Here I sit, at my desk, with my crap job (By the way, writing is not my job. I love writing, but it doesn’t pay the mortgage, yet. Someday. Someday.), a stack of bills, writing about a kid who has everything I want (assuming he uses some of that money to buy a Ferrari).
When did it all go so wrong for me? What did I do or not do to land me here instead of posing in front of a mountain of riches? The world may never know. I am blessed with Mrs. Scoop and The Mini Scooper, so life isn’t all bad and if I had to choose between the mountain of riches and them, I pick them in a heartbeat. So enough grumbling. I will get my shot someday, as we all will. I figure, we all have to have at least one opportunity in our lifetime to make our dreams come true because that would only be fair. Take your shot, make it count, and see what happens. Joseph Cada did and look where it got him. This probably makes him the coolest guy in Michigan.
Some congratulations are due to Darvin Moon for coming in second to the boy wonder. However, his legacy may hinge more on the fact that he bounced Phil Ivey from the tournament, rather than a great finish in a monster field. Ivey had a great chance to double up and move right back into contention with AK up against the AQ of Moon. The poker gods, however, chose to torment Ivey (and Norman Chad. Someone please shut that guy up. Every year he picks the best player in the world, Ivey, to win the biggest tournament in the world….way to go out on a limb there.) once again when a queen popped on the flop. Ivey couldn’t turn the tables and exited in 7th place with a cool $1.4 million (probably an afterthought compared to all the money he won in prop bets and side games during the series). This hand was eerily similar to the one that felted him in the ’03 Main Event where Chris Moneymaker (epitome of a fluke and degenerate gambler) pulled a miracle queen on the river to make a better full house and led to his goofy double fist pump/warrior cry that belongs more on a football field than in a poker room. The fateful hand that Moneymaker held on that day was…..you guessed it, AQ. I would love to see how much the ratings fell after Ivey was knocked out. Could there have been a scenario where 5 million viewers collectively said “Yup that’s all I wanted to see”? I think so.
The big questions now turn to our new champion (and figurehead for the poker world). What kind of a role model will he be? What will he do with his money? What’s the over/under for weeks he will spend in rehab next year? I say 2. More if he is a Lindsay Lohan fan. I have always wanted to take a cheap shot at her in a column and now that I have… I feel like an accomplished writer. Thanks Lindsay, for making everyone feel better about themselves through all of your terrible decisions. Ok, back to poker. Thank goodness Jeff Shulman did not win because his temptation to throw the bracelet in the trash was worrying poker players everywhere. Not to mention making his trash guy excited about his job for at least one day.
The rest of us will keep grinding along. Whether you play poker professionally or just for fun, remember to take your shot when you have it, so you will never wonder when it all went wrong and who knows… you may just scoop a monster.
- Kirk “The Scoop” Zimmerman
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Observe your opponents; learn their poker mannerisms. Are they loose or tight players? And avoid giveaway mannerisms of your own.
