when i grow up i wanna be a tourney pro….

Tournament poker is a never-ending test of skill, which takes years or a lifetime to master.

It’s not a gig for $15/hr reporters like Tiffany Michelle, or for women or small children. It’s a cut-throat world of high intensity strategy and steel nerves where brilliance shines and the weak perish.

Show me a winner of a large tournament, and I’ll show you a Champion who spent a lifetime mastering the skills necessary to control a 30bb stack in a full ring game. The complexities of structuring your bets so that you never have to make a turn decision as well as maintaining agressive pressure playing 11/6 for 7 days straight is not a game for the faint-hearted.

Lesser men, like myself, try and fail. Only champions succeed. You either have it or you don’t. When the camera descends on your table to film the nail-biting suspense of a 40bb pot allin pre with one gladiator holding 88 and the other fierce opponent holding KQs, the boys get separated from the real men.

Imagine multiple champions like Johnny “The Orient Express” Chan or Phil “Hellmouth” Hellmuth staring you down as you ponder a 14bb allin decision. If you can handle that kind of pressure, you belong there. The rest of us belong on the rail, dreaming, admiring and getting autographs from these walking gods in the Rio room.

Brag: I once check-folded against Chip Jett. He then let me sign his playing card. I tried not to blush with embarassment at my good fortune. I played it cool. Later, he let me pick up the drink tab.

To the winners go the spoils. One only has to admire Allen Cunningham’s g/f to see the end result of massive success:

One day, one fine day, I will walk with these icons as an equal. I will charge people for the priviledge of playing with me. I will become a legend and when this happens, I will disown all of you and go hang out with Layne Flack and engage in fascinating conversation with said Flack - I will also drink mint bourbons and give incredibly stupid interviews where I try incredibly hard to be funny and fail.

I will convince myself that the stripper I pay 2k a night to actually does love me. I will spend my free time playing baccarat alone and throwing chairs and swearing when I lose with natural 8. I will play credit card roulette for $700 dinners and love the fact that the pumpkin soup I’m eating has a $200 price tag and a fancy French-sounding name for chives.

I will flirt on camera with Amanda Leatherman, who has an IQ higher than any of the jokers she’s forced to interview, and she will politely laugh at my sleazy jokes in her professional manner - and I will hit on her with class and stylish pickup lines learned from Layne Flack. I will arm-wrestle Sebok for $100 and make a TV show out of it that 800 16 year olds watch religiously.

I will buyin mentally disturbed, dirty, suicidal skanks into tournaments and rub up against them Captain Tom style.

One day. One fine, glorious day.

Posted in Random |

6 Responses to “when i grow up i wanna be a tourney pro….”

6 Comments »

1. Brilliant, just brillant.

   Comment by Riverthief — July 26, 2008 @ 11:19 am

2. post of the year

   Comment by Matt — July 27, 2008 @ 1:30 pm

3. unpossible

   Comment by Wiz — July 27, 2008 @ 4:32 pm

4. great blog entry i aLOL’d
   love your work

   Comment by phi — July 28, 2008 @ 2:28 pm

5. ahaha

   Comment by crombie — August 4, 2008 @ 3:19 am

6. hahaha

   Comment by crombie — August 4, 2008 @ 3:19 am

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment