The price of one's soul
A lot has happened at the WSOP. It is damaging to tournament poker. These things get documented and then disappear when Harrah's wields it big stick. This is like the playground bully who will take his ball and go home if the others don't kowtow to his whims.
Poker is a game of rules. A flush beats a straight is at the core. But, other rules aren't as codified. Robert's Rules of Poker are just one form of the rules. Every house has the right or privileged to alter them and they do. Harrah has gone far beyond all rights or privileges they may be entitled to. At some level rules confer equality to participants. We grant these privileges to everyone from government to poker room with the view they will be administered for the common good. Harrah's have distorted the privileged and used the rules for its own benefit. That is fundamentally wrong.
There is a litany of transgressions that can be laid at their door. They have suppressed these views which denies the facts. That is what got Nixon kicked out off office. I don't mean to compare the two. Harrah isn't part of my real life. They control a peripheral interest of little importance in the real scheme of things. For others truly involved in poker as a livelihood it is fundamental to their existence. I am lucky to live in a democracy with safeguards that protect me. Others in the world aren't as lucky. Harrah's has become a dictatorship and there are no Minute Men ready to stand on the green and put their lives on the line in Las Vegas these days. The nation has acted on many occasions to protect the liberties I was granted by accident of birth. The poker community isn't in 2006; this is 1776 and they have a choice of rebelling or being sheep and deserving their slaughter.
Poker is a game of rules. A flush beats a straight is at the core. But, other rules aren't as codified. Robert's Rules of Poker are just one form of the rules. Every house has the right or privileged to alter them and they do. Harrah has gone far beyond all rights or privileges they may be entitled to. At some level rules confer equality to participants. We grant these privileges to everyone from government to poker room with the view they will be administered for the common good. Harrah's have distorted the privileged and used the rules for its own benefit. That is fundamentally wrong.
There is a litany of transgressions that can be laid at their door. They have suppressed these views which denies the facts. That is what got Nixon kicked out off office. I don't mean to compare the two. Harrah isn't part of my real life. They control a peripheral interest of little importance in the real scheme of things. For others truly involved in poker as a livelihood it is fundamental to their existence. I am lucky to live in a democracy with safeguards that protect me. Others in the world aren't as lucky. Harrah's has become a dictatorship and there are no Minute Men ready to stand on the green and put their lives on the line in Las Vegas these days. The nation has acted on many occasions to protect the liberties I was granted by accident of birth. The poker community isn't in 2006; this is 1776 and they have a choice of rebelling or being sheep and deserving their slaughter.