Hugo's Blogspotting: 26 June

Torture For Doyle

By now you’ve probably read a whole load of blogs full of bad beats – yep, we’re 4 weeks into the WSOP so that means full-on burnout and poker hatred. Even the mighty Doyle Brunson is not impervious to World Series ennui.

“Torture…day after day. What the King of England did to William Wallace in Braveheart pales in comparison to me in the past month. I was the bubble boy again in the $10,000 Omaha 8 or better tournament. I was the chip leader with 250k with only 40 players left and didn’t make the money, which was the final 27 players.”

If you walk around the Amazon Room about now you’ll see plenty of players with the equivalent of what the GIs in Vietnam used to call the “thousand yard stare”. These are the hapless hometown heroes whose dreams have been shattered, they’ve had every bad beat and they’ve made every bad play in the book; they're all walking around scratching their heads wondering how much more they can take. Jeez, if the Big Poppa can’t win what kind of a chance does Joe Schmo from Idaho have?

“For the life of me, I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong at the poker table. Losing 5 sessions in a row at the cash game tells me I’m not playing the way I should.”

5 sessions in a row? Hold on, that’s nothing Mr. Brunson, some of us have been in Vegas for two weeks and lost every frickin’ day buddy. Mind you, I guess if you’re the Godfather of Poker, losing 5 sessions in a row is unimaginable.

Doyle’s blog continues with his list of players who are the most abusive to dealers. Sammy Farha is the only living player on the list. Either Doyle is being diplomatic or they really were bad in the old days.

“Puggy Pearson is also on my list. I remember at the old Dunes card room, he got into a fight with a lady dealer name Kim. When a male dealer jumped in to hold Pug back, Kim took off her high heel shoe and was beating Puggy on the head. We laughed about that for years. “Shoeshine” Nick Simpson was another player who berated dealers constantly. He once urinated under the table on an unsuspecting dealer.”

Wow, I’ve never heard of anyone pissing on a dealer before. I can think of one who once spat in a dealer’s face, but that was while he was being escorted out of the casino, so at least that rather hostile act wasn’t because he thought the dealer was responsible for a bad beat.

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

Whilst Doyle is a veteran of the WSOP there are many young players out there experiencing The Meadows (that’s what Las Vegas means btw, Spanish in case you were wondering) for the first time. One such player is John Tabatabai (you know him, he came 2nd to Annette_15 in the WSOPE) who has naturally succumbed to the madness.

“Of course, I run so good that we rent a house in the middle of the desert that no taxi driver knows how to get to. It gets better, the next day when we had planned to get onto the strip by 16:00, so we rang a taxi at 15:00. Got ready by 16:00 and naturally, the taxi didn't show up. 16:30, no taxi, 15:00 no taxi..now im tilting so decide to play a little online whilst we wait for the taxi...of course $12k and 4 hours later the taxi arrives. GREAT. ARE YOU SERIOUS?? IS VEGAS RIGGED???”

Yes, I’m afraid it is rigged John. Almost no-one gets out alive. By the way, it’s not uncommon for the cab drivers to have no idea where they are going. Since Vegas is always expanding there’s always some new neighbourhood popping up. I remember going to some party in some tacky Playboy-style mansion on the outskirts of town one time which took us about half an hour of driving around the same few blocks because there were no street signs or numbers anywhere.

I have to say, I’m not so sure whether Tabatabai and co. have got themselves a good deal on their house of choice.

“There are flies everywhere in our house, cockroaches on the sofa and as you would expect, the cable TV here sucks unless you like watching Spanish sales TV. So standard. Oh, I nearly forgot, when you step outside during the day your face falls off. 50oC with 0 humidity. Lovely.”

“Your face falls off”, LOL. That pretty much sums it up.

You're Always One Hand Away From Going Broke

You may recall Shane “Shaniac” Schleger blogging about how he doesn’t want anyone coming up to him during the breaks and asking how many chips he has. His latest blog justifies what many thought was a rather precious attitude from Shaniac.

After a few paragraphs going into detail of various tournaments he has been knocked out of, Shane writes,

“It's a classic example of never being more than two hands away from going broke in a Big Bet tournament no matter how nice your stack appears. This is also one of the reasons why I don't like stopping to discuss, analyze or celebrate my chip stack during the breaks in the game, as I wrote about after Event #2 this year. A poker tournament is not a static entity until it's over, and a stack of chips is sometimes too fragile a commodity--too precious and rare and still unrealized--to willingly share with others.”

Spot on.

Feel The Pain

Finally, another player experiencing the harsh reality of tournament poker is Anna Wroblewski. Poker is often seen as a macho game and what I like about Anna’s blog is her honesty and willingness to admit that the frustration of the game can get to her. How many guys would admit to feeling like crying after yet another bad beat?

“A couple hands later I had about 50K in chips...I raised with AQs he reshoved with AT and beat me. Who knows what would have happend, I may have still lost the match, but I was very pissed I kicked a chair and said a few f bombs. Poker blows!”


“I've been fustrated to a point where I'm tearing---Its embarrassing to admit this- But I do trust the fact that poker/life could always be worse or better it all depends on what you make of it.”

I feel your pain Anna, I feel your pain.

Hugo 'Chimney Sweep' Martin

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