The Natural

There's a notion that Paul owes some of his success to the teachings and discussions of the Bag, Wolf, etc, and myself. But now it's occurring to me that maybe it's just the opposite - maybe we actually held him back a bit with our mediocrity. His overwhelming talent is exploding now, while the rest of my crew really hasn't done anything significant in tournament poker. Paul doesn't even play heads-up much. I think this was his first heads-up tournament ever, live or online. He just gets it.

Despite what I recently wrote, the truth is, I am happy for Paul when he does well in poker. Out of the 790 players who played in the LAPC, the only one I'd rather see make the final table than Paul is me. It's not like I'd be happier if Joe Hachem, Jeff Madsen, or some random unknown was there. Same for the Heads-Up Championship - I'm certainly happier that Paul won it than Chad Brown, Gavin Smith, Shannon Elizabeth, or anyone else who was invited.

The reason why it's difficult for me to see Paul be successful in poker is proximity. When Paul makes big runs in big tournaments, I see it up close and personal, and it makes my failures sting a bit more. I see the huge stacks of chips, the lights and the cameras, and the gargantuan checks, and I want it to be me. It was somewhat of a relief for me when Paul won the Heads-Up Championship, as I realized I can now cease comparing myself to him. He's in another stratosphere now - he's a "big name pro" and I think I might be able to stop the juxtaposing...plus this blog is turning into an unofficial Paul Wasicka fan site...

Sunday night Shannon Elizabeth singlehandedly destroyed my reputation as the King of Prop and Trivia Betting. I lost two bets vs. PiMaster - a before/after 2000 on American Pie's release date (actually 1999 - an astounding eight years since coming out), and an over/under 29 on Shannon's age (a truly dumbfounding 33). Although she looks spectacular, the hottest woman in the room that night was undoubtedly Shana Hiatt...

No offense to Paul, but I don't consider the "National Heads-Up Poker Championship" to be a legitimate tournament. If it was a real tournament, the only Shannon invited would be Shannon Shorr. It would include players like Alex Jacob, David Oppenheim, and Brian "sbrugby" Townsend instead of Rene Angelil, Clonie Gowen, and Isabelle Mercier. David Singer and Bill Edler, two recent winners of major Heads-Up Championships, were nowhere to be found. There would be no celebrities with zero career cashes unless the tournament was open to anyone willing to throw down the entry fee. Not to mention that the whole thing was basically run by Full Tilt. Honestly I don't write enough about what bullshit these sort of tournaments are, and why they make me hate poker. Maybe I'll get more into that some time.

The tournament's other major problem is the fast structure of the matches. Unless someone gets absolutely owned (like Chad Brown in the final match against Paul) or colddecked, the blinds get insane and it becomes a crapshoot shovefest. There was some skill in this tournament, but not nearly as much as NBC would like you to believe. Paul won the tournament because he played well and because he ran extremely well in the big, usually unavoidable races at the end of matches. If the structure was reasonable, you wouldn't see Don Cheadle beating Phil Ivey and Shannon Elizabeth (who appeared to be playing very well, misplaying only one hand from what I saw) wouldn't be a river card away from competing for the title. I don't imagine this tournament will ever try to gain the respect of afficionados, but if NBC wants to try, they can start by making the structure at least two times slower.

Chad Brown is one of my favorite players. During the 2005 WSOP, he went out of his way to be cordial to be me. He's a classy pro with a model career, and his NLHE tournament results over the last year or two are in the top twenty in the world. All this from a former actor and cash 7-stud player. So I won't hesitate to say I think he threw his shot at the title in the garbage with one of the three worst laydowns in televised poker history:

With the blinds at a ridiculous 20k-40k in the first championship match, he and Paul stood exactly even at 640k apiece. Paul limped on the button, Brown made it 160k to go, Paul moved all-in, Brown folded ace-jack offsuit face-up, and I almost fell out of my chair. I feel AJ is likely to not only be ahead of most of Paul's holdings, but dominate many of them. Brown already had 1/4 of his stack in the pot, and was getting a good price even if he knew Paul had a pair. To fold AJ in that spot was a laughable mistake that the players who should have been there - the top sit n go players, since this was really a sit n go tournament - would never dream of making. Brown may have had some bad reconnaisance info that Paul wouldn't put his tournament on the line preflop with mediocre holdings - generally true but not with sixteen big blinds...

Apparently Gus Johnson will only be broadcasting the first two rounds of the NCAAs this year. Devastating news. At least Mike Tirico doesn't work for CBS...

I'd like to start listening to classical music while I play poker - please send me suggestions...

I was in a bad place a few days ago, but after a visit from Laura, my attitude has turned around. I have never written much about her in this blog, but she is without question the most important person in my life and has saved me many times.

The Wynn $10k main event begins Thursday and I will be in attendance.