Poke Her? I Don’t Even Know Her!

“Poke her? I don’t even know her!”
– The oldest, cheesiest poker joke (or knee-slapper) I know

If you are not a fan or addict of poker at this point, where have you been?

The earth has yet to produce a rock big enough to hide under and not be touched by the wave of professional poker working its way around the globe even as we speak.

Maybe you already went through the love/hate relationship with poker (when the main game to play was five-card stud) and you found yourself in a life-altering hole after losing barrels of money to friends (now ex-friends, of course) and the “house” in Vegas or Atlantic City.

Maybe you failed to catch one of thousands of WSOP tourneys shown on ESPN in a continuous loop for the last… 5 years or so. (The rest of us simply gave in and picked up our own deck.) In this case also, I would guess you also do not own an iPod, iPhone or cell phone with a camera.

Moving on, for those in the know, the 2007 WSOP is underway. To start things off, Phil Helmuth — one of the most arrogant, loud, condescending, amazing poker players the world has known, who as an ego that could fill at least three full Tennessee football stadiums — started a new pre-tourney ritual by crashing a race car (link straight to video), just before he was slated to hop in on the big dance. Love the headline and report from http://wickedchopspoker.blogs.com/ — “Helmuth Suffers From Severe Whiplash, Ego Miraculously Unscathed”.

I started with my own poker lovin’ about 5 summers ago when passing time on a trip to SoBe (South Beach Miami) as rain poured relentlessly from above as I rejuvenated from the previous night’s fun. ESPN played the “Moneymaker” tourney (I forget what year… 2001 is my guess) non-stop, as I was (1) too lazy to change the channel and (2) didn’t really want to change the channel the more I heard hilarious smart-ass comments coming from the poker commentator, Norman Chad.

Chad held true to his entertaiment value (also check out his articles, he writes about all things sports in a nationally syndicated column seen in The Washington Post, among other newspapers) and the Moneymaker dream makes rooting for the underdog closer to reality than the Helmuths of the world will admit.

Around the district, bars and restaurants offer free tourneys and I’ve never been happier checking them out as people play them as if there really is a $15 million pot on the line. Or that they paid $10,000 to enter. Not so much. Max winnings at one little pizza parlor joint I play at: $25 gift certificate for their food or drinks.

If you want to get inspired and whatnot, you missed the train on the online poker money practice chance (unless you’re outside the U.S. of A.). But you can tune into WSOP on ESPN starting Tuesday and see if it’s your thing or not. Find the TV listing here.

Top celebrity playing this year that I will whole-heartedly root for: Montel Williams. According to Andrew Feldman’s blog, he’s faring quite well to start off, while other bigger, more famous poker names have been shown the door early.

Anyone out there want to loan me $10,000?

UPDATE: Forgot to throw in this Gregg Doyel article that speaks to the woes of gambling. Can’t say that I disagree with the fact that gambling is scary to some… but seriously, though, people need to break their own addictions. We can’t outlaw everything. This coming from someone who isn’t addicted to much other than sports, food and good times.