may the best player win!....or at least, come close!...grin
I’ve been an avid poker player for a very long time.
I studied and practiced and thought about the game, and I knew that one day I would be champion of the world.
The first time I played in the WSOP final was a highlight in my poker life. Sitting down at the final tables of that tournament was so very exciting, like the moments right before you have sex the very first time. Not the sex itself , but the moments right before. In those moments, you are still virgin. You know something really cool is coming, you don't know what it is, but everyone in the world enjoys it, and you want some, too. Playing in my first wsop final event was just like that. Tasting that feeling hooked me forever.
I would be champion or die trying.
Well now I am done trying, I think.
That first championship in which I played, I finished 17th out of 396. It was a four day tournament, but more importantly, the session lengths each day were not unreasonably long. And, 400 people, I can beat.
In 2003, the only other time I cashed in that tournament, it had become a five day event and each day’s session was over 12 hours, lasting until 1 or 2 AM. My stamina is not what it was, I don’t concentrate as well as I used to in that 11th hour (or in the 4th hour, either). Going forward, no matter how good or how focused, no matter what kind of shape I am in, it will take too much luck for me to beat 4000+ people. The WSOP final (if the general structure remains the same) will now be won by good, very very lucky players.
No longer will the champion be the best, somewhat lucky, player.
(Don’t get me wrong. I am not bitter. I thought I was destined to be the champion, but the game has changed. I’ll probably just settle for being a dilettante looking at the game from the side.
And I DO think the WSOP final should be an open event. The “champion” should be the winner in a field anyone can enter.)
So, Good luck to all of you!
(Some of you may recognize the almost de-flowered virgin imagery from when Andy Glazer quoted me using it at the time. I don’t know if “reposting” it here years later is an etiquette breach (or merely boring), but they are my words, so I figured what the heck….smile.)
I studied and practiced and thought about the game, and I knew that one day I would be champion of the world.
The first time I played in the WSOP final was a highlight in my poker life. Sitting down at the final tables of that tournament was so very exciting, like the moments right before you have sex the very first time. Not the sex itself , but the moments right before. In those moments, you are still virgin. You know something really cool is coming, you don't know what it is, but everyone in the world enjoys it, and you want some, too. Playing in my first wsop final event was just like that. Tasting that feeling hooked me forever.
I would be champion or die trying.
Well now I am done trying, I think.
That first championship in which I played, I finished 17th out of 396. It was a four day tournament, but more importantly, the session lengths each day were not unreasonably long. And, 400 people, I can beat.
In 2003, the only other time I cashed in that tournament, it had become a five day event and each day’s session was over 12 hours, lasting until 1 or 2 AM. My stamina is not what it was, I don’t concentrate as well as I used to in that 11th hour (or in the 4th hour, either). Going forward, no matter how good or how focused, no matter what kind of shape I am in, it will take too much luck for me to beat 4000+ people. The WSOP final (if the general structure remains the same) will now be won by good, very very lucky players.
No longer will the champion be the best, somewhat lucky, player.
(Don’t get me wrong. I am not bitter. I thought I was destined to be the champion, but the game has changed. I’ll probably just settle for being a dilettante looking at the game from the side.
And I DO think the WSOP final should be an open event. The “champion” should be the winner in a field anyone can enter.)
So, Good luck to all of you!
(Some of you may recognize the almost de-flowered virgin imagery from when Andy Glazer quoted me using it at the time. I don’t know if “reposting” it here years later is an etiquette breach (or merely boring), but they are my words, so I figured what the heck….smile.)