The Devilfish, A Bad Year Gets Even Worse

If the Hall Of Fame people were trying to get a bit of bad publicity, they couldn’t have done better than failing to induct The Devilfish. Instead, they picked a guy that didn’t even bother to show up. Joe Beevers, Jesse May, Vicky Coren and John Duthie are all considered reasonably sensible individuals. Well, maybe not Jesse. Oh yeah. And Duthie. All of these people took to the social media to express their disappointment at this bizarre state of affairs though they shouldn’t be too surprised. It’s mathematically impossible to read through the list of HOFers without having a good chuckle. There’s only one European on the list and he’s been dead for a few hundred years. I got closest to being the second European to join the fun. I was at the HOF dinner a few years ago and if everybody had drunk a few more glasses of wine, I might have got inducted by accident. That might seem like a longshot but it’s not as long a shot as you might think. Looking at the list its obvious something like that must have happened several times already.

Of course, the Devilfish might have made things a little bit more difficult for himself than they need to be. A few years ago, Full Tilt had got a prime slot on Fox TV for a one table luckament to be shown live on Thanksgiving just before the football. They invited Helmuth and The Fish to play with the rest of the field made up of FT lads. I assume that was because most of the FT guys were quite challenged in the charisma department and they didn’t want too many of the viewers throwing up the old turkey prematurely. The Fish was great. Won a verbal battle with Phil and was dominating the play till he got unlucky. Then he whipped off his jacket and displayed a large devilfishpoker.com sign pinned to the back of his shirt. Right in front of the camera. Live on TV. This was considered bad form as he’d already been compensated for not being allowed to wear a logo. It was however considered quite funny on this side of the pond which only goes to show how childish the Europeans can be. Then he allegedly forgot he was still miced up and remarked rather audibly from the green room that Juanda was a xxxxing luckbox or words to that effect. This was unfortunately another faux pas. Unbeknownst to The Fish use of the f word on US TV is frowned upon especially in the afternoon. At least I assume before the football as I always thought swearing whilst watching a game was compulsory in most states. Or at least encouraged. Personally, I think the entertainment value was great. An individual in a world of clones. An entertainer in a grey world. That should seal the deal. Not disqualify him.