A TV Talker Walks the Walk

LAS VEGAS

By day, I talk poker; by night, I play poker. This came as quite a surprise to Toni -- a.k.a. She Is The One (And Then Some) -- who assumed I just impersonated a poker player on TV to allow us to eat at Outback Steakhouse once a month.

At the moment, I am at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, where later this week between 5,000 and 10,000 sundry souls will take a shot at the World Series of Poker Main Event title and maybe $10 million.

But the World Series of Poker is much more than the Main Event. During June, there are more than 50 tournaments in which tens of thousands of players compete for a coveted World Series bracelet.

This is where my uncertain poker skills come into play.

The WSOP Main Event involves one form of poker: no-limit Texas hold 'em. Alas, I have no discernible ability at hold 'em -- if I were playing against nine Franciscan monks, I would be the underdog -- a somewhat unfortunate reality considering I am paid to analyze hold 'em on TV.

(By the way, this makes me the Matt Millen of poker.)

However, I enjoy playing almost every other form of poker, particularly stud and Omaha, and the other day I wanted to enter the World Championship Stud/8 event.

The problem was this: The entry fee was the same as the Main Event, $10,000 -- that's a lot of Bloomin' Onions -- and, well, it's hard to fork over that much cash with little chance of getting it back. You see, in poker tournaments, all the prize money is generated by players' entry fees, and only one in 10 entrants finishes "in the money." In other words, nine of every 10 entrants walk away with squadoosh.

(So I don't want to hear about crane operators or astronauts or heart surgeons or teachers -- this is tough work, or to borrow an old poker expression, a hard way to make an easy living.)

I decided to do what many poker pros do: get backing. I sought out friends and colleagues willing to put up $500 each. Through their loyalty and stupidity -- I mean, these are folks who would buy oceanfront property in southern Afghanistan from Donald Trump -- I raised half the entry fee and put up the other $5,000 myself.