Happy 3rd Birthday Wicked Chops Poker!
Wicked Chops Poker just celebrated its third birthday. If someone had told us three years ago, “Entities, in the next three years, you’ll have nearly two million unique visitors a year, be a staple daily read of industry insiders and pros alike, have your own column in the best poker magazine in the world, and hot girls will be sending you pictures of themselves and asking to be featured on the site,” we would’ve said, “That’s what we fi gured.”
Anyway, all three Entities are history buffs of sorts. When we’re yachting to some island in the Pacifi c, we’ll often sit atop the bow of said yacht reading some historical novel. We believe it was Miss Teen South Carolina who said, “You can’t map out actions for the future without learning from mistakes of the past.” Smart girl, she was, such as.
So looking back at the past three years, here’s some of our all-time favorite (or least favorite) stories and what we learned from them.
Don’t Underestimate the Power of Men “The Master” Drinking Fifteen Coronas. WCP really found its legs during the 2005 WSOP. During an Omaha H/L fi nal table, two of our favorite beer-drinking poker players, Men “The Master” Nguyen and “Minneapolis” Jim Meehan, squared off to see who can be the most drunkenly obnoxious WSOP bracelet-winner ever. Unfortunately, Men the Master fl amed out before he reached the fi nal table, but after learning about him downing ten to fi fteen Coronas through the course of play, we decided that instead of putting a picture of Men and his large, follicle-growing mole with the post, we’d put a picture of a girl in a Corona bikini with it. Much better visual.
Lesson Learned:
Dudes like pictures of hot chicks. It’s defi nitely the quickest and easiest way to grow your web traffi c. Are you listening, CNN.com?
It’s the most recent big news sort-of related to the poker world: Ex-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer getting busted for banging a high-priced call girl. Most don’t realize this, but while Spitzer was New York’s Attorney General, he was a leading crusader to get banks to block credit card wire transfers to online gaming sites. And in a wonderfully ironic twist of fate, it was excessive wire transfers that tipped off the Fed that Spitzer was up to something unusual… like $80k for high-priced hookers unusual. A political career, marriage, and reputation all down the tubes, and for a girl, Ashley Youmans (aka “Kristen” from the Emperor’s VIP Club), who on any given day either looks hot or like a man or like Stiffl er’s mom. If you’re a $4,000 call girl and you’re only batting .333 in the looks department, that’s not a good thing.
Lesson Learned:
If you’re married, don’t bang hookers. Just don’t. Nothing good can come of it.
The UIGEA Changed Everything, Changed Nothing. A few hours earlier in the day on September 29, 2006, we did a post titled “Adriana Lima Because Nothing Interesting Is Happening Today.” Then a reader emailed us saying, “Uh, actually, there is. Turn on C-SPAN.” Much like the companies that had been running online poker the previous few years, we were asleep at the wheel that day. While the horse racing lobby was actively ensuring their sport was carved out of the UIGEA, the online poker community moaned a collective “WTF!!!” as Congress tried their best to outlaw slinging virtual cards on the internet. A year and a half later, the online landscape is much different, yet it’s still pretty much the same. People are playing just as much poker as before (although much of the growth is from overseas), but the buzz and euphoria in US America has defi nitely died down.
Lesson Learned:
You know, we’re still not sure.
Looks Like Being “Snarky” is a Good Thing? When we started WickedChopsPoker. com, we were pretty much separated from the general poker world. And not personally knowing anyone made it exceptionally easy to make fun of everyone. It was prevalent in nearly every story we wrote. Nowadays, not so much. Have we had to unburn a few bridges? Probably. Do a little groveling? Maybe. Quit making fun of people all the time? Well, not really. We’re just much more careful and “choice” in how we poke fun at poker players. But with a more regular presence “on the scene,” we gotta do whatever we can to keep from getting beat up.
Lesson Learned:
Always blame the other “Entity” for writing a mean comment that you really wrote. It’s better than a punch in the face.
