When Ed Miller wrote about good events, bad events, and non-events in his book, Poker’s 1%. He was talking about the three things that can happen after you’ve opened a pot, not Event #59 at the just completed the Los Angeles Poker Championship at Commerce Casino.
But I’ve co-opted Miller’s terminology to describe a Main Event that, though for many years was a premier tournament and a major stop on the World Poker Tour, is now a bad event, and will probably be a non-event, anon.
Attracting only 50 total players over two starting flights, the future of this once preeminent big buy-in championship is in question. What is the cause? It’s been pointed out elsewhere that Commerce, arguably the greatest casino/freeway onramp in America, held very few satellites into the event and only right before the day ones.
Had they offered these bargain feeder tournaments throughout the LAPC, they could have guaranteed a prize pool. Instead, there were no guarantees except lukewarm pizza and bad lighting.
Without these enticements, or the cache of the World Poker Tour, which pulled out pre-pandemic, a non-WSOP 10K event can’t attract enough players to make it worthwhile for pros to give up their seat in Bobby’s Room or leave their ergonomic gaming chair planted in front of 20 screens.
Whales won’t come if they don’t think there’s an opportunity to beat a famous pro and Tom Goldstein is in jail.
The only other reasonable explanation for the precipitous drop in entries (last year there were 145 and in 2019, the final year of WPT participation, 546) is that the new tax law snuck into Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill (losers love alliteration), disqualifying the write-off of ten percent of gambling losses, is dissuading players from taking shots at bigger buy-ins.
Personally, I don’t buy this. Some gamblers and poker pros are responsible money managers, ironically, probably around 10 percent, but most of us are not.
Case in point, Ethan “Rampage” Yau, who just spent $340,000 to acquire… a Lamborghini? No. A condominium? Don’t be ridiculous. He bought a Pokemon card.
At first, Yau said he balked at the price (sticker sticker shock?), but then he realized why it was so valuable. Because you can put it in the spokes of your bike and make it sound like a motorcycle? No, but close.
It cost $340K because there are only 47 of them in the world! Hey, they don’t call him Ethan “Rampage”“Charles Schwab” Yau for nothing.
Point being, he didn’t not play the Main at the LAPC because he’s worried about losing the ability to write off ten percent of his losses. And if you think I’m wrong, I’ve got a limited edition Labubu that I’ve GOTTA get off the showroom floor by the end of the month, so I’ll let you have it for a song.
I guess what I’m really trying to say is, “Congratulations, Alexander Mossman of Woodland Hill, California! You’ve won the Main Event of the LAPC for $158,000! You’ll also receive the LAPC trophy, a Remington replica of a cowboy riding a wild bronco, holding on for dear life, much like this once-great event.”
I’ve been a regular tournament player in Los Angeles for twenty years, and it was always fun and kind of inspiring to see the WPT production at Commerce or the Bike. Amid the buzz of excitement, you’d spot Mike Sexton, Vince Van Patten, Lynn Gilmartin, or the Royal Flush Girls darting around the casino, stopping to pose for pictures with fans and chat with old friends.
Then, months later, when the final table aired, it was cool to see some local regs that I played against all the time. LA poker is an international smorgasbord, by which I mean Asian and Armenian, and it was nice to see these cultures represented.
Legends like David “The Dragon” Pham or grinders like Harut Arutyunyan, who actually won the Bicycle Casino Legends of Poker in 2014. Anyway, those days are gone. Rest In Poker, LAPC Main Event.
Fortunately, No Irish Goodbye From Lappin and O’Kearney.
In case you missed the endless bulletins in the poker press and on the sewage ditch formerly known as Twitter, the award-winning podcast, The Chip Race, is alive and well, and its hosts, David Lappin and Dara O’Kearney, appear to be thriving.
After cutting sponsorship ties with WPT Global in January over its controversial hiring of Ren Lin as an ambassador of cheating, the pair last week rolled out their new subscription-only Patreon.
Would we lose The Chip Race or be locked out of The Lock-in, their other podcast, if we didn’t subscribe? No, the duo took pains to emphasize, their flagship shows would remain free even without a sponsor.
But that was last week. Things changed rapidly. First, O’Kearney was fittingly signed by Paddy Poker as an ambassador, and then two days later, Lappin received his own ambassadorship from PokerStars.
It was quickly announced that the Chip Race would, no surprise, now be dually sponsored by Paddy Poker and PokerStars. Congrats, gentlemen. Sometimes doing the right thing actually pays off.
Would the next right thing for Lappin and O’Kearney to do be to end their just-launched Patreon now that they have sponsorship? I mean, how much time is there in the day? When will you have time for poker?
All good questions, but as someone who just went from writing this column once a month to once a week, I say the more the merrier. Let it rain content.
Would Donald Trump Be A Good Poker Player?
Was the question I asked myself as I watched him grotesquely bluff his way through an hour and 46-minute speech this past week at the State of the Union Address. My thinking was that he would be a lousy poker player because he’s always representing a huge hand, even though we all know his hands are tiny. I’d call his bluffs and print.
“Inflation is so low no one’s ever seen anything like it,” is just one of the many demonstrably false pronouncements he delivered with psychotic confidence. Now, jump a few days ahead. Trump just authorized the bombing of Iran.
The mullahs in charge in effect called his bluff, and now a lot of innocent Iranians are going to pay the price, along with a lot of other people throughout the Middle East. Whoever thought of TACO, Trump Always Chickens Out, better have another think.
I don’t like Trump at all, but to be intellectually honest, I wish a president I do respect, Barack Obama, hadn’t chickened out in Syria. For what it’s worth, Obama was reportedly a good poker player during law school. Also, he went to law school.
But back to Trump, who may be a better poker player than Obama. He certainly is a lot rounder. Cheap shot for a cheap huckster. But what about this: Trump couldn’t win when he was the house. How do you own a casino and lose? The house is always supposed to win.
If the real Taj Mahal is one of the Seven Wonders of the World, then how Trump’s Taj lost so much money has got to be the 8th.
Okay, here’s what I’m really loath to admit. Trump would be great at poker. He’s always looking to exploit his opponents. Always trying to get under their skin. Needling. Berating. He’d make you want to beat him. It would get personal and cloud my judgment. Remember, Will Kassouf came in 33rd last year at the WSOP. That shit works.
Also, Trump knows to overcharge his opponents. Hello, tariffs? Ah, who knows? I’m speculating rather wildly. Maybe Trump would be a breakeven player, winning some and losing some. Oh, wait, I forgot, he’s never lost anything in his life.
Have a great week.
