WSOP millionaire maker day 1B

7/6/2015

All aboard the fun express for today's WSOP event, the Millionaire Maker $1500 day 1B. A few familiar faces on my opening table in the form of Barry Shulman & Mark Napolitano. Early days so we'll see how things unfold.

I just made it 125 out of the small blind. The Asian in the big blind goes all in for 7500. OK, you win my friend.

Level 2 arrives and little to say, apart from the all-in Asian on my left just did it again on the river and got called. This time however he'd made a straight vs a set and doubles to about 15k.

About 3400 players yesterday so I'm told, numbers for today are not going to be on screen for a while yet, but looks like we'll over 7000 players over the two days.

Little drama approaching the end of level 2. I'm down to 6k just from seeing and missing flops. Asian nut job doubled up Barry who had a set vs Asian's 2 pair.

A little friction just erupted on the table between two players and it got a bit personal, with the Asian calling Barry an "ugly crappy amateur"... 3 insults in one sentence! Barry certainly isn't a professional, but with two WSOP bracelets and more money than 90% of the room it was a bit childish of the Asian to go on a rant after losing a pot. I wasn't involved in the mix so it was mildly entertaining but also a disturbing reminder of how unpleasant some people can suddenly become when the game doesn't go their way.. About to go on break...still on 6k.

Midway into level 3 and I'm still not seeing much in the way of hands. We're only on 75/150 so being card dead isn't ideal but for now I'm just conserving chips as best I can.

Slightly disheartening stuff right now. Missing most flops or getting raised out by the mad Chinaman on my left with a big stack. Down to a frustrating 4k.

You know you're under it when it's your big blind every time they put the levels up. Just gone to 100/200 and feeling the pinch. I'm feeling like I'm still ok but if I need to gamble then I'm pretty sure the Asian on my left is going to give me a spin very light.

The short stack just jammed his last 700 on my 200 big blind. I had 23 off, so couldn't even gamble with him. Haven't been this card dead in a tournament since I arrived here.

Not sure exactly how, but I'm still alive at the next break with just 2000 chips. 20 mins rest and then we come back and the antes kick in. Time to get busy :o0

Back from break now and a new player with about 30k has been moved to my left. This makes things even more difficult so if I end up coming first in this event it'd be even more of an achievement. I don't think they're sizing up the bracelet for me just yet.

Midway through level 5 and my grinding has finally paid off, although I had to sweat to get there.

The Asian maniac is now no more. He jammed a draw in a big pot against one guys top 2 and didn't improve, then against me blind on blind it was folded round, and I shoved 1700 with Kd6d. He dwelt then quickly called, showing....

10d3d. A good spot for me if there aren't any horror stories. As luck would have it, I make a full house. With no chips but I'm certainly not going to bitch about it. I win another small pot afterwards and am back to the dizzy heights of 5,500. Out table is due to break very shortly.

Table broke and I'm now over in the Amazon room. Had to fold a middle pair immediately to a hefty raise, then I flopped a set of 7's on a nasty 45679 board. He had 9 10 so I'm back in the hunt and on 8k as we approach halfway into level 6 at 150/300/25.

Lost a couple of hands I couldn't avoid. 5k coming up on the 3rd break.

Sigh. Just bust on level 7.

Went down to 4,300 at 200/400/50, one limper, I raise with AcQc to 975. The guy on my left moves in and the limper folds. I hate calling for a flip mostly in poker but with everyone else on the table on around 15k+ I feel like I need to take a flip now since I've put about 1k of 4300 in. I call and he turns over JJ. Here we go...

Board runs out no help.

I felt a bit like I was on the back foot today as I only got over start stack once and that's not the kind of poker I like to play, but I was pretty dead from the word go and I had to adapt to that and just sit snug. I could have got more aggressive earlier with a short stack but I feel that likely often results in busting out earlier rather than getting a massive stack. I'll write a bit more later but for now I'm getting out of the Rio and to the car.

5 Comments

Colleen Powell

9/6/2015 07:47:58 am

Mentioning 'Asians' so often is racist and makes you look like a dick.

Kevin O'Leary

9/6/2015 08:25:01 am

Hi Coleen,

Many thanks for your balanced and well-measured appraisal of my post. A thorough review shows that I did in fact use the word "Asian" 6 times in the course of my post, and even worse, I used "Chinaman" once. If anything I'd have expected the latter reference to have prompted far greater indignation. At least I had the prescence of mind not to say "Oriental" which I'm fairly sure is the appropriate most insulting nomenclature.
I will say in my defence that each reference was directed at the same person at the table purely as an identifier, and not simply scattered around the room like confetti at anyone who appeared to be anything less than Caucasian, which is kind of how you make it sound. When one is doing updates in running unfortunately it's sometimes necessary to assign some kind of a marker to players in order to identify them for writing purposes. For example, in the case of the aforementioned player I used "Asian". In the case of me, you've decided to use "Dick", and in the case of you, I'd probably go for something like "overly judgemental complainer with a stick up their ass and poor understanding of style and prose when someone is clearly trying to be descriptive".

In future I'll try to use more varied and PC words. I'll ask some of my numerous Asian friends for advice on the matter. Now I just need to work out an ice breaker that won't upset them.

In the words of the great Frankie Boyle:
"I don't have it in me to be a racist. I haven't finished hating all the fucking white people yet".

Best regards,

Kevin

Mark segal

9/6/2015 10:00:09 am

Hi Colleen
In defence of Kevin, I've known Kevin 10 years and racist is the last thing he is. He has a lot of Asian friends and I doubt any of them would have taken his post in the way you did.
Just my 5 cents
Mark

Dr Famke Van De Saar

12/6/2015 09:27:36 pm

Hello Kevin, if I may call you Kevin, I feel I know a lot about you from your website, which covers a lot more than poker?
Forgive my English, which may slip a bit, I am from the Netherlands, and my name is Famke.
A friend of mine showed me your website, he plays poker and liked your site. He asked me to look at the debate you have had with a a person who posted a comment about your use of racially classificatory language .
I am a university teacher specialising in race and hate crime, but he really wanted to know my opinion. Do you mind if I share it with you? You seem like an 'open' guy, and it's a shame the person who posted their criticism called you a 'dick'. When you start classifying people as 'dicks', you have kind of lost the argument already? Am I right?
I want to say, that I posed this question (is it 'racist' to mention a person's race by way of 'description ' ?) At the summer school I teach at my university. This has a large mix of European and American students broadly, and also some Indian and UK students (I mention them by nationality here!).
There were a range of opinions, the overall consensus could be distilled into a number of points.
My American students were worried about how common in it to 'over lexicalise' certain ethnic groups. To mention 'Asian ' or black people, when one does not categorise descriptively white people (Asian and the use of young/old/pretty/ annoying etc are hardly equal? Humourless for example is not as 'weighted' as a racial classification), they felt to mention race in this way could be defined (in law/ethics/ intelligent debate) as racist.

Students agreed that there is some difference if the intent was not offensive or to imply a pejorative connotation but essentially they (these 'kids' are 18-20) said they would be 'embarrassed for the person speaking', or would assume the person was 'over 60' or 'uneducated' or 'from an ethnically homogenous area and lacking sophistication '... I know, they are a tough crowd!

My UK students highlighted hate laws around categorising language online, and even highlighted the NUJ (national union of journalists ) regulations of 2014, whereby journalists are not to mention a person's non white status unless they would describe a person's non black/mixed race in the same way.
What I found interesting, is the idea that having black friends can 'disprove' that one is racist! Edward Said ' s work on Orientalism is very good here. When one looks at the past social and historical function of defining people by race (or mentioning race, when talking of or describing someone ), arguably this process serves as a means of preserving the power and privilege of the dominant group (the 'mainstream' of white society), over those that are defined or described in relation to their ethnic otherness. The 'naturalness' of definition suggests a sense of entitlement?
Of course, you don't 'scatter' comments about race around the room but why is this? Is it because you feel you can speak differently among friends, either because they share the need to classify (and will call to mind very specific meanings from the 'signifier ' of Asian), or because they 'know' that you are not a racist? I am interested. I hope you find this interesting too! can speak differently among friends, either because they share the need to classify (and will call to mind very specific meanings from the 'signifier ' of Asian), or because they 'know' that you are not a racist? I am interested. I hope you find this interesting too!

15/6/2015 12:37:20 am

Dear Famke,

Thank you very much, for both taking the time to read some of my stuff, and also for formulating a considered and balanced opinion on the matter. It's funny that in the case of the original poster's comment, albeit directly insulting towards me, which could easily have just been someone trolling the internet with a throwaway line, I could simply have deleted it sight unseen, and no-one would ever have even known about it. My website, my rules and all that. Because I knew the racist accusation to be wholly untrue, I chose not to delete it but to answer it instead. This may have resulted in me giving something far more online exposure than it actually warranted, however it also gave me an opportunity to think about some stuff, so if for no other reason I think it was no bad thing to address it. As you say, someone starting off by name calling doesn't really put them in a great light to begin with, but I'm thick skinned and can more than handle myself so it was all good :o)

I'd agree that someone using their black/Asian/etc friends as a reason to deflect any racist judgements about them is indeed bunk, and probably just a gut reaction to criticism. I'm sure that serial killers probably had plenty of friends who were still alive, it didn't suddenly make them not a serial killer, so yes, using that argument would be fairly meaningless. I did have a lot of people speak up for me from various cultures with no prompting from me (also on Facebook because I wanted to know people's thoughts) because to them the idea of someone who didn't know me calling me racist based on my writing style was both offensive and laughable. It's nice when people have your back, and of course the Internet is full of people waiting to complain or argue about almost anything.

For around 25 years, my mother worked in a London school for perceptually handicapped children. A place with a very ethnically diverse mix of staff and pupils as you would expect. Sadly, the PC brigade in the UK education system became a parody of itself over time, to the point where you weren't allowed to ask for "a black coffee" (you had to say "coffee without milk"), or you couldn't say "black-board" (you had to say "chalk-board") or somebody in the school would be up in arms and report you for being a bigot. I kid you not about this, you really couldn't make it up. It got so that everybody had to watch what they said all day every day because people were just waiting to get offended by something. Of course, actual racist slurs are unforgivable and should always be frowned upon and discouraged in all walks of life, but at the same time I'd never expect someone to reign in their personal speech or writing style if it wasn't actually racist, simply because they were worried someone somewhere would get upset. Someone will always get upset.
I'd never directly try to either offend or anger a person, group, or creed by any of the things I say, however the way of the world dictates that sometimes it inevetably is going to happen, even unintentionally. Whether you understand poker or not (I'm unsure), my writing style (or lack of) would be severely hampered if suddenly I had to think before saying "the old guy in seat 2", or "the Australian on the button", or "the blonde girl at the bar", or "the Asian guy who raises everything". My writing attempts a bit of humour because I can't always post poker strategy content when writing as its in real time, and sometimes my opponents read what I write and could use my own thoughts in play against me. The compromise is I try to make things entertaining for the reader. If it were suddenly "seat 2", or"the person on the button", or "the person at the bar", or "the player who raises everything", the text would be far more dull. I'm sure you get the idea. People could scream racist/sexist/ageist or any other "ist" they care to invent if you read things I, or almost anyone else writes. If the vast majority of people understand that one is being descriptive for writing purposes, and not trying to spread racial hatred then that's good enough for me. Like I say, someone will always wake up and think "what can I be offended about today?".
Thanks for taking the time to get in touch. I don't visit Amsterdam enough!

Kevin

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