FULL TILT POKER BLOG

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Let me start by saying that I know you’re all dying to get my thoughts about the lawsuit between Clonie Gowen and Full Tilt. That’s one of the many items on my agenda. We’ve got Clonie, my fifthieth birthday, my Relay for Life tournament, and whatever else is building up in my “in-box.”

Relay tourney: Remember gang. I’m hosting a charity tournament for Relay For Life this Sunday, December 21, at 18:00 ET. It’s $5 + $5 NLHE with all the juice going to Relay For Life, a charity for the American Cancer Society. The password is “relay” and you can read my earlier blog if you want background information. (Special thanks to Railbirds.com, which has been supporting the tourney from Jump Street, and all the Full Tilt pros who are signing up.)
Ah’m Fifty, Fifty Years Old!

My birthday was last Sunday. Because that’s a big poker day, and Jo Anne felt we should do something appropriate to celebrate, we designated Saturday as that day. I liked the idea of getting some friends together and using the excuse to have a party, but I really didn’t want a fuss.

[Here is the secret to feeling really good when you hit fifty: take really crummy care of yourself during your twenties, thirties, and part of your forties.]

I didn’t want silly invitations or a tricked-up cake, and I definitely didn’t want presents or a lot of sentimental junk. So I came up with the idea that no one could bring gifts; instead, I’d make them work for me. They had to sit and listen while I got their input on projects I’m considering for the immediate future. (This is mostly a group with a high tolerance for that sort of thing.)

Next thing I know, (a) Jo Anne is sending silly invitations, (b) my Mom is ordering a tricked-up cake, and (c) people are told not to bring gifts “because your friendship is all the gift Mike desires.” So Jo Anne and I had a nice fight over it, things got dialed down a little, and I had a great time. I can’t say I’m much closer to figure out what I want to do when I grow up, but it was at least an enjoyable exercise in putting off that decision.

Incidentally, one of my ideas for a future book project is a book about turning fifty. It’s not the age itself as the creeping reality at this age that you are, in fact, AGING. I feel great physically and mentally, but I can see some things changing. For instance, I think I can call on as many mental/creative resources as ever, but the process of summoning them is harder. I’m just not as hungry, more likely to not want to make the effort if I could avoid it. In addition, I spent the first 30+ years of my life being THE KID. I was the youngest faculty member at Chicago-Kent College of Law in Fall 1984. I was involved in a challenging, high-pressure, big-money legal practice where I was always the youngest attorney at the meeting, the youngest at the deposition, the youngest in court. I was even the youngest to retire.

Now take a look. I’m officially eligible to play the Seniors Event at the WSOP. I’m one of the oldest online tournament poker players. I’m probably one of the oldest bloggers – I don’t even like the term “blogger,” much less being an old blogger.

So my idea for the book – which I’ll probably never write – is to interview a bunch of well-known, high-achievement people born the same year as me (1958) and share lessons about the process of aging. My year has some pretty interesting people: Jennifer Tilly, Sharon Stone, Michelle Pfieffer, Alec Baldwin, Ellen DeGeneres, Steve Case, Mark Cuban.

Prince is only the third-most-accomplished music artist born in 1958. Michael Jackson is probably only in second place now. That’s because Madonna, like me a product of Northwest Suburban Detroit’s high school class of 1977, also turned fifty this year.
Sitting Pretty
 
Most of the field has been eliminated in the WPT Bellagio Five Diamond Championship. They paid the top 100 and there are 56 left. There are a lot of familiar faces and good friends left in the field. Mike Matusow and Andy Bloch are hanging on, low in chips. Barry Greenstein is hanging in there. Allen Cunningham and David Oppenheim are around the chip average. John Hennigan and Robert Mizrachi are looking like contenders, along with David Benyamine and Nick Schulman. And hanging in, with about 20% above-average chips, is Clonie Gowen.

Clonie gave me a call last week to tell me about her adventures in the Dominican Republic, so I invited her to my birthday party on Saturday night. She begged off, because she was playing in a poker tournament – the one where she’s been at the top of the leader board for four days. I expressed my disappointment, to which she responded by giving me 1% of her action as a birthday present.

I did not consider this an empty gesture. Gowen has quietly had a bigger year than a lot of top names in tournament poker, taking down $5,000 buy-in NLHE events in Mississippi and during the Bellagio Cup, and generally playing well during the World Series, despite some vicious (and apparently untrue) rumors that she had a drug problem.

I’m not at all surprised that I’ll be collecting something off this gift, the only exception I made to my no-presents rule. This is not the Ladies-Night Clonie Gowen, or the MAXIM-Magazine Clonie Gowen. After spending four years with people whispering nasty things about her, she’s having the kind of year that maybe she was always capable of – or maybe not, but which four years of running that gauntlet has now made her capable of.

I’ve always been impressed by her poise and I’m ready to add toughness to her attributes. Think about this lawsuit she filed against Full Tilt and many of its marquee names. I have no idea whether she was promised something she claims is worth up to $50 million but I’m pretty sure SHE thinks so. Maybe she’s out millions, maybe she’s not. But to test the point, she had to leave that protective cocoon of Team Full Tilt. How would you like to be suing Phil Ivey, Andy Bloch, and Allen Cunningham and then have to earn your living against them at the poker table?

That’s hard. Lawsuits are about business – the price is too high (in every sense of the term) to file this type of suit unless you really believe you were wronged. (I should mention at this point that I have a very high regard for Clonie Gowen’s honesty, honor, and motives. And I also have a very high regard for the honesty, honor, and motives of the people I know who are defendants in the case.) And you don’t put yourself in a position to have to defend such a suit – or have to defend it very long – unless you really believe you are in the right.

It’s a simple business matter, and it’s the job of the courts to sort these things out when reasonable people disagree.

But it sure as hell doesn’t feel that way from the inside. I know my former profession gets a bad rap, but as someone whose job it was to sue other people, I took just about every opportunity to encourage people to NOT sue. Lawsuits create nasty confrontations. They cost friendships. They make you question yourself, your judgment, things you did for years. You have to continually relive some difficult moments out of your past. It FEELS personal – way more personal than poker.

I remember when I had the dispute with my former law partners ten years ago that led to my leaving the business. The adversariness of it, the stress – it was just overwhelming. For a couple weeks, it seemed impossible for me to sleep. At the same time, though, I was afraid if I fell asleep I was going to die.

I don’t imagine a lot of people at Full Tilt feel that way, but I’m sure Clonie Gowen does. She’s all by herself here, maybe right and maybe wrong, but definitely sincere in her case and even more definitely … alone.

It’s a character-builder, I’ll tell you that much. I hope Clonie and Full Tilt can resolve these differences, though the fact that she’s filed the case (including against people I know she held in high regard and considered as friends) suggests there’s not much common ground. I’m glad I don’t have to handicap this one because I’m good friends with Clonie and with lots of people on the Full Tilt side. And, oh yeah, they’re my employer.

But for the time being, I feel that my 1% freeroll is in good hands.

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2 Responses to “#622 – Sally O’Malley, and Other Adventures From My (Half) Life”

1. Callum Says:
   December 17th, 2008 at 12:02 am

   I read on the WPT website that Clonie and Howard Lederer are currently seated at the table. That wouldn’t be very fun for either party i would imagine.

2. Steve Fox Says:
   December 22nd, 2008 at 7:49 pm

   The whole Clonie/Full Tilt lawsuit seems like a lose-lose situation. She was a good representative for the company and they beneifited, in my opinion, from having her represent them. So, it makes no sense that they part ways. I hope it gets settled quickly and amicably.

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