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POCKET ACES

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Maryann Guberman has been a writer and editor with many gaming publications, including Sports Form, Card Player, Poker World, Player's Panorama and Systems and Methods. She also has written and edited numerous books on gambling.

July 05, 2008

The Poker Journey

There was something different about this year's World Series of Poker, an intangible air quietude. And it was lovely.

The previous two or three series of tournaments gave off an impression that this game was all about testosterone and bravado (not that there's anything wrong with either), particularly last year. In 2007, the halls of the Rio were filled with Young Turks, excited to be part of a happening, eager to show off their talents, hungry to prove they, like anyone, could win this thing. It was not unusual to be bumped, pushed, shoved and otherwise interfered with if you walked too slowly through the jam-packed hallways leading up to the tournament area.

The entry way to the tournament kind of spurred that atmosphere as the Lifestyle Show played up the appearance of local "gentlemen's clubs" and other saucy vendors.

This year, the crowd seemed quieter, more serious, intense and more concerned. In the competition area itself, players appeared more focused and the spectators carried conversations in muted tones, as if watching a golfer preparing to make a critical putt.

I prefer this kind of decorum because it lends a bit of civility to a game that doesn't really need Hollywood-type hype. If every player had a sponsor and did not have to earn his or her way into this contest, then the decorum be damned.

That said, we all have to admit this: Poker is about devastating an opponent, and if that means getting in his or her face, then so be it.

I recall years ago at an event that was considered a major tournament taking place at downtown Las Vegas casino. The competition was a ladies-only game event and it was final-table time. I can't remember the exact hands. They don't matter so much because as it would eventually turn out this would be a monumental bad beat Ð or so it seemed at the time. It went something like this: Heads-up, two very good players, one woman held the nuts on the flop, two aces in hand, one on the board. The other had a premium pair, perhaps kings. Imagine yourself how the betting might have gone down until the turn when a king fell. In the end it doesn't really matter what the second-best hand was because an ace fell on the river. Now after some intense staring and thinking, the aces looked the kings straight on and remarked, "You're holding an ace, aren't you?"

The kings, interpreting that to mean her opponent had the inferior hand, bet out and was raised. Thinking, too late, she'd been trapped, the kings called and at showdown the four aces raked in the pot. She never recovered.

Okay, this is not accurate reporting as far as the cards and the exact verbiage are concerned but I got the scenario correct.

What will come as a surprise to most people is the uproar that occurred because of what the aces said. You would have thought she'd committed a major crime and should be banned from poker for life. In fact, the tournament director was rumored to have declared the incident so disrespectful that he would no longer have a ladies-only event in any series he hosted!

I remember thinking about the incident for a long time, wondering if some kind of unspoken rule had been violated, something not in any tourney director's rule book but understood by all concerned. I recall being quite upset by the decision to eliminate an event because of one supposed infraction. But I could never decide whether the aces had done anything unethical. After all, if she had seen her opponent gulp anytime she held premium cards, would it be wrong to stay silent and take advantage of that? Instead of asking the question, had she stated something like, "You're playing like you have the nuts," would that have been a more genteel approach?

Today, years later and in light of the colorful antics we see on televised poker, I have concluded that the furor was little more than a matter of personal preference. While nobody disliked the aces, everybody loved the kings. She was a quiet beauty who looked like someone who should be teaching kindergarten (and I believe she was a teacher) rather than sitting in a smoky poker room.

What if this happened to day?

To begin with, we could compare the aces to someone like Mike Matusow or Phil Hellmuth and the kings to someone like Greg Raymer or Lee Watkinson and if you're a poker fan, you know how you would think and feel about confrontations between those two dichotomous sets.

It's likely the cameras would be all over it; the announcer and color man would be joking about it; the crowd would be hooting and cheering. And in the end, years later, somebody like this writer would be remembering it and thinking how inconsequential it was.

If the cameras are not hovering everywhere we'd all be hard pressed to recall the details of any tournament. A few anomalies such as the two-time championship win by Doyle Brunson with a ten-deuce offsuit would become legend and word of mouth stories would perpetuate some aspect of some game. But when the shouting is over and the cameras move on to another arena, poker will settle into a game that's a combination of the good old days and modern times. And no matter what, the World Series will continue to evolve. Next year, who knows? Maybe it will be quieter still; maybe it will not. Maybe someone everybody loves to hate, hates to love, or simply adores will change the direction of the game.

It's not the end of the journey that troubles us; it's the newness, the changes along the way that unsettle us.