MATUSOW, F WORDS AND NEGREANU, A HARD MAN TO PUT DOWN!

The WSOP wouldn’t be the same without a bit of controversy as lots of people don’t have a real life or the propensity to entertain themselves. In the old days, you could take an educated guess as to where it was going to come from. Like Phil going off on one, or Scotty being drunk as three monkeys at a final table, or Casey Kastle figuring out someone’s stack had miraculously trebled during a break. These days, it can come from just about anywhere. Mike The Mouth made a game effort on behalf of the old school by letting off a string of F words that a few years ago would have had him penalised till after the World Cup in Qatar. It all threatened to get a bit out of hand, but died down mainly due to the fact that nobody really gave a xxxx what he said.

When things did kick off it was all about what somebody didn’t say for a change. Some guy beat Daniel headsup in the ONE DROP charity event to win $15.3 million. Nobody knows how many F words (if any) he was going to use in the press interviews afterwards, because he didn’t say a word to anybody! I didn’t really get it. Mainly because the way I was running I’d have quite happily flown to the moon and done a press conference by satellite if I’d made it as far as a dinner break any day. Or the break after level 4 even. But maybe that’s just me. Apparently he did post somewhere that he didn’t think poker winnings should be celebrated or something like that. Some people were heard to remark that it was a bit late to develop a conscience AFTER winning 15 million, but obviously I wouldn’t subscribe to such a cynical way of thinking.

Opinions were divided. A small minority thought the guy shouldn’t bother doing interviews if he didn’t want to. An equally small number thought he had an obligation to the game and his fellow players to oblige the press like pro sportsmen do, as poker needs publicity and new blood as badly as Hellmuth needs new names to drop. The vast majority of players were either behind or buried at this stage of the tournament, and either didn’t know what was going on or didn’t care what the hell he did or didn’t do.

A few days later, I was hanging around the Rio having the craic with David Plastik, which is always fun. If you like that kind of thing. We must have been stuck for something to talk about and ended talking about the ONE DROP. Now if there was one man on the planet who cared less about what was going on than I did, it was Mr Plastik. Where charity is concerned they’d be more than lucky to get one drop out of Mr P. but I’d have bet the farm he’d have thought the guy was dead right to take the money and say nothing. I’d have won. Just for the laugh I pointed out the obvious. If Negreanu had won it would have been great for the game. There was a lot of press guys around who wouldn’t normally be seen dead at a poker tournament, so it would have been a great opportunity to show the game at its best to a new audience, and Daniel woulda been the perfect guy for that mission. WAY more importantly it was a wonderful opportunity to showcase the fantastic project that the ONE DROP FOUNDATION is all about. I said that if Daniel had won he would still be doing interviews. “What do you mean “would” ?” said David, “He’s still doing them anyway!”