can we just let some things die in the past never to be seen again NSFW tags man
It is NSFW
Probably if the thread updates live for you, it doesn’t have the spoiler take effect
Like how you see blocked posters if the thread updates live
I played in a limit tournament with Ellix a long time ago at the Bike (a few years after the J high thing) and I could not stop running into him at multiple tables. He was whining in an infuriated way in every hand. ‘This guy raises every time I have a hand!’.
The funniest one was when I was on a straight flush draw betting with him calling and managed to hit it (only time in a tournament I’ve hit that). He called me, saw my hand, and disgustedly said ‘knew it’. When we’re down to maybe the final 16 or so, literally every time I raised, he would call me calling me a bluffer (amazingly I wasn’t bluffing in most of those instances), fold his hand face up on the flop and incessantly whine sitting right across from me.
He had the last laugh as some of his worse hands he kept turning over started making it, leaving me with no idea how the tournament ended for me while still having a story to tell about him. I’m pretty sure he eliminated me without a min cash.
4 Likes
Those were the days. The 2004-2006 WSOP episodes were all so good. Then in 2006 High Stakes Poker launched.
I’ll go to my grave saying the boom was about 95% Orenstein and 5% Moneymaker. Seeing poker with hole cards was about 500x more entertaining than the Varkonyi year. You’re telling my poker wouldn’t have seen a massive boom anyway if Ivey or Farha had shipped 2003?
I’ve wondered if Ivey winning would have been better for poker.
Completely disagree.
Ivey was a nobody in 2003. He only became big deal poker famous once poker exploded in popularity from 2003-2006.
Moneymaker’s appeal, which fueled all the growth, was that he’s an every man, and maybe it could be you.
Varkonyi was an every man.
And even if Farha/Ivey ship in '03, then odds are that an every man would’ve shipped in '04, so you could have started that narrative the following year.
I think once ESPN decided to those more fleshed out episodes with better production in '03, combined with the hole cards, there was little stopping poker from exploding at that point.
Varkoni was an MIT grad, investment banker from NY.
I knew it, I knew it
I’ll give moneymaker 10% for the name because that is what got all the other media headlines. Nobody else gets anything near that.
Rest is I agree with you, hole card cams were the biggest reason, on espn all the time, the guy who looks like a pro gambler with a cig vs the normal looking guy here on 80 bucks, WPT on all the time as well was some sliver of it, random people final tabling and shipping the main event all the time with maybe one pro getting there and in some hand gets owned by the random person so that gets on TV.
1 Like
The WPT debuting with hole card cams just before the 2003 WSOP was also a significant boost to its initial momentum.
1 Like
I think the boom was happening with or without Moneymaker. The hole card cam and being on tv a lot are the main contributors along with it being really easy and fun to play. It was really fun to pass the time playing home games with friends. That and the idea that if you were good it was possible to be a winning player. The thing that hooked me was never wow look at Moneymaker the every man, it was wow there are actually professional poker players??
1 Like
Yea, I agree the boom was gonna happen with or without Moneymaker, but he probably helped expedite it. When I was in high school, we all watched the WSOP of poker coverage, but I don’t think it would have mattered much who actually won at the end, we were already hooked before that point. It was more about the excitement around this new game, where chips are the bullets, you can risk it all at once, and with the proper skills, strategy, and certain amount of heart (and luck) you could make a lot of money. The WSOP coverage sold it very well, which never would have gotten off the ground with out the hole cams. And the ease you could do it at home with your friends was just perfect. I have no doubt we still would have been degenning in basement games and then donking money around online with or without Moneymaker.
I really look back and have no idea what appealed to me regarding poker when I was in my 20s.
I tried to play some at a casino in Batumi on vacation and lasted like an hour. The casino sucked. The players sucked (as people and as players). The casino employees sucked. Sucking in a bunch of secondhand smoke for an hour while waiting 30 minutes for a single drink sucked. It was totally unpleasant.
It’s pretty shallow stacks so don’t expect much but Phil Ivey is 3 handed in the 40k mystery bounty event with Espen Jorstad (2022 WSOP champion) and Stephen Chidwick
1 Like
As the WSOP was nearing a close, I went to the ATM and took out cash in case i wanted to drive the 25 minutes to play at MGM Nat Harbor. I still haven’t gone, and I’ve only played once in the past few years.
Being around a poker table with the usual cast of characters just sounds so unappealing.
Poker is only actually fun for me at the right drinking gambley table on weekends, and I’m running good. So like 2% of the time.
Also places where it’s a dedicated card club instead of casino are generally more enjoyable, with much better service, as the poker players are their main source of income, not just an afterthought.
And as for Chicago poker, if I were a recreational player, I’d rather stay home and watch all the human centipede movies than attempt to play at Rivers on a weekend.
NSFW
Just 1 tabling while pooping?
Amateur.
1 Like