When the MONEY is a MYTH

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/10/2010 (5510 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Not everything is as it seems. For example, are all the players you recognize from TV rich? The answer just might surprise you.

Every time you watch poker on TV, it seems as if it is the same group of players playing. Why is that? Are they the only ones who can afford to be playing or are they the most fortunate ones? Let’s just say several of them would be flat broke if it wasn’t for their sponsorship deals.

Whenever I watch a cash game on TV, I wonder if they are even playing their own money. I mean, they are basically going against everything poker players look for, a soft game. Sure it’s good for them to be on TV as far as their sponsors are concerned, but I’m sure most of them aren’t putting up a single dollar from their own pocket to be there.

So what makes them different from the rest of the poker community? Well, the fact they have worked hard in order to get themselves sponsored, but does it mean they are the best players? I don’t think so. The way I look at it is, they did a great job of marketing themselves and in many cases they are great players, but on the flip side, I feel there are some very weak players that have sponsorship deals.

The reason I am bringing this up is I have seen and heard so many stories about players who are all over the TV set looking like they’re millionaires when in reality they have less money than you and I.

A couple of weeks back, someone who is very famous in the poker community and a person I met about five years ago asked me to lend him money. I was shocked! It was only a few weeks ago I was watching this player on Poker After Dark and now I am getting a text asking me if I could lend him money. Well, I didn’t lend him the money and I didn’t even respond to the text. I have helped out many friends in this industry in the past but I just wasn’t comfortable lending money to someone I barely know, especially after watching him on TV over the past several years playing in the biggest games in the world.

The other day, I was reading an issue of Cardplayer magazine. The player on the cover is widely thought to be a very successful cash-game player. But is he really? There is no way for me to find out his live results, but the way he was talking about online poker led readers to believe he was a huge online winner. Well, after looking up his online cash-game results, I saw he was just shy of being a million-dollar loser. In fact, there wasn’t a single time where he was up money. If I hadn’t looked up his stats I would never have known that. The media, however, would have led me to believe this person crushes the games online.

The tricky thing about being a poker player is knowing the value of a dollar. When you play this game long enough, it is very easy to lose perspective on money and remember how important it is in our everyday lives. Many players are able to keep things in perspective and are never at risk of going broke. For others, the image they portray on TV is far from the reality of their current financial situation. Therefore, I can assure you things are often not as they seem.