I hate Phil Gordon

I've always found him arrogant, self-righteous, whiny and someone who has parlayed an appearance on Celebrity Poker into a media "empire" where he promptly derides poker players who gain celebrity through artificial means. Huh. Really, Phil? I listen to his ESPN podcast just to hate him and I listened to the WSOP podcasts on expertinsight just to revel in his defeats.

All that said, I now have a new reason to hate Phil Gordon. He was the "host" of FTOPS 1 last night, the $500K guaranteed NL HE event. As I indicated yesterday, while I busted out of the 50+5 tournament on Tuesday night, I was parlaying my money saved by cheaply satelliting into the HORSE event to play the turbo sat last night. And so I did. Phil Gordon, kiss my ass.

With blinds at 60/120, I'm still right about the starting stack. I get dealt 8-8 on the button. Not exactly a monster, but with UTG flat-calling and everyone else folding to me, I figured it was time to make a stand with the blinds creeping up. I raised it up to 540. SB and BB folded and the UTG called for time. I thought maybe a ragged, suited ace or smaller pair than mine and I felt in good shape. I was relatively happy when he turned over 8s9s. Of course you can see the results. Good times.


That crippled me, but didn't knock me out. But 4-4 ran up against AK and a flop of x-K-K ended that tournament.

SOOOOO...I just quit, right? I mean, I barely had any money left in my account and there were many more FTOPS events, right? Nope I joined a $69 last chance tournament. Ran AK into AA after a J-x-J-K board. Blow me, Phil Gordon.

So of course, NOW I'm done, right? I mean, I only have $21 in my account. Yeah right. After multi-tabling .05/.10 games, I made enough in two minutes to join the last, last chance tourney. Single table, winner gets a seat. I can do it, right? First hand:


Now, I have never been one of those people that says online poker is rigged. I think it's a result of two things: people playing a lot more hands online and a lot more hands going to the river because people are too dumb to fold. That said, I'm pretty sure Full Tilt rigged this so that everyone dumb enough to play this, got exactly what they deserved.

So my account sits at .60. Again. Luckily, I knew me affinity for doing this. So the money I won the night before and that day playing higher limit PL HE, I used to buy into two other satellites (PL HE and Main Event) and I already won my seat to HORSE. So I'll still have a shot. But Phil Gordon, your smiling mug staring back at me on the FT software was too much and I just had to enter that tournament to get a piece of "your" money. You, sir, are a douchebag.

Some might call this a gambling problem. But I truly think it is more of an ego problem. I don't do this with slots or blackjack or anything else. I play with the money I have at those games and quit, whether ahead of behind, because I feel like it's all luck (yes, blackjack and video poker players, I know that you can close to negate the house edge over the long-run, but short-term results are luck...so bite me). But poker, I feel like if I only get a chance in these larger tournaments, I am going to cash and be successful. So see, Madame Therapist, it's an ego problem, NOT a gambling problem.

Ooops, time to wrap this up. there might be a .50 cent satellite starting soon. Only 10 straight wins and I get a seat in some tourney. I think first prize is a Phil Gordon voodoo doll.