POKER’S GRAND SLAM! There are four massive tournaments developing on an annual basis now which are forming what is generally becoming recognised as Poker’s equivalent to the Grand Slam associated with international tennis. Those events would be the World Poker Tour housed at the Bellagio during April, the European Poker Tour Championship, this summer’s World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and for good measure the Aussie Millions, now very much a part of the global scene. So, if you’re thinking about becoming a professional, now you know the money circuit to travel once your online game has lifted you to the standard of play you’ve set yourself. How will you know if you’ve reached that standard? Simple. If you win a $10,000 buy-in from a satellite or anything close to it: You’re good enough.
LOVE! LARCENY! LUCK! “Love! Larceny! Luck! They’re all in the cards!” One of my favourite poker quotes, from the 1966 film Kaleidoscope. There’s a fabulous “cool” that wafts around poker. It’s like an Armani suit, somehow always fashionable. The best quotes from poker films demonstrate this better than I can. Here are a few of my favourites and my thanks to those of you on dailystarpoker.com who insist on sending them in all the time signing yourselves Matt Damon or Ed Norton.
“It’s a pleasure to meet someone who understands that to the true gambler, money is never an end itself; it’s simply a tool, as language is to thought.” ~ Edward G. Robinson, The Cincinnati Kid.
“Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.” Paul Newman, The Colour of Money.
“I wouldn’t sit in this game with cards I made myself.” The Gunfighter.
“In less than one week, you'll be playing heads-up and taking 1st or 2nd place. I GUARANTEE IT!”
THE PERFECT IMAGE It used to be gunslingers placing bets on the felt and bullets in the liver. It was mobsters building a gaming Babylon in a desert called Nevada. It was Monte Carlo in the late 1920’s with millions of dollars being won or lost like a mirror held up to the meteoric rise and crash of the Wall Street stock markets. Poker has always had an edge to it. These days it’s the magic of a guy whose parents actually had the real life surname of “Moneymaker”. Their son, Chris, won a free online entry from a satellite event into the World Series of Poker and stormed his way to $2,500,000! How “cool” is that?
POKER TIP OF THE DAY If the money you are playing for in any game of Texas Hold’em really matters to you, you’re playing too high. Never bet out of your comfort zone because it will automatically affect “how” you play which is petrol on a fire you won’t be able to put out.
ALL THE ACES poker column: Saturday, April 15, 2006: The Poker Grand Slam Of Tournaments
