#624 – It Appears My Presence at the Bellagio May Not be Required After All

After spending the day “winterizing” my Mercedes – scraping off the bird crap on the grill before it crystallized and outfitting the tires with highway-quality chains – it was a bittersweet ending for my friends in the final WPT event of the year, the Bellagio Five Diamond Championship. Both Mike Matusow and Clonie Gowen built chips, lost chips on tough hands, and made the final ten – but Clonie went out in tenth and Mike followed in ninth.

Kudos all around, though:

* To Matusow – The guy has become an even more formidable big-buy-in tournament animal than he already was, and he used to be great. For about the millionth time this year, he hung around and hung around and hung around and put himself in position to do something magical – though the regularity with which he does that is, itself, magical.

* To Gowen – Likewise, another big-buy-in tournament maniac, though her great performances have taken some people by surprise … though not me.

* To Full Tilt – If I ever tell you “Full Tilt does not censor me”, or “Full Tilt is operated by honest people who behave in a professional manner”, we now both know I have good reasons for believing that. The stakes in the lawsuit between Clonie Gowen and Full Tilt are very high – maybe tens of millions of dollars, allegations of promises made and broken, all manner of claims that make a “business dispute” into something highly personal.

In some organizations, the word would have come down that it would be a favor to the bigshots if I took a couple cheap shots at Clonie. And let’s face it: I am skillful enough to take some very cheap shots and make it look like art, or at least commerce. To no one’s surprise, Full Tilt did no such thing.

But what about telling me, “We don’t like your choice of friends”? Or, “Be friends with who you want but not in our space”? Or just editing or deleting my posts or telling me to run them by someone for “approval”?

I suppose it’s possible if I turn this blog into The Clonie Gowen Report that this could happen. But I think the people who operate Full Tilt are responsible professionals and expect me to be a responsible professional. Even if they aren’t thrilled with my choice of friends or some of my opinions, they’d rather trust me than try to make me a puppet on a string.

I hope that proves to be worth a lot to Full Tilt someday. Because I know it’s worth a lot to me right now.

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