Ship It!!!
In the early fall of 2003, I was introduced to Texas Hold’em. Poker was booming, television stations were beginning to realize a seemingly limitless ratings potential in big tournaments, and every month hundreds of new players were signing up to play online.
I began entering weekly tournaments in my college dormitory. Growing up, I had played a lot of gin rummy and cribbage with my parents. Also, since I was studying mathematics, I had a working knowledge of the concepts of probability and expected value, and so I tended to win more than I lost.
At the time, my skill in poker was similar to that of another tournament regular, who has requested to be known only by “InYaFace,” his name on online poker forum twoplustwo.com. Win or lose, I would typically just get drunk and forget about it. InYaFace, however, would retreat to his dorm room, calculating probabilities and pot odds and analyzing his play. From his devotion to the game, I knew his skill would soon surpass my own.
Now, it’s a strange phenomenon of this digital age that you can partially follow someone’s course in life simply by reading the person’s changing MSN screen name. In the few years after I left residence, I saw InYaFace’s MSN name go through such variations as “In pain” or “Worst weekend ever,” into the more optimistic “Love life and it will love you back,” or the simple but telling “I AM A POKER GOD!!!”
Upon reading that my college friend had become a poker god, I figured he was doing well. One day his screen name changed to feature the web URL www.shipitholla.com, and I realized he was doing better than I could have possibly predicted.
The website’s content is provided jointly by Andrew Robl (Good2CU on twoplustwo.com), a 20-year-old gambler from Lansing, Michigan, with an apparent passion for hijinks and a disdain for the rules of grammar, and by Peter Jetten (Apathy), a 21-year-old Torontonian. Reading regularly over the summer, I followed the WSOP successes and failures of a crew of young poker players calling themselves the “Ship it Holla Ballas.” For the duration of the 2006 WSOP, the Ballas shared rent on a mansion near
I also read Robl’s account of their extravagant lifestyle: a black on black convertible bought for $40,000 cash; nearly $2,000 spent at a supermarket on toys, booze, and fireworks; and bar and club tabs that would put former Enron executives to shame. The strangest story of all featured a visiting gambler who was dared to jump into a shark tank at a five-star resort for $5,000, which he later lost to Mike Matusow in a single hand on Ultimate Bet.
Reading their webpage, I was uncertain how much to believe and how much was merely the workings of young, fertile imaginations. When I contacted Peter and InYaFace, they agreed to meet me in
Shopping with the Ship It Holla Ballas
I reached Fallsview Casino on Saturday, October 28th, the last day of the WPT $10k NLH event. I had anticipated that one of the Ballas would still be in the contest and that I could catch some of the action. Not finding any of them in the casino, I phoned InYaFace’s cell, and made arrangements to meet up in their hotel’s lobby.
Meeting some of the Ballas in the lobby, I was apprised of the following facts:
Everyone in the crew had busted out of the tournament on Friday.
Following the disappointing tournament results, the Ballas ordered and paid for a $4,000 drink tab at the Sundowner, a local
Robl was involved in an incident of a sensitive nature, involving his hotel room, a stripper, and the stripper’s husband.
Tom Dwan (Durrrr), who has the largest bankroll of any of them, was paid a mere $500 to go for a swim in the casino’s display fountain. He was immediately accosted by security.
Two crew members were paid $1,000 each to run naked through Denny’s at peak hours.
With the third warning for excess noise in their hotel room, the second of which David Benefield (Raptor517) responded to with an inappropriate imitation of Rick James, the Ballas were evicted from their first hotel room of the evening.
Following all the revelry, Dwan experienced a massive downswing of $500k, playing $50/$100 PLO on his laptop.
The Ballas were now en route to
Again, everything seemed too bizarre to be believable… yet, the details of the Balla’s Friday night were relayed to me without a hint of hyperbole. I accepted their invitation to tag along to
Before getting on the
Galfond has the demeanor of a computer geek with some mannerisms that indicate a mild OCD. He tells us, with a goofy laugh and a Midwestern accent, of a prank phone call he made this morning to the night manager of the hotel that kicked them out… “Please hold for JMan… pause... Hey, what does this remind you of? Here’s a hint: my butthole… sound of Galfond farting into receiver…”
He also informs me of a mutual disrespect between live pros and guys like them who make most of their money online. “Basically, we know a lot more than them. We play more hands… and understand the statistical nature of the game better. But in live tournaments, we can get impatient because game-play is slower, and a lot of us aren’t used to playing only one table.”
Alan Sass, maybe the most genuinely likeable member of the crew, is modest and soft-spoken. To talk to him you would never guess that he has thousands of dollars in pocket change. He can also boast the best live tournament success of all the crew, having lost a coin-flip type of hand for a WSOP bracelet.
I ask Sass what he did with his $284k second-place winnings. He gave most of it to his mum and his aunt, to help with their mortgage payments — a class act through and through.
Sass is planning to play all the major EPT events. Should he make a final table, Sass plans to fly all his crew out to
InYaFace gets a fairly regal Julius Caesar costume from the costume section. He tops it off with a new pair of sandals. Sass dons a police outfit; he can’t find any badge-sewn shirt, and settles for a new blue coat and pants, adding, for good measure, some new black boots. With that, he takes some toy guns.
J-Man goes with the most interesting costume of all, deciding to be the “Candy Fairy.” Needing a perfect tutu, wings, wand, etc., he throws four or five different full costumes into the cart, planning on taking bits and pieces as needed. On top of that, Galfond buys armloads of candy, which he plans to distribute at the party.
Galfond briefly debates being the “Ham Fairy” instead. Inyaface begins to tease him about how impractical that is. He agrees, and then says, “I better get one ham, just in case…”
Soon their cart begins to fill with stuff. Galfond is buying ludicrous amounts of candy. “You can’t carry that much candy, J-Man…”
“Dude… it’s okay, I used to work out.”
“That’s like saying: ‘I can pay for all this, I used to be rich.’ ” They laugh, and ready another shopping cart.
More of the crew begin to arrive. Jetten starts to assemble an elaborate Dracula outfit. Jetten, as one of the crew’s official spokesmen, is extremely outgoing. He is currently working on getting some sort of reality television show dedicated to the crew, and is eager to tell me about the various snags and pitfalls he’s encountered.
Kevin Boudreau (bonafone), the youngest of the crew, is 19 but looks about 16. Kevin is shy and unassuming, with an air of naiveté. Boudreau attended one semester of college, having left high school rich from online poker money. I begin to talk to him about how much he likes to gamble, as opposed to playing safe. He mentions that he’s investing, so he’ll be rich even if his poker winnings ever dry up… but then laughs a bit, and says, “I lost $12k flipping quarters… so yeah, I definitely like to gamble.”
Jetten and Boudreau begin to get outfitted and things begin to spill into a third cart. Jetten especially feels compelled to top things off with glow sticks and other assorted party favors, just to ensure that the party they’ll be attending will be well stocked.
I’m outfitted with a bathrobe and slippers, to go as Hugh Hefner. Also, chastising me about my lack of a camera, Jetten declares that I’m the official journalist and need one. Sass complies, throwing in for the tally an armload of disposables.
Then, into the store walk Dwan and Benefield — not actually Ship it Holla Ballas, but close friends of the crew. These two 20-year-olds have bought a house together in
While the rest of the Ballas kind of shocked me by being quiet, bookish, and a little geeky, Benefield and Dwan are larger-than-life and somewhat arrogant. When I meet them, they are debating, in complete deadpan, whether it would be easier to kill or to fire their personal assistant, who, for an annual salary of $50k, is not handling their affairs satisfactorily.
In addition to owning a house in
Benefield dons a Harry Potter outfit, and, despite being half a foot too tall, fits it perfectly. Dwan decides to go as Tom Cruise’s character in Risky Business. He throws some full-price business attire into the carts, planning to wear it in a state of undress. Then, to top off his costume, he decides to buy some actual jewelry.
Dwan is clearly not what the Wal-Mart jewelry clerk is used to dealing with. He inquires about the price of some silver necklaces. She informs him that they are $49.95.
“Oh, sick,” says Dwan. “Those are only fifty bucks? I can get a bunch of them…”
The teller looks at him, unsure whether he’s joking.
“You want one of these?”
“Yeah… like, give me… I dunno, five I guess.”
The woman looks at me, the only one of Dwan’s company not looking on this transaction as normal. “Is he being serious?”
I can only shrug… and say “I’m pretty sure he is…”
“You got any big-ass gold ones?” asks Dwan.
Dwan settles for the jewelry separately, spending nearly $500 to complete his outfit. In addition to the jewelry clerk’s scepticism, an older Wal-Mart employee comes out several times to chastise the Ballas, accusing them of just taking all this stuff off the shelves, with no intention of buying it.
But they do… and they make a few small wagers amongst themselves, making over-under bets on the final price. Then they run four shopping carts through the till, full to the brim. The total is $1,605.83, and the tellers look awestruck as cash quickly changes hands over their price estimations.
They play a quick game of “shot not,” the last person calling it being deemed to settle the tab. Kevin Boudreau puts it all on his credit card, with plans for the other Ballas “shipping” him money online to compensate.
As they go to take the carts out to their vehicles, they suddenly realize trunk space will be tight with their suitcases already loaded. Jetten solves the problem by paying a cab driver $270 cash in advance to drive their costumes from
We proceed to
Arriving in
In absentia is a 28-year-old Torontonian, “Unarmed” on twoplustwo.com. Unarmed, who is the oldest of the bunch, quit an equity management job on
In
However, if at any point in the evening someone begins to discuss poker, the atmosphere suddenly changes. Upon the mention of any hand, real or hypothetical, things turn to business. Amidst all the commotion of the frat party, a Balla will consider a proposed situation and offer his sincere opinion of what the correct play is. Although they joke about almost anything else, they take cards very seriously.
Similarly, Andrew Robl confesses to being on a bit of a downswing. His friends talk him through it, trying to steer him clear of the negative psychology of tilting.
The “Ship it Holla Ballas” constantly walk the line between being too-rich and too-young, leading a vacuous lifestyle devoted to foolish spending, and being an inseparable band of comrades, genuine scholars of the science of gambling.
After a surreal morning-after breakfast with Benefield and Dwan, I prepare to take a train back to
“Thers a Hilton.”
“Yeah, Hiltons are pretty nice… how much is that?”
“Why?” asks InYaFace, shocked that Dwan asked.
“I can’t stay in a hotel that’s less than $200 a night.” Instead they find one that costs $250 a night, and make their way to the most expensive hotel in town. I mention to Dwan that it’s strange that he does price comparisons to find the highest price. He explains:
“Yeah… see, the thing about me is this: If you offered me the choice of a $2 bottle of Coke, or a $200 bottle of Coke that came in some sort of fancy blue container or something, I’d be, like… Sick, two hundred dollar bottle of Coke? Ship it.”
Holla.
