FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#512 – London 2008 #19 – Million Dollar Cash Game – Gamblin’ Men

Posted by Editor | Filed under London 2008, Million Dollar Cash Game '08

Today is the first day of the Million Dollar Cash Game. There’s been some griping among a few of the players that there’s no value in playing the game.

Everyone wants the game to go well and put on a good show, but this is more about the game than the show. They’re playing with their own money and want value if they can get it. Being gamblers, they’re going to gamble even without clearly having the best of it – most of them, anyway – but there’s a feeling that Full Tilt should be importing a couple whales for these Ahabs and Queequegs to aim their harpoons at, in addition to each other.

I heard Uncle Tilty tell one of the pros last night, “I tried inviting them.” He then listed a number of wealthy high-stakes players who received invites and, for one reason or another, declined.

“There’s Hellmuth,” he added, not getting the response he hoped. “David Benyamine should play.” Benyamine is a gambler, but a skilled one, and having supposedly won $2 million in the last week (according to one account), I wasn’t surprised to hear no licking of the proverbial chops about his presence in the game.

“I think Doyle Brunson may play ….” Tilty added, trailing off when it was clear that it hardly advanced the interest in finding easy money to invite Doyle to the table. Sure, he likes to talk like he’s the one paying for the party, but after fifty years, most of us know better.

Frankly, I don’t know why these guys much care. Ivey and de Wolfe, for example, have been attacking each other with forks and knives all trip. At supper last night at a tapas bar, they were playing Roshambo (rock-paper-scissors) for $5,000-$40,000 per series. Ivey was taking delight in backing patrons of the restaurant in matches against Roland, for similar stakes.

At one point, the degenerate pair argued whether a woman at one of the tables would throw rock, paper, or scissors on an opening throw. Phil bet $10,000, getting 2-to-1, that she would throw rock. The approach to the woman debated and decided, hey got her to throw one time.

Rock.

Score $20,000 for Mr. Ivey.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Phil said. “You go out to a nice restaurant with some friends, have a nice time, and see what develops. You never know what’s going to happen.”

de Wolfe announced later in the evening, while Ivey was playing Adam Noone heads-up, that he had subsdquently “won back a lot of the jet fuel I paid for” over the previous few days.

Roland wasn’t boasting. He knows very well that jet fuel is volatile stuff, and is best when in use. As I was leaving the Hellenic Centre, he was tring to line up a bet for several thousand dollars with Uncle Tilty over whether his own resting and peak heart-rates were lower than Chris Ferguson’s.

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