The American poet T.S. Eliot once said, “Good writers borrow, great writers steal and poker writers paraphrase.” Okay, he didn’t say that last part, but it explains the title for this section, a take on his opening to The Wasteland.
Eliot was referring to April, but poker players know that August, falling as it does right after the WSOP, can be even crueler. It depends on how you did in the Series.
You may have simply failed to cash. You may have min-cashed multiple times but still come out a huge loser, or min-ionarie, as my mindset coach prefers. Less shame in your game, but still no dough to show.
You may have followed the example set by the best players in the world and come to the Series just for the famously lucrative cash games, only to discover they are famously lucrative because it’s the best players in the world versus you.
Or maybe you sat down in a tourney with Will Kasouff on your right and Martin Khabrel on your left and now you have P.T.S.D (players talking shit disorder).
Did you fire so many bullets in the Colossus, you considered firing one into your brain?
Did you rebuy multiple times into the Mystery Millions because it was saving you a fortune in lottery tickets?
Whatever your circumstance, August is a time to reflect, re-assess, recalibrate and rebuy. Damnit!
Warning: reaction to rumination may vary.
For me, it’s been a tough month. Throughout the dog days, a coach whose site I subscribed to for WSOP prep, has been sending me emails full of Bankroll Management Tips. Really? Now he sends this?
Guess what, none of the tips were stop wasting money on coaching sites. And of course, at the bottom of the email is an invitation for another free trial. Pretty exploitative, Mr. GTO.
Okay, let’s be fair. Did the videos and quizzes on this site provide me with useful information? Certainly. The only person in Vegas this summer who counted more combinations than me was working the deli counter at Siegel’s Bagelmania.
But I was wearing patches for this site like I was a NASCAR and I never made it into the winner’s circle. I will not identify this coach, except to say that his first name rhymes with La Paz.
Relax, I’m just jakaing. I take full responsibility for my losses, or as Shakespeare said,“The fault, dear Brutus, is in our Sklars.”
Anyway, what I’ve found useful this August is stepping away from poker for a while and spending some quality time betting on baseball.
Shahade Wins Car-Changing Money
Congrats to Jen Shahade, who won the main event at the Women’s Summer Poker Festival for 22,200 pounds. And congratulations to PokerStars for not calling it the Ladies’ Summer Poker Festival.
Lady, after all, is a social construct, along with gentleman, that really belongs to a different time that was at once more gentile and yet repressive, particularly to women.
I guess the fact that there has traditionally been so much ungentlemanly behavior in the typical poker room has necessitated so-called ladies’ events, but the world has evolved, except in American politics, and it’s good to see that poker is finally following suit.
The Ladies International Poker Series, L.I.P.S., would do well to follow PokerStars’ example and kiss their name and red-lacquered logo good-bye. They could become the Women’s Poker Tour. WPT. It can’t miss.
Speaking of the WPT….
Show of Hands
A couple of weeks ago ClubWPT Gold, the sweepstakes-model online poker site, followed suit of its real-money partner, WPT Global, and added a Reveal Hands button for players who stay in until the end of the hand.
For this service the site charges a small fee of two or three big blinds, formerly known as your expected profit per 100 hands.
What you get for your two or three blinds is to see the cards of every player who participated in the hand. Also, the revealed hands remain in your hand history.
We’ve all worried that our data could be compromised online, but now, thanks to ClubWPT Gold, we can be certain of it.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s not cricket (to invoke another game that I don’t understand), and the best players in the world agree with me.
Everyone from Hall of Famer Brian Rast to WSOP Player of the Year Shaun Deeb to ClubWPT Gold ambassador Doug Polk has chimed in that the Reveal Hands feature is predatory towards recreational players, and that’s their job.
I do think we have to be understanding here. ClubWPT Gold needs this money to pay million-dollar prizes to the winners of other company’s tournaments.
As you probably recall, they awarded said bonuses to certain players if they won a bracelet at this summer’s WSOP, including the winner of the $1500 Millionaire Maker, Jesse Yaginuma.
After an investigation, but also before an investigation, because it was so obvious, it was determined that Yaginuma had received some help from another player at the final table, James Carroll, who dumped chips to him once they were heads up, in effect colluding to split the bonus.
ClubWPT Gold wasn’t responsible for those dumped chips being given away, but with Reveal Hands the dump is taken.
The 60 Milly-Maker
The good people at the World Series of Poker, and their new overlords, the good bots at GG Poker, have announced a guarantee of $60 Million for the WSOP Paradise Super Main Event in the Bahamas this coming December.
That is a huge guarantee that could cause a huge overlay, especially for the winner, who will get laid many times as a result. Do you not enjoy wordplay? Then this may not be the column for you.
Craziness is in the Air
Speaking of large pay-outs, a winner-take-all series of heads-up matches between Dan “Jungleman” Cates and Ossi “Monarch” Ketola, live-streamed from the Onyx Club in Cyprus.
Jungleman ultimately triumphed, taking down just over 15 million dollars, and as I watched, I could only dream that someday, I would be one of his backers.
A Callback
T.S. Eliot, following his mantra that “good writers borrow and great writers steal,” actually lifted “April is the cruelest month” from Chaucer, who began the Canterbury Tales with the same idea. So I guess our title, appropriately enough, is a re-steal.
Have a great September.
