WSOP Roundup/Don't Be A Poker Cunt

If it's Wednesday, that means ESPN aired new-WSOP coverage last night. Today's criticisms are about style and not tactics. Point 1 will be very brief: Congratulations to Thunder Keller for winning the $5000 buy-in no-limit hold'em championship after a very intelligently played tournament. Unfortunately, he has the physique of Jabba the Hutt, and no amount of poker success is worth that.

Point 2: There are (according to my count) three varieties of poker cunts. The first is the guy who can't shut the fuck up and tries to substitute trash-talk for smart poker. Fortunately, these cunts get busted so many times they either quit the game or can't afford to continue playing (although some of them have private means, which is a mixed blessing, since they're usually willing to donate money at the table, but have the same effect on the poker table that HIV has on the human body).

The second variety of poker cunt is the whiny cunt. Phil Hellmuth exemplifies all the traits of this category. He's a terrible winner; but there are two things that really bring out the John McEnroe histrionics: 1) losing when he deserves to lose; and 2) losing when he doesn't deserve to lose. No. 2 is usually the result of a bad beat, and there are two varieties of bad beats for Hellmuth: A) A player draws out on him who had a legitimate hand that he could easily have believed was the best hand. These bad beats make Hellmuth cry (n.b. Jason Lester making a set of jacks on the river to beat Hellmuth's QQ at the 2003 WSOP). B) A player makes a moronic call and draws the miracle cards to take down the pot. These bad beats bring out the abuse from Hellmuth. And they are the sine qua non of poker cunt #3.

The third sort of poker cunt managed to win a no-limit hold'em event that aired last night; it was Scott Fischman, a former dealer and current groupie of fraud/internet cheat Dutch Boyd. At the final table, Fischman was heads-up against Joe Awata, another former dealer whose reads, bets, and lay-downs all day were virtually perfect. After coming back from being the short stack in three handed play to having a slight chip lead in heads up play, Awada was dealt 55 and Fischman was dealt AK. Awada raised before the flop and Fischman called. The flop came 9-7-4. Fischman moved all-in. Awada correctly read Fischman as having overcards and called. Before the turn, Awada was a 3 to 1 favorite to win the tournament on that hand. The turn paired the 9 on the flop, and the river paired the 7, giving Fischman 9's up with an A kicker to beat Awada's 9's up with a 5 kicker (the other 5 having been rendered useless). Awada had so few chips left at that point that he was forced to go all-in on the next hand, which he lost.

Why was Fischman acting like a cunt? Because after getting his ass saved by bad beating his opponent, he decided the right thing to do was celebrate like Terrell Owens after scoring in Dallas. Excuse me? That's horseshit. By all rights, he should have been out of the tournament. He made the wrong move, got called, and should have paid the price for it. I'm not denying that inflicting bad beats is part of winning a tournament---on the contrary, it would be rare indeed for someone to win a large tournament without getting lucky a few times. But it's not cause for celebration. If you get outplayed and get lucky, have the decency and humility to recognize that fact. Don't be a cunt.