Phil Ivey

Phil Ivey is a degenerate craps player.  Don't believe anything you read about the BS he pitches in the magazines like he has some "mystical" understanding of the game.  My boy managed the cashier's cage at the Venetian in 2009, and Phil lost more than $10M at the tables this year.

Big Game

One of the hardest moments in my poker career was to see your Poker "heroes" for who they really are as people.  A bunch of two bit hustlers.  In the Big Game in Vegas, these guys play in two groups on mutual bankrolls against Larry Flynt.  We had to raise up the table to fit Larry's wheel chair underneath so he could play.  He is a just a rich old billionaire looking for some action.  At the end of the night, all the money that Larry lost gets divided up between the two groups and redistributed amongst themselves.  It is one of the most pathetic things I had seen.

The Big Game 1

Chip Reese was a stand up guy. There was a reason a thousand people went to his funeral. He always tipped the dealers a green chip ($25) for dealing a down in the big 4000/8000 game. I was dealing that game a couple of months before the WSOP was having the inaugural $50,000 HORSE event. Doyle Brunson, Chip, Phil, Eli Elizera & Barry Greenstein were talking about taking pieces of each other in the event. Doyle got upset about the terms of something and everyone decided not to take a piece of Chip in the even if Doyle wasn't in. The deal feel through. Two months later Chip won the event for like 1.6 Million. Oops.

Doyle Brunson

Here's a story about Doyle Brunson you've never heard. I worked with this old guy "Chuck" at the Stardust back in the day. The Stardust is legendary, where Lefty Rosenthal legalized sportsbetting and changed the gambling landscape forever. Robert Deniro played Lefty in "Casino" loosely based on the Stardust. Chuck was another Vegas legend that left his home in the South at twelve years old to make it on his own. He took third in WSOP limit hold'em event for like 140K back in the 80's. Look him up, he used to print sportspicks and run around with Lefty a little back when the Mob still ran the town. Chuck had been around Vegas for fifty years. Toughest five foot nothing guy you'd ever come across. He told me this:

The back-to-back years that Doyle Brunson won the WSOP, the same dealer was in the box. This dealer dealt Dolly the final winning hands in both tournaments. He was also one of the best card mechanics in Vegas history.

Background characters

People hate to go unnoticed and feel insignificant. I am constantly reminded of this element of human nature everyday at the tables. Here's a common scenario to illustrate: Bunch of players in a hand, first player checks and the third player checks prematurely skipping the second player. Second player makes big scene about getting skipped and wants to act on his hand. Thirty seconds go by, he postures, checks and then folds his hand. This player never was going to play the hand anyway, but wanted the respect of being the center of attention. If he was going to check anyways, why make a huge scene to slow the game down, just let the action unfold naturally. Instead this Joe stops time for thirty seconds before it can resume its natural progression. this needs to be amended.

Poker is Life

Let's be honest, poker is not cool. Poker is not sexy. The real poker world, dudes who consider poker their 9-5, "a hard way to make an easy living," folk are losers. There exist two demographics who can own up to this "super-cool" lifestyle. #1) The I-used-to-be-an-office-analytical-grinder-for-the-man-but-now-Im-a-professional-poker-player-midforties-guy and #2) the I-could-have-graduated-college-or-graduated-college-with-a-psychology-compsci-math-stats-music-science-degree-and-taken-a-real-job-but-i-make-way-more-money-playing-poker-midtwenties-something. Thats the demographic, and thats it. And I'm right about that, trust me. Those are the only two demographics that experience some success at least. If you define success as making the same amount of money as a mid-level manager at a regular job but have no credit, community, benefits, people to trust, good friends, love, or laughter in their life, then these poker players truly are living the American Dream. Congrats.

Take a moment and consider what it means to be a professional poker player. The poker literature and rhetoric found in your local book store or gift shop advocates the importance of game selection. In other words, if you can't spot the sucker in the first thirty minutes at the table, then you are the sucker. Good advice for anything I suppose. If you can't make a layup you don't challenge Lebron to a game of HORSE. Especially for money. Especially for money you don't have and can't afford to lose. However, if you read between the lines, what such advice is actually saying is this: Exploit drunk tourists, degenerate problem Asian gamblers, manic depressives, and uneducated blue-collar salt-of-the-earth workers. Thanks for contributing to society gentleman. Well done. Philanthropy at its finest. Poker is life, and your life is meaningless.