Pro Poker

If I can find it, do you want me to PM you the one I wrote on a pro who made the European Tour?

 

In your story, make sure you mentioned that poker took off in popularity "after Chris Moneymaker — that is his real name — won the World Series of Poker."

Or "...after the aptly named Chris Moneymaker won ..."

You never see that in poker 101 stories in the paper. /blue

 

So Sue, sure, I'd be very glad to see your work. However, it's less of a rush now. Here's why, denouement, or non-denouement as the case may be.

He showed up for the conversation with five of his friends. Turns out a pal of his is a contractor in Iraq, home for three weeks and in town here for a couple of days, so he brought his group along for dinner. Made for some very interesting interplay, some of which I imagine I can use. But I'm nowhere near having the info I'll need, and the lad leaves for Vegas in a couple of days. So, if he can't 'squeeze me in' for a one-on-one, I'll have to decide on a phone interview or putting it on ice until he returns in a few weeks. I'm leaning toward the latter. I want to observe his face when he talks about tells.

Thanks for the input, and apologies that it turned out like this. Never happened to anyone else before, surely.

(Weiskopf cancelled on me three times in a row a while back; this is nothing.)

 

I think the gambling aspect of it is too often overlooked or romanticized but the truth is many of these so-called pro's you see on television are degenerate gamblers that go broke just as much as they have millions in their pocket for winning big tournaments.

Mike Matusow and Gus Hansen are two that come to mind and the number of kids who are "quitting" school thinking they are going to strike it rich, not too mention the kids who are playing in high school is getting out of control. Hansen apparently was so busted two years ago that he needed to find a backer to enter the world series. This is a guy who had won two or three of those lucrative World Poker Tour events in the year leading up to it.

There are some, like a Phil Hellmuth -- who no doubt has amped up his whiny bitch act for the sake of the cameras -- who have invested very well and don't get caught up in the gambling aspect of it (he rarely plays those high stakes cash games) -- but for the most part, gamblers are gamblers. Some just have more money to burn.


I think poker is great, I love to play it recreationally, but I am alarmed by how many people I see at the tables who are pushing their mortgages and their kids formula into the center of the table on the hopes that their A-Q holds up.

 

This is a good story idea. I'd like to read this.

So is this.

I don't think you could go wrong with either of these angles... done properly.

And pallister, I play the $2 turbo no-limit HE games on Full Tilt. Find me. ;D

Handle: Birdscribe, of course.

 

Zagoshe, from what I can tell, this particular individual is managing his money wisely, despite his youth. That's why the angle I want to take with him will be, 'what about the people online who maintain you day-to-day? Are you concerned that some of them may be compulsive and unable to afford what they're doing?'

I didn't feel I could get straight answers to questions like that in front of his friends.

We talked a bit about Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu. He said he was thrilled the first time he played at the table with Daniel, but quickly learned that he had better put his headphones on, or DN would distract him from the task at hand.

I didn't know that Hansen was busted for a while. Thanks; I can use that.

 

Hansen said in a recent interview he wasn't busted, just went back to Denmark for a while. It was in Bluff magazine and ESPN.com had it posted a couple of months ago.

The thing I'd go after is the day-to-day aspect of it. And the fact that there are the Moneymaker's and Varkoni's of this world, and then there are the Chip Reese's, Doyle Brunson's Ted Forrest's and the like. There's a big difference between someone winning the WSOP world championship, and being the best in the world.

A really good book on poker and high stakes gambling is "The Professor, the Banker and The Suicide King" by Michael Craig. Read it and re-read it, an incredible look into the highest levels of the pro game.

 

Who is the best in the world?

I guess everything depends on what game we're talking about.

 

Chip Reese is widely considered the best all-around poker player.

 

I think one intersting thing when it comes to rookies is how playing on the Internet compares with playing with the pros who spent most of their careers in poker parlors (i.e. Brunson, Ferguson, etc.). Sometimes that lack of "real life" experience in the same room with other players really shows with Internet players and I think some of the old pros can really exploit it.

 

Internet players tend to have more tells than players who grew up playing live. If you watch "High Stakes Poker", especially the most recent season, you could see the difference in the level of play between players like Brunson or Negreanu and Gold and Bill Chen.

But with the way the internet players are playing now, like Townsend, who was also involved in the new series, the no limit game is becoming an even bigger game of chicken, which is why most pros generally play limit or pot limit games.

FWIW, Right now at Full Tilt Phil Ivey is playing PL Omaha. At the table, he had 114k. The other five players have 55k combined.

 

By far the most annoying guy is Jamie Gold