FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#209 – WSOP #58 – Could Someone Give Robert Varkonyi a Little Respect?

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I saw that Robert Varkonyi busted out on Friday in 177th place. I stood behind him for a little while on Thursday night. (See Entry #207.) we talked briefly and the crux of the discussion – and, for that matter, nearly all discussions concerning Robert and several involving him – was about the lack of respect accorded the 2002 World Champion.

If he has a chip on his shoulder about it, I get it. He won the World Championship, for gosh sakes. He was an amateur from out of nowhere, like Chris Moneymaker, who came after him in 2003. And he’s a very smart man, a professional, highly educated – just like Greg Raymer, who followed Moneymaker in 2004. But he never really shared in the fame and (probably more important to Varkonyi) fortune they received.

BLAME PHIL HELLMUTH

This goes back to when Robert won the Championship in 2002. We are used to winners of the Main Event being players we’ve never heard of. But when he did it, there had been only one winner was “an amateur.” That was Hal Fowler in 1979, whose victory over Bobby “the Wizard” Hoff was quickly dismissed as ridiculous luck and he was marginalized and then forgotten.

Phil Hellmuth did a number on Robert in the commentary. Phil busted short of the final table (I believe by Varkonyi). During the expanded – to 2 hours! (and that’s for the ENTIRE Series that year) – coverage by ESPN, Hellmuth did commentary on the final table. I haven’t watched it in awhile, but he said something like, “I don’t know who’s going to win it, but I bet you it’s not THAT guy,” referring to Robert. Later in the broadcast, he said, “If that guy wins it, I’ll let him shave my head.” The final image of the ESPN broadcast that year was Varkonyi running an electric razor through Phil’s hair. (Where did they get an electric razor at Binions? From someone on the cleaning crew who was using it to trim the aging, moulting carpet?)

BLAME MIKE LAING (THOUGH I HELPED)

In 2004, as I wrote in THE PROFESSOR, THE BANKER, AND THE SUICIDE KING, Mike Laing was the chip leader after Day 1 and he and Varkonyi were seated together on Day 2. (Incidentally, Laing finished 189th in the Main Event this year, busting out just before Robert.) While Robert Varkonyi has a genius IQ, an MIT degree, and tremendous acumen in investing and computer programming, he’s way out of his league in a battle of wits at a poker table.

Because the table featured the chip leader and a former champion, the roving cameras caught a hand early where Varkonyi bet Laing out of a pot. (This is Laing’s account, by the way. I didn’t get Robert’s account because I didn’t know him at the time but he’s never told me anything to the contrary, and someone who was their substantially confirmed their interplay.) As a microphone swooped in, Robert said, “Mike, let’s not play another pot together until the final table.”

Laing responded, “This IS your final table, sucka. You just don’t know it yet.”

Varkonyi didn’t have much to say after that. Much later in the day, as he was putting chips in a pot, they announced which former champions were still in the field, and they didn’t mention his name. when he said something about it, Mike called and said, “They must know I’m gonna bust your ass on this hand.”

And then he did.

BLAME ROBERT VARKONYI

When you talk with Robert, you see that he’s a very friendly guy, but his stories tend to have this edge to them, like the world is out to get him. The poker world, that is; on every other subject, he is a bright, positive guy who feels great about the world and his place in it. But in poker? Well, the bracelet itself doesn’t seem enough.

In fact, he showed me the bracelet – a massive, white-gold-diamond-rhodium/platinum job with so many interlocking white-gold horseshoes that he needed to have some removed and Olga now wears them as earrings – in the process of telling a story about his marginalization. He had to argue with the security guards to get into the room earlier in the day, because he didn’t have the pink paper bracelet they handed out to players. He showed them the bracelet he DID have and they were unmoved.

Likewise, the giant picture of him on the wall is the occasion for a story. He was playing in a one-table satellite before a Stud-Eight-or-Better event. When it was down to 3-handed, he and the other two players (women who knew each other) chopped it. As they were talking immediately after, the husband of one of the women came up to their group. His wife introduced Robert and pointed out his picture on the wall, telling him that she just played with the 2002 World Champion.

The guy said, “Then he must be broke.”

Robert told me that story, incredulous. “Couldn’t he wait until I was out of earshot to be rude?”

Even if Robert Varkonyi is The Forgotten Man, don’t feel sorry for him. His wife Olga seems like a wonderful person (some people who have met her uniformly confirm this) and they have two beautiful children. So what if he sometimes looks like he wondered into the poker room by mistake? He has a World Championship bracelet, which I’d take over respect any day.

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