Hugo's Blogspotting: 8 November

It’s Tough at the Top

Beanie at Always Bluff sounds like he has been around for a while. In his latest blog he takes a look at the always interesting question of where the high stakes players get all their dough from. The answer? From each other it seems:

“There are a number of factors making poker players broke these days. If you aren’t borrowing you are loaning, it is a fact of high stakes poker. Let’s say you are up 500k and the loose action is broke, everyone at the table is counting on you to float this guy 100k, if you don’t, well, there goes your game selection.”

Jeez, just think, you spend months and months (or if you are an internet player a couple of days) building up a roll to play for real money and whatever happens you’re gonna end up losing. As Beanie says,

“It is the ultimate catch 22, to stay in the game you have to be part of the currency exchange, when you are winning you rarely walk home with your total win and when you lose if you haven’t borrowed most of that money, you are likely a sucker. Why are you a sucker, because today’s poker is played on paper.”

It’s almost enough to put you off playing. Lending and borrowing are a fact of poker though and if you’re not strong enough to say, “No!” or able to keep it together when you see so-and-so playing in a tough line-up with a buy-in of four times what he owes you, then you better consider taking up Sudoko or something.

I remember Joe Beevers telling me about a player who owed him thousands of pounds, but he’d just written the debt off because, a) he knew he’d never get it back, and, b) the guy had always generated so much action in the game it didn’t really matter. You always have to keep your customers happy.

In fact, I can think of another reason to lend a poker player money. If he or she happens to be somebody you can’t stand the sight of, lend them fifty quid and I guarantee you won’t see them for quite a while. Works like a charm every time.

A Room by the Hour

Lucky Jim has been winning and as a consequence has been getting philosophical (not really any different than if he’d been losing to be fair). He booked a nice win recently and like many a poker player before him he chose to celebrate by spending some time with a hooker. Afterwards he visited his brother who has a respectable job and life in the suburbs:

“I wonder when it happened that he chose that kind of life and I chose mine: a rented girl in a rented room, the overwhelming thrill and the empty afterwards. Gamblers are meant to be indifferent to money, yet for them everything has to be bought. They extend certainty, not chance, into human relations.”

Wow, nice one Jim, very good point. I’ve known many a poker player who obsess over every nickel and dime in normal everyday life, but think nothing of making huge bets on losing propositions over and over again. As an aside, noting Jim’s penchant for ladies of the night perhaps he should change his name to Lucky John?

Two Faced

We all know poker players are bitchy; let’s face it, it comes with the territory, we all have fragile egos and winning at a card game is the only validation for our absurd existence. Besides we all know that so-an-so can’t play and whatshisname is an absolute donkey yet seems to do well in tournaments etc etc.

Where am I going with all of this? Nat Arem brings to light a thread on twoplustwo concerning an email that Jimmy Fricke aka Gobboboy sent Full Tilt asking them to consider sponsoring him in the upcoming Aussie Millions which he did rather well in last year. They turned him down. Fair enough you might think.

The interesting part is that the guy who replied to Fricke left an internal email in the message from Howard Lederer who wrote the following:

“The guy’s a freak and a very weird dude. He is also quite young. I think we should stay away.

Howard”

Oops. I wonder if the Full Tilt lackey has been fired yet. What many 2plus2ers seem up in arms about is the fact that Lederer called Fricke a freak. According to many posters that is essentially the pot calling the kettle black. I wonder what their reaction would have been if Lederer had described Fricke as a bad player?
Not only is it personally embarrassing to Lederer, but there are further ramifications to consider. As Arem notes,

“He showed that the legal arrangement between tiltware, Full Tilt Poker and whoever else is a sham — These are the guys running the site, they’re hardly a software outfit.”

Elsewhere on Arem’s blog he has more clips from thepokerfilm, his documentary on young internet players including yellowsub86. Highlights include a $10k drinking prop bet. It’s hard to tell if the film is actually finished or still an ongoing project; either way it’s an entertaining watch and nice to see some poker players having fun for a change.

Shaniac Shake

Shaniac has updated his blog with a rather downbeat tale of getting knocked out of the main event at the Borgata. After his opponent hits his draw Shane writes,

“My opponent did some kind of celebratory handclap after he won the hand and, as I was making my way out of the room, extended his hand to shake mine. There was something incongruous and unnatural about his gesture in the wake of the needless celebration, and I declined to shake his hand. He looked befuddled and maybe insulted. I sort of felt like an asshole, but in retrospect I think my refusal to shake his hand was not unreasonable.”

Fair enough. It’s about time these yahoos learn to be good winners. It’s not like winning that particular hand meant that the guy won the tournament or anything so celebrating like you’ve just won Wimbledon is just pointless.

Another One Lost to Golf

Patrik Antonius as we all know is one of the top poker players around today. And I assume he knows a thing or two about gambling. As he has mentioned in his blog before he has taken up golf and in his latest entry he writes that he has played his first match for money.

“We showed up at the Monte Carlo Country Club the first day and Jani
said I would need two shots per hole because he was a 6-7 handicap. Jani did everything he could to make sure my first day gambling on golf was a good one. He had not played for a few months and was not able to play up to his standards. I booked a win and
what a great way to start my gambling golf career.”

The next day they play somewhere else and once again Antonius pockets the spinach. Will poker be taking a back seat soon like it has for his pal Phil Ivey?

“It was starting to feel like making money at golf was too easy.”

Now him and his golfing buddies decide to play a team match.

“It was a very tight match coming down to the last hole. We got very unlucky
in the end and they ended up beating us.”

Now Antonius never mentions any figures, but don’t the best hustlers always beat their marks by just one or two strokes? Always leave it close so the pigeon feels he has a chance the next time, right? I’m not saying Antonius got hustled, but it sure reads like it. One thing in his favour though is that if they want to raise the stakes so that Antonius “chokes” they’re probably going to have to play for a lot, and I mean a lot, of money.