he named the CD for a style of poker that he learned from a group of American friends who had a regular poker night.

He explained:"And I never really played poker, and these guys kept changing the rules. One of the poker games they were playing was like sometimes five cards, or seven card, and some of them were saying, 'hi-lo split.' 'What do you mean, hi-lo split?'Well, the guy who's got the highest hand takes one half of the pot and the guy who's got the lowest hand takes the other half of the pot, so it's hi-lo split."

Antoine says that he got so good at the game himself that the term became his nickname before he applied it to the new album: "So every time it was my turn to choose the game, I was always saying 'seven card hi-lo split.'So they were starting to call me Hi-Lo Split (laughs), you know. And I thought it was a great title. And also, I cleared all these guys, you know, the first game, it was like beginner's luck. One day I said, 'Why don't we call the record Hi-Lo Split?'"

The new CD follows Antoine's critically hailed 2005 CD, Modern Times.

By: Janine Coveney

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