FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#487 – My Rendezvous With Full Tilt’s Final Table Trio, Part I – Fool’s Errand

Posted by Editor | Filed under 2008 Main Event Final Table, I = Idiot, My family, My Life, Red Full Tilt pros, WSOP 2008

Saturday, August 16
2:35 AM
Wynn Las Vegas

This gig was a bad idea, but strictly necessary. On Friday afternoon, I contemplated a leisurely evening of FTOPS Razz, followed by degenerate FTOPS poker action throughout the weekend, punctuated by taking my wife Jo Anne out for dinner. Saturday was, after all, our twenty-seventh wedding anniversary. And let’s face it, despite my many charms, the total package is too complex (not to mention messed up) for most of the world’s female population. I’m lucky to have Jo Anne and multiply that by infinity for keeping her for twenty-seven years.

But Uncle Tilty had other plans, and they were not revealed until 5 PM on Friday. I learned from intermediary bosses, of which I now have many, that Full Tilt wanted me to conduct interviews with its three representatives at the Main Event final table, Scott Montgomery, Craig Marquis, and Kelly Kim.

That was no problem. In fact, they told me this a week ago. I was in the process of contacting the three, figuring a balance between getting information by phone and visiting Whittier, California, Arlington, Texas, and Perth, Ontario. In the end, I figured that my personal presence would help immeasurably, but I’d start by phone, winning their confidence and then inviting myself to visit.

I was in touch with Craig Marquis first, the happy-go-lucky 23 year-old who enters the final table eighth in chips, but with 10 million he has the chance to get a lot of play out of them. He lives in Arlington and was introduced to poker by two of the most successful high-stakes online players in the world, Tom Dwan and David Benefield.

“I don’t know of my availability for a phone interview over the weekend. I’m doing a photo shoot in Las Vegas,” he told me on Thursday.

That’s cool, I thought. In fact, that could be better than cool. Maybe I could just show up and get to know Marquis that way, hand over the information to Full Tilt plus get on the inside of this crazy gauntlet he and eight others have to run for four months.

To make sure the photo shoot wasn’t being organized by some enemy of mine, in front of whom my presence would be unwelcome, I asked who the photo shoot was FOR.

“Oh, it shouldn’t be a problem. It’s for Full Tilt.”

Whaaaaaa? I’ve been scrambling around for a week, planning these clandestine trips to Southern California, Eastern Texas, and Ottawa. The last of these alone would require eight hours each way on airplanes and in airports, and still leave me nearly 100 kilometers from Perth.

And now Full Tilt’s going to have all three of them in the same place at the same time, just 300 miles from my house?

And I find out about this how?

I was in full artist-rage which was an incredibly stupid posture to take. All I did was piss off a bunch of people who’ve paid me well to do a very inconsistent job for an undocumentable return. Worse, my guilt-trip SUCCEEDED.

“Come on out,” they said at 5 PM on Friday, just an hour before the Razz FTOPS and a day before I’m taking out my wife for our twenty-seventh wedding anniversary.

Before I could realize the error of my approach, it wasn’t a request. It was an order, and they sent me an itinerary, along with suggested times for me to interview all three players for Full Tilt’s audio and video technicians.

I busted out of the Razz FTOPS at 9 PM. By 9:15, I was on the 101 West, to connect up with the spider web of highway that would get to me my suite at Wynn Las Vegas just before 2 AM.

What did I know about these players? Nothing.

What preparation had I made to interview them? None.

What would I do with the information and what would Full Tilt do with it? No one knew.

But starting at noon on Saturday with a photo shoot at the luxurious house in a Las Vegas suburb named after Howard Hughes’s mother, I was going to be in the center of it.

Because I insisted.

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