A true weight loss bet
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
