World Poker Tour

There is truly nothing better on TV than a good episode of World Poker Tour. This past Wednesday the show (which is repeating now as I write this) featured three of the top ten tournament players in the world, another pro who is good, but couldn’t quite compete, and two amateurs who were pretty good for amateurs but were way outclassed by the pros. And best of all the two amateurs got knocked out first (after telling the audience how they can play as well as any pro) so we got to see four tournament pros (3 top ones) go at it. As a professional player myself that is what I like to see. Watching good players put bad ones to the test (which is what happens on about 2/3 of the shows) is just like another day of work for me, but watching Layne Flack, Phil Ivey, and Howard Lederer butt heads is a learning experience for anyone who takes the game seriously.
This reminds me if I ever meet Vince Van Patten (Hollywood home game hero, whatever the hell that means) I’m going to kick him in the face. As well as anyone else who refers to Phil Ivey as the “Tiger Woods” of poker. Just because he is black and he is good does not mean he is in any way like Tiger Woods, and if I were Phil any time I heard someone say that I would buy them and sell them to gypsies. He could too, since he probably makes a million a year, which places him very close to the top of the money list, if not the top. I mean Tiger Woods is the most dominant player in the history of golf, and while Phil is certainly not the guy you want sitting to your right he is not on that level. It may not even be possible to be on that level in poker, as there is a luck element to be mastered.
I am playing in at least one WPT event this year, so root for me. It happens to be on a cruise and first place should be at least one million, maybe even as high as two million. It also ranks to be the easiest tournament as far as competition goes as most of the players on it will be the idiots I rob every day on the online cardroom that is hosting it. So lets all cross our fingers and hope I make that top six in a few months so I can be on TV. I’ll give a shout out to all my loyal Typepad readers too, all 5 of them.