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This month’s article is tricky. There’s this little thing in Magazine Land called “lead time,” referring to the multiple weeks from the time you write a column to the time it publishes. And with the 2007 WSOP in full gear but not yet cooked at the time of writing, this forces us to get creative, which is something we’d rather not do.
WCP PLAYER POWER INDEX
Luckily, we’ve got RANDY, our computer that handles the Wicked Chops Poker Player Power Index, to fall back on. We’ve been retooling him recently for some more accurate ratings, and he’s ready to go. As a reminder, RANDY ranks players on the following five criteria: likeability, can we make fun of the person, pop culture relevance, media coverage, and actual tournament performance. The highest possible score is 1,000. Phil Hellmuth (Score: 1100): Huge upset here. Daniel Negreanu has sat atop our index since its inception a year ago. But with Hellmuth’s record breaking 11th WSOP bracelet win this year, a strong finish at the WPT Season 5 World Championship, addictive video blogs on RawVegas.tv, and starring role in Activision’s WSOP video game, Hellmuth’s score this goaround was off the charts. Plus, RANDY had not previously calculated Hellmuth’s ego as part of his previous scores. This was a mistake on RANDY’s part that he takes full responsibility for, as it is scientifically proven that Hellmuth’s ego is so big and so real, it’s actually becoming its own person.
Daniel Negreanu (Score: 901): The king is dead! Long live the king! Negreanu has topped our list from the get-go, but finds himself in second for the first time through no real fault of his own; Hellmuth was just unstoppable in the latest ranking. Paul Wasicka (Score: 833): Wasicka is kind of like the Steve Carell of poker. From his second place finish in the 2006 WSOP Main Event, to his fourth at this year’s WPT LAPC, to his win at NBC’s National Heads-Up Poker Championship and continued WSOP success this year, he just keeps turning in solid performances and you finally realize that “Hey, this guy is a freaking star.” Well, none of this has slipped by RANDY. That’s why RANDY is better than you and gets all the fine ladies. RANDY wrote that last sentence, by the way. Vinnie Vinh’s Chair (Score: 771): Vinnie Vinh’s chair set a record this year by cashing twice in WSOP events (20th in Event #8, 22nd in Event #30). Plus no inanimate object has done so well in a poker tournament since Rhett Butler finished fifth in the 2006 WSOP Main Event. Zing! Shannon Elizabeth’s Body (Score: 721): Reasons why
RANDY ranked Shannon Elizabeth’s body ahead of so many great poker players include: 1) With her appearance on “Thank God You’re Here” and NBC’S National Heads-Up Poker, Shannon Elizabeth’s body has got some serious face body time recently, and 2) RANDY really digs chicks with hot bods. Listen, RANDY doesn’t always think with his mind sometimes. You can’t really blame him.
POKER CLIQUES
Joe Sebok once told us, “The poker circuit is just like high school… except with a lot more money.” That got us thinking about some cliques/clubs/cabals worth introducing this issue. The Davidson Matthew Club Readers of our site know that one of our favorite players is Davidson Matthew, the man with a last name for a first and a first for a last. Since being introduced to Davidson at the WPT Season Five Championship (won by Joe
Bartholdi), we’ve proudly followed Davidson as he’s consistently been one of the circuit’s best players, taking joy in writing entire blog posts on our site, backwards in his honor. We’ve also been on the lookout for other potential members to the Davidson Matthew Club, an exclusive clique of people with last names for first, and first for lasts, or names that you have no idea if you’re looking at a first or a last. Here are the first members into this now fabled club:
· O’Neil Longson
· Kirill Gerasimov
· Anoput Phimmasone
· Beuno Patrick
The Robert Varkonyi Apocalypse Club Last year when Robert Varkonyi made it to Day 2 of the WSOP Main Event (!) as one of the chip leaders (!!), we decided that the end was upon us. We actually bunkered up in our room at the RIO, told our wives we loved them, and took an obscene amount of morphine to kill ourselves so we wouldn’t have to witness the carnage that was about to ensue with the ending of the world. Fortunately for us, after years of massive morphine abuse, our bodies had become immune to the drug, and we all survived to live another day. However, there have been many other morphine-inducing revelations from people in poker recently, forming an exclusive club worth mentioning ... and fearing.
Katja Thater – In Revelations 29:1 in the Bible, it actually says, “If a woman were to win a nonwomen’s- only poker tournament, the end is nigh! Nigh, I say!” So when Thater, who is a woman, won a non-women’sonly event at this year’s WSOP (Event #29, $1,500 Razz), we were breaking out the morphine yet again. But this time, it was more for recreational purposes, since we decided that Razz was the only event in poker we shouldn’t worry about a woman winning, because the object of the game is to make the worst possible hand, a skill women in poker are insanely good at doing.
Jeffrey Pollack The WSOP commish joins the ranks of Dr. Pauly, Iggy, Lance of the self-proclaimed “ThePokerBiz,” the Poker Prof, and others by starting up his very own poker blog. Something just doesn’t sit well with us about this. It’s not quite apocalyptical, but can quickly turn that way if he starts blogging about the last five people he’s pissed next to or perhaps started his own version of our hot girl spotlight, The Friday Night Parting Shot.
Wicked Chops Poker provides exclusive content for BLUFF Magazine. For expanded opinions on the following stories, please read http://www.bluffmagazine.com/wickedchopspoker/And visit http://www.wickedchopspoker.com/ for your online daily dose of all things poker.
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