In any competitive field there will inevitably be striations of talent. Poker is the same as any other sport. There is the cream of the crop that includes names like Sam Farha, Hoyt Corkins and Freddy Deeb, not to mention the mega-stars like Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson. Those are the A-listers.
With an A list, there is going to be a B list and even a C list all ranked in descending order in both talent and fame. Frankly, the pros that I was playing with were at best B-listers and more likely C-listers. That day there was also a $5000 Pot Limit Omaha tournament going on that had the cream of the crop in it. It not only benefited me as a player, since I didn’t have to play them, it also benefited me as a fan boy since on the breaks and such I would end up running into them as they did their thing. I had a nice little chat with Freddy Deeb about how cold they kept the poker room and which sweatshirt in the WSOP store was the best.
So most of my interactions with pros was with B and C-listers. I already mentioned knocking Fred Goldberg out, who owns a bracelet, so I don’t want to insult his standing in the poker community. I know that having a bracelet doesn’t automatically make you the best. I don’t think much of the skills of Jamie Gold or Jerry Yang, and they both hold Main Event bracelets. I will leave it up to others to decide what list Mr. Goldberg is on.
Other pros (and well onto the B-list) that I played include Greg Mueller, Bernard Lee (who knocked me out) and a plethora of C-listers like Raymond Davis.
The thing about these lower level pros is that they are the cockiest bunch of goofballs you will ever meet. they talk smack constantly, drop the names of the A-listers constantly in order to sound as if they are peers and generally try to intimidate everybody at the table. The thing about them is that I don’t think in general they are that great. I think they have more opportunities to play, which gives them a results edge, but for the most part they weren’t knocking me out with their spectacular play. So the edge that they try to get over talented amateurs is just trying to verbally bully them. Let me give you an example.
I sit down at a table after being moved and casually remark at how quiet it was there. I’ve been sitting for less than a minute. This cat two seats to my right starts remarking about how we’ve got a live one at the table (referring to me and in poker parlance it isn’t a compliment). Take a look at him. His name is Raymond Davis. He goes on for a minute or two in assessing my skills without ever having seen me play a hand, so I can only figure that he wants to tilt me and establish a pecking order in one shot. I let him have his say and when he finishes I look him in the eye and say (paraphrasing) “Nice outfit, are you supposed to be the last King of Scotland? Or are you just a really old Eagle Scout?” To go along with that weird shirt he was wearing jeans that had red sequins running along the stitching around the pockets and down the leg. I told him, “By the way, Elton John says nice pants”. After that the talk was much more cordial. Uneventful even. They (he and Greg Mueller) went on to start ragging on other C-list pros like Fun Bobby, who was busy getting punked out (scroll down to We’ll Buy the Kid Dinner) at the table behind me.
Thing is, I can play against guys like that all day. That kind of needling doesn’t bother me (I’m Dale Slusher’s son of God’s sake) and doesn’t distract me from my game. I look forward to playing them again.