Bracelets for All

I’ve come up with a brilliant solution to all things poker. If this can be implemented, we’ll be able to sit at the tables and play poker while singing Kumbyya and roasting smores over a fire of craps rakes.

We get our grand buddy Pollack to pass out bracelets to one and all. I don’t mean those high style ones from the overpriced watch company. I mean serious, old Las Vegas glittering bling. The damn things are the odd man out problem in poker. When Benny Binion threw in the bit of glitz, he didn’t realize what he was unleashing. Most of the players back then didn’t either and hocked or sold the darn things post haste.

So, if they’d just sell the damn things – even at Harrahs/whorehouse prices — the poker economy would go through the roof. The other great side effect is that Hellmuth could pick up a gross or two of them and we’d be free of his childish antics. That alone would make it worthwhile.

Now that would be worth it – all alone. (I know I just said that but it bares repeating.) But that is just the tip of the iceberg. Did you follow the press releases from PokerStars and Full Tilt? They both added to their ’stable of pros’ who get sponsored by them. And much of that isn’t one event. Daniel and friends sit down at any of the 55 they want to play. That even includes trying to buy a bracelet in the rebuy one where they’ll dump a year’s salary for an average jamoke in the process.

Additionally, every site has freerolls galore. The top few do them like crazy. Stars almost had a lottery there at the end to try to pass out an extra hundred or so. That turns the ‘big one’ into a donkey parade. Just how many freeroll players would you think of backing in a $10K buyin?

That all seems remote from your and my bit of poker fun. But, to paraphrase Everett Dirksen, “$10,000 here; $10,000 there; and, sooner or later, we’re talking real money.” That was $12M for Gold to finally split with his buddy. Back before the UIGEA, it wasn’t a biggy. We were awash in sites that would chase after us like a crack whore needing a fix.

Today, I play on sites that apparently don’t give a damn whether we play or not. The rake is there and the promotions are all being done on the cheap. We pay for FT’s cast of a thousand pros to sit in Vegas and play all 55. We pay for the freeroller that the Chris gang deride.

Bonus, what’s that? They’re hen’s teeth over at Stars. They expire on FT at a rate that makes you play above 1-2 to stand a chance of clearing it all and you usually have to reregister and break rules to get that. I do have a nice bonus waiting for me that won’t expire and isn’t that hard to clear. Unfortunately, it is sitting on Ultimate Bet (no link today) — which is the one site that makes Absolute look fairly honest.

So, if they’d just start selling or giving away bracelets, the U.S. Facing sites might be able to go back to giving us more than a tee-shirt or sports car that cost 10x in rake in their ’store’ that is our bit of payola these days. Wow comps like that make me think of what Vegas is turning into. So we need to bring back the mafia guys to pass out bracelets like Crackerjack. We’ll all end up better off.

Bracelets for all and to all a good night. And in a comped room we hope.

ADDENDUM:

Periodically, a blogger will decide to go pro. One of those recently contemplating at least the semi-pro route was none other than our former blogger – Michael Craig. His blog for today details that route with numbers provided. If you need a reason to play for fun and do it within a reasoned bankroll, Michael will help provided it. Now if he can just go to his Uncle Tilty and get him to share the wealth beyond Michael and his host of free lunch buddies, we might see a bonus that makes sense get sent our way.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 2:47 pm and is filed under Pols and other Crooks. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.