#434 - WSOP Notebook #7 - Phil Ivey and the Meaning of Life

My policy is generally not to report what goes on inside the Aces Club, the VIP Lounge across from the Amazon Room. It’s not that there are such remarkable goings-on inside, but the players go there to get away and have a reasonable expectation that no one is writing down what they say and do. But if I hear things that are being reported by other people, I’m not going to let my vantage point handcuff me from filling you in.

It has been widely reported that Phil Ivey is taking hundreds of thousands of dollars (at least) of bets on the likelihood he will win a bracelet in 2008. So while I wouldn’t otherwise expose what I heard, other people are writing about it and, indeed, I heard Eli Elezra, one of the players who bet with him, talking loudly to players walking by or at other tables about it.

Phil Ivey is a beautiful human being. I say that without irony or sarcasm. As much as it’s possible to admire someone solely for their philosophy and operating procedures as a gambler, I admire Phil Ivey. He is constantly trying to drum up action and though he can (and does) haggle with the best of them, he’ll bet without the nuts. With Phil, the betting window is always open for business.

In addition to bets on himself, he was taking action on combinations of himself and Allen Cunningham and himself and John Hennigan. Howard Lederer wouldn’t take action on the Ivey-Hennigan combo and tried to point out, along with David Grey, the disparity in the price he was offering on the parlay versus the price on himself.

It was very complex and David said at one point, “No Bub. It’s the reciprocal of four-ninths.”

Phil Ivey, who is a beautiful person, said, “Youi guys know all the math and shit. I just want to bet with my friends.”

A few minutes later, Phil was going around the room, encouraging people to bet with him and good-naturedly chastising him when they wouldn’t. When someone turned him down by saying, “I don’t gamble,” Phil was dumbfounded.

“What’s the point of life if you don’t gamble?”

You could argue that it’s wrong to express any admiration for a gambler and you might have a point. Gambling - the type that Phil Ivey and everyone else here is involved in - is an utterly selfish activity. Nothing is being produced. It’s a zero-sum game. A mediocre school teacher is at least trying to contribute to the education of children. An options trader is gambling, but his gambling contributes to the liquidity of the financial markets, which makes it possible for companies to raise money and the rest of us to invest for our children, for retirement, etc.

But Phil Ivey has it exactly right. What you produce for the world is obviously important. But what you contribute to yourself is what keeps you going as a human being. That period of uncertainty, between when you commit to something - representing a legal client, teaching a child, betting on a baseball game - and the outcome is where life’s excitement is. What’s the point of life if you don’t gamble?