Tom Bostic

I am a liar. I lie to myself. I lie to others that read my articles, blogs, and live tournament updates. I lie to others when I discus poker. I never meant to be a liar…but I am.

All this time I have been convincing myself that poker is a game of skill, when obviously it is not. Any and all advice on strategy, good plays and poker in general are worthless. Why would I say this? Why would I call out my profession? Why would I slam poker on the very site that pays me? One only needs to take a look at what happened at the Foxwoods Poker Classic to see.

If there was a case study done on poker to determine whether it was a game of skill or luck, and the scientists looked to the Foxwoods’ Poker Challenge for evidence, they would find that you would be better off putting your money on a roulette wheel. Or in a slot machine. Or on the lottery.

Because what I witnessed first hand at the tournament was a disgrace to the game that I have built my life around for the past year and a half. Without a doubt it was some of the worst poker I have ever seen. Even more horrifying, all 415 of these participants somehow managed to either find $10,000 to waste or actually won a satellite. Won a satellite!? These people would have got ran over in my $10 buy-in college home game. How the hell did they win a satellite!?

Here is what I’m talking about, and here’s hoping that some of these donks read this.

- A-Q is NO GOOD after you raise, another person re-raises and someone else goes all-in over the top of everyone. Fold your hand, you moron.
- Stop overbeting the pot. I observed the following hand: Ted Lawson limps in from the cut-off for T1,000. Nam Le calls from the button. The small blind folds and the big blind checks his option. Flop: A-K-Q. Big blind checks, Lawson checks, Nam bets T2,000 and the big blind check raises to T30,000. Lawson and Nam fold….
- $30,000!!!??? Are you serious. There is T7,000 in the pot! Worse yet is this is not the last time I saw him make a ridiculous overbet. Worse still is that this gentleman (I use the term loosely) cashed. Sick.
- The eventual winner Raj Patel has been playing poker for two years. Fine. That doesn’t bother me at all. What bothers me is the 11 times he got aces with 10 players left to go, failing to get paid off once. He almost telapathed to his opponents that he had aces and then showed them – every time. If you are a luckbox that gets aces over and over again this late in the tournament figure out a way to get paid off. And oh yeah, I almost forgot, he checked a full house down to the river with 8 players left too.
- Raj … you’re killing me buddy. At the final table you call a 4th raise for most of your chips with A-8 suited. Well at least you got what you deserved and ran into aces…but wait…what’s that poker gods?...flop him 8-8-7. Oh, ok. Cool. Thanks.

- Frankie Flowers, Paul Matteo, Allen Kessler and Carl Restifo all allowed themselves to get down to under six big blinds towards the end of the tournament? How do you let yourself get that short stacked? Push for once in your life.

- Eventual runner up Paul Matteo played VERY poorly, and seemed confused about some of the rules of poker. You know, the complex stuff like making sure your raise double the big blind or acting when it is your turn. Prepare yourselves, I am going to quote Phil Hellmuth…”The guy can’t even spell poker.” He was horrible. And finished in second place? He made money? Even when Gary Wise told me “At least he’ll be giving half of it to charity”, I replied “Really? Good…but he should give it all to charity considering he doesn’t deserve one cent of it.”

Then again, what do I know? I guess if I was really the expert, I would have been sitting at the final table…

Destroying them.

Gary calls me bitter. I call myself a poker fan. And what I saw at Foxwoods is not the kind of poker I am a fan of. So poker players unite – keep fighting the good fight. Please help me prove that I am not a liar, that I am not wasting my life following the game, and that skill prevails in the end.

Until next time…Thanks for listening. Keep reading. Keep playing smart.