Secrets of the Amateurs

I'm quite enjoying this series of The Poker Show, but if Jesse makes one more comment about how it's a "disgrace" that there are no UK players in the Caesars Cup team then I'll have to phone up and give him some GBH to the earhole.

Let me clarify to start with that I don't give a monkeys about the Caesars Cup, it's yet another gimmick dreamt up so that Daniel Negreanu & Co can grab some more TV time without having to do anything inconvenient like be better at poker than other people to do it. But Jesse is putting me on super life tilt with this. The European team, with Annette as captain, is as follows : Elky, Dario, Peter Eastgate, Patrik Antonious and Zigmund. If anyone thinks it's a "disgrace" that there are no UK players in it, then it couldn't be simpler. Tell me who should be out and which UK player should be in instead. There are a few you could make a case for being close, but if you're totally objective then you can still make a better case for those already in and a few more (mostly Scandis) besides. There's definitely no one who's such a glaring omission that it's a "disgrace".

At times Jesse appears to imply that there should be a UK player because it's being held here - but then he talks about the selection being "political", and what would be more political than sticking someone in who's not good enough just because they're from a particular country ? A lot of our "great players" have made their reputation on the live UK circuit, or on TV tournaments, which means fuck all because the standard in both of those is dog poop. Tell me which UK player inspires fear when he sits down at the table. That's right, no one.

Update : The more I think about this, the more I can take another angle, which is that it's super disrespectful to Annette and the players on the team. Team poker is super ghey but, having said that, I can't remember a stronger team ever being assembled. It's also the least "political". We all know that people have "played for England" on the grounds of bunging the captain a few quid and giving him a lift to the game. If you pick any UK tournament player, Elky is better. Any cash player, Zigmund is better. Any heads up player, Dario is better. Any champion of this or that, Eastgate is the current World Champ. And any all round player, Antonious is better. And when I say better I mean by a street. This is a super strong team and so, given the super retarded format of what they're playing, they're at least 20-21 favourites.

Further Update : I like saying "super", deal with it ; and maybe there is one better heads up player than Dario.

Poker Show : I've just been on The Poker Show talking about this and straight afterwards Eddie Hearn pointed out that if I thought it was a gimmick event, then why be so outspoken about having the best players in it, which is 100% fair, and it's why I was a bit reticent about even making the post. But there you go. It was just a rant, and after making it, it seemed only fair to let them interview me about it when they asked.