Poker Perambulation

Great movie idea. Maybe I should work up a script. (But, I’m not really a writer.) Or, I could hit Tony up for a buyin. (Nah, he’s not that dumb.)

Poker is an interesting world. Linda’s old work blogs are filled with scumbags and saints. That world is one where people’s word matter more than anything to some and nothing to others. The good one’s word is their bond. They don’t have to come back and cross the tees and dot the eyes. The next one hits someone up for a stake and will never pay. His last score of a few bucks was his mother’s check that she won’t see repaid either – but hey, that isn’t poker; that is family.

So, we come to today. But it is really in the history. Moneymaker and Raymer weren’t LA material. Raymer sure knew the law better than the rest but they cut their deals with poker in mind and have done well by it. Gold and Michelle came from a different world. It is a world of the deal. And the deal is momentary. Deals come and go. The good ones and their ‘management’ get it now because, if you don’t, you don’t get squat.

LA is pie in the sky with little follow through. Ratty ol’ Vegas is all about follow through. LA is about umpty-seven page contracts that are written by lawyers out to screw the other guy. (And they manage that with regularity.) Tony’s world operates on handshakes.

Vegas has a heart. They hide it very well but it is there. Benny bought bus ticket by the gross that weren’t covered in any contract. His games all shaded toward the house but he’d leave you with a little dignity and a ride on the Greyhound or, if he knew you were upstanding as a gambler, he’d stake you to a room, meals and a chance to get back up.

LA is all mind. If yours isn’t sharper than the next guys, then the next guy wins. And there is no bus ticket provided. Instead, you’re a 30-second laugh at the in watering hole. It is all about screwing or getting screwed.

So two worlds collided and neither won. They both did it the ‘right’ way. But, what’s right in the one is wrong in the other. Penny-wise and pound foolish. Oops! Next hand.

P.S.  Her ‘management’ would have tried to cut Tony’s balls off if he’d got her that great deal.  UB was cash and 10% of that was her’s.  She didn’t get 10% of your buyin and wouldn’t have gotten much off the deal Tony worked.

Interesting aside:  Pauly is probably one of the few in poker understanding and trying both worlds and he lost a prop bet when she showed up in UB garb.

ADDENDUM:

This Google algorithm thing is causing quite a stir in the world of poker blogs. We got our chops busted by the UIGEA and now this. This electronic age seems to be colliding with the felt just like the above. The Bobbsey twins at Google say they aren’t there to cause harm. That’s a pretty stupid remark if you’re a poker player. The only way you win is to cause harm to another. Larry and Sergey understand computers better than the real world.  But we poker bloggers aren’t off the hook so easily.  Here’s an outsider’s view of our patch that doesn’t make us look that good.

 

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 1:31 pm and is filed under Journal. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.