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How does someone win a bet and lose more money than
he bet in the first place?
Sometimes I do some dumb things. On my way
home from Florida and the Party Poker Million
Cruise, I got out of the taxi at the airport and
watched it drive away with one of my bags,
which I suddenly realized had over $10,000 in
it! Not being from New York, I didn’t think of
hailing another taxi right away, hopping in
and screaming, “Follow that cab!” like they
do in the movies. Instead, I stood there in disbelief. I did
eventually manage to retrieve it and make my flight
with two minutes to spare, but still. Duh!
Sometimes it’s just the stupid little things that make
me realize that I’m not the sharpest knife in the
kitchen. Lately, I feel more like a spoon. Like last week
when I drove all the way down to the casino, without realizing
I hadn’t brought any money to play with.
But nothing compares with this recent travesty and the money I left
behind by making what has to be dumbest settlement of a proposition
bet I hope I will ever make. Let me take you back to the beginning and
tell you a story, that I’ll call The Dummy and the Feast.
With all the reverse hourglass figures wobbling around the poker
world, it’s common for many of us to enter into weight loss bets.
Needing
motivation to get to
the gym, I entered into such a bet with two
friends, who I will call Tim and Dan. The goal was for each of us to lose
10% of our weight in three months. The penalty if we didn’t: $50,000. Now that’s a motivator! Just before
Christmas, we would have a weighin,
in which we had to be halfway
towards our goals or pay a $20,000
penalty if we missed. The second
weigh-in would be at the LA Poker
Classic in February, where we
would have to be at our goal
weights or pay another $20,000.
The final weigh-in will be at this
year’s WSOP; and if we haven’t
maintained the weight, we have to
shell out $10,000.
When you make a bet, you
always want to
have the best of it
and, after the first
month, I’m sure
we all knew it was
fair because each
of us had gained
weight! This
called for a crash
diet and a lot of
sitting around in
saunas, trying to
sweat off the last
few pounds at the
end. In fact, having
made the goal
at the first weighin,
I met one of
my friends at the
gym in the middle
of the night and
watched him suffer in the sauna.
The deadline was at hand and he
had no gym clothes, so he sat in
there in his underwear, trying to
drip off the last few pounds.
Now, you think we would have
learned from the first time around,
but in fact we found ourselves in
worse shape as the second deadline
approached. Tim was seven pounds
over with two days to go, and
“Sauna Dan,” well, forget it; he wasn’t
going to make it if he fell asleep
in the sauna for the week. Now, Tim
would rather have his left arm
amputated than lose the $20,000,
so I was pretty sure he was going to
starve and sweat his way in, which
meant he and I would split Dan’s
money for a net win of $10,000 for
the second segment.
The problem was that I had been
on a liquid diet for 12 days, hadn’t
eaten a bite of solid food, and must
not have been thinking clearly.
This became painfully clear when I
found myself making very big golf
bets and didn’t even have the
strength to swing the club. But
when you are in a dark tunnel, it’s
sometimes hard to see the light at
the other end, and I just kept making
worse bets. But this one takes
the cake.
I got the desperation call from
Dan, looking for mercy once again,
to settle two days before the weighin.
I don’t need to settle, I’m there!
Then a new proposition arose.
“Well, let me put someone in the
Party Poker Million tournament,
and you can have 1/3 and maybe
you’ll make 300,000 instead of
10,000.” I told
Dan that I didn’t
like the guy’s
chances, to which
he replied: “Okay,
well how about
you then? If you
lose, you owe me
nothing, and I’ll
even kick in a
couple thousand
for expenses.”
Wanting that
cheeseburge r
right away, I said,
“Okay, you got it.”
Four words I will
live to regret.
Let’s look at
this: I go from a
free $10,000 and
having 100% of myself in the tournament,
to getting $12,000 and playing
for 33%. Hmm, good deal? NOT!
You see, I’m on a hot streak on the
tournament trail right now and
cashed for $700,000. That means
this little weight bet, in which I
made my weight and the others didn’t,
just cost me $420,000! Now,
that is a weight LOSS program – to
the tune of almost $2,000 a pound!
I was so disgusted that the first
thing I did was to reach for a slice of
pizza and a beer. Now, I’m right
back to where I started, except with
a lot less cash than I would have
had if I hadn’t made the bet. The
moral of the story: I guess if I had
started earlier, I wouldn’t have been
starving myself at the end and may
have thought more clearly. So
maybe it’s: Don’t put off till tomorrow
what you can do today. You
might end up in a steam room in
your underwear, or making ridiculous
bets that leave you a lot lighter
because your pockets will be empty.
Good Flops and Happy Days,
Kenna
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