Poker Player Tweets of the Week: Mario Kart and baseball card walls
The possibility of a seven-figure overlay has drawn most of the top tournament pros to the $5,000 buy-in, re-entry event in South Florida. Of course, that's made for ridiculous action outside the tournament as well. Twitter has essentially been a degen-live feed from Tampa over the last few days.
Last week, we took a glimpse at how some professional poker players use Twitter to express themselves. We covered everything from binge drinking, to the value of poker instruction courses, all the way to the requirements to becoming an ice cream sandwich expert.
This week, we'll do more of the same. While Tampa has been an action-fest so far, the tournament is just underway, and we haven't yet realized the full degeneracy potential. Next week –- I promise –- I will compile the best tweets from the $10 million guaranteed tournament.
So, without further ado, here are the top tweets from professional poker players over the last seven days, that don't have anything to do with Florida.
Tuesday, Aug. 20: Viktor "@ViktorBlom" Blom
does anyone know if you can make a living as a mariokart pro? considering my options :)
— Viktor Blom (@ViktorBlom) August 20, 2013
Viktor Blom is best known for his mega-high stakes cash game history under the screen name "Isildur1." For a long time, Blom was anonymous, and many people even speculated that he was some sort of European prince. Well, he wasn't – he was just an insanely LAG (loose and aggressive) Swedish player who had a lot of success on his way to the high stakes tables.
My heart swooned upon reading this tweet. Mario Kart (assuming Blom is talking about the Nintendo 64 version) is one of the all-time classic video games. During my senior year of high school, we had a "senior lounge" complete with a big-screen TV and an N64. Mario Kart or Mario Tennis (the better game, but I digress) was always being played, and if you wanted a chance to handle the controller, you'd needed to be good. The senior lounge didn't allow scrubs to ruin a perfectly good game of Kart.
I probably played 400 hours or more of Mario Kart during my senior year of high school. Yeah, I know what you're thinking -- I must have had all of the girls. Well, I didn't; but I do have my memories, and even to this day, I could pick up the controller and get right back into that groove. Mario Kart is easily one of the top five video games ever made, and when I see that one of the world's top poker players wants to try to make money playing it, only one thing comes to my mind:
HEADS UP 4 ROLLZ?
Monday, Aug. 19: Adam "@Roothlus" Levy
Playing 5/5 PLO dealer deals everyone 2 cards then stops. As we say deal 2 more, utg folds his 2 card hand as if it was Holdem. Whaaat?
— Adam Levy (@Roothlus) August 19, 2013
I'm not sure what Adam Levy is so surprised by here. From the looks of it, he's shocked that the under-the-gun player would fold his Omaha hand after having been dealt only two cards.
I suppose that's pretty funny. But fish are fish, and this is nothing new. The main thing I take away from this tweet is the fact that the dealer had to be reminded by the table to deal two more cards. I understand that dealers make mistakes. In this case, forgetting the table was playing pot-limit Omaha, and only dealing a Hold'em hand, is a fairly common error. And it doesn't really hurt anyone, either; it's not like money is on the line while the cards are physically being dealt.
But does any game lead to more dealer ineptitude than pot-limit Omaha? I have never played PLO in a casino where the dealer was correctly able to determine the "pot limit" in an efficient manner. Every single hand results in four or five players shouting numbers at the dealer as he attempts to do basic addition. I love PLO as much as the next guy. But playing it live can be one of the most excruciating experiences a poker player can encounter. And it's a damn shame.
Sunday, Aug. 18: Jeanine "@JeanineDeeb" Deeb
.@TheReader23 LOL! So awesome. My dad did that once finding a 50k chip after 5 years in his chest pocket of a shirt! #MBN
— Jeanine Deeb (@JeanineDeeb) August 18, 2013
Jeanine Deeb is the daughter of Freddy Deeb, a famous high stakes cash game player and two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner. Jeanine isn't a poker pro – though she has played in some World Series events – but she is a fixture in the game, working as a reporter for the World Poker Tour. So while she doesn't exactly qualify to be included on this list, her recent tweet is just too perfect not to be discussed.
Fans of the show "High Stakes Poker" may remember an episode from one of the early seasons in which several of the players at the table accuse Freddy Deeb of "going south," or removing money/chips from the cash game table. This is one of the worst etiquette moves a player can make, and is usually not allowed on most cash tables.
To Freddy's credit, the show's producers carefully reviewed the tapes and analyzed all of the action on the show, and determined that he did not remove chips from the table. And I'm pretty sure this was a complete accident as well. No one would deliberately stick a 50k chip in their shirt pocket and then forget about it.
But if you were conspiracy minded, you'd think hmmm … that seems like the perfect place to slip a high-value chip if a player were to, say, "go south."
Again, I'm not making any accusations; just pointing out some strange happenings.
Sunday, Aug. 18: Haralabos "@haralabob" Voulgaris
Haralabos Voulgaris is best known for being the most successful NBA handicapper in the world, but he's also a frequent high stakes cash game player. "Bob" has appeared on "High Stakes Poker" and, as you can see in the photo, still plays online.
Here, it looks like Voulgaris is five-tabling on Full Tilt Poker, playing three cash games and two tournaments. He doesn't seem to be enjoying it.
I feel for Voulgaris. Back in my heyday, I played as many as 12 tables at a time on one monitor -- usually low-stakes cash games or Sit-and-Go's. The multi-tabling experience can be a painful one, and I wouldn't recommend it for someone who doesn't play online poker frequently. I haven't played since Black Friday, and I know I would struggle playing more than one table at a time today.
Voulgaris is a tremendous player, but something tells me he doesn't do this multi-tabling thing quite often. If he ever dedicated himself full-time to the game, I'm sure he'd become one of the well-known greats on the circuit. But in order to get to that point, he'll probably have to submit himself to more of this torture that he calls "his own personal version of hell."
Saturday, Aug. 17: Jeremy "@jeremyausmus" Ausmus
I bet @basebaldy would be going into extra innings on his pee while gandering at this vintage baseball card wallpaper pic.twitter.com/CvykeDdS7D
— Jeremy Ausmus (@jeremyausmus) August 18, 2013
Any tweet containing any reference to a Wade Boggs Donruss Diamond Kings baseball card will immediately grab my full attention.
Jeremy Ausmus took fifth place in the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event for a crisp $2.1 million and followed up with an excellent showing throughout the 2013 WSOP this summer. But this tweet is by far the coolest thing we've seen from Ausmus during his run on the pro circuit.
Ausmus is tweeting at his friend Eric "@basebaldy" Baldwin, a fellow poker pro and former baseball player. The photo seems to be a collage of 1980s baseball cards surrounding a public bathroom urinal. I can't imagine a better way to pee.
I need this. I have roughly 5,000 cards from the 80s, 90s and early 2000s sitting in my apartment that would be perfect for a project like this. In fact, I think I'm going to line every wall in my house with cards. What would be better than lying in bed and staring up at a picture of former Phillies second baseman Mickey Morandini? Or chopping onions in the kitchen while gazing at a 1997 Collector's Choice Bartolo Colon rookie card?
This will soon become my life's work. Next week, stay tuned to hear fiancée's reaction to this decision. By then, I might no longer be engaged.