Vote Eskimo

By Pauly
Los Angeles, CA


Have you submitted your 2010 WSOP TOC votes? You should vote Eskimo Clark into this year's TOC. And if you already voted, then find a way to vote again, but vote for Eskimo this time.

Vote Eskimo. Vote often.

A vote for Eskimo Clark is a vote for hope...hope that some day the TOC becomes a true test of poker acumen and a celebration four decades of champions instead of pompous popularity contest. Meanwhile a covert cold war rages between the top online poker rooms wages behind the scenes with the TOC tables the front lines of the next battle.

The WSOP Main Event used to be a lottery ticket for a shot at fulfilling the American Dream. A dollar. A dream. Well, actually $10,000 and one lofty dream. But the alluring dream became too popular. The WSOP became over run by dream chasers. The entire industry benefited from the cancerous growth and popularity of the Main Event, but the spirit of the event has become lost. Benny Binion originally hosted biggest pissing contest among the best pros in the world. At the time, the pioneers of competitive gambling could barely fill three tables. Who in their right mind would cough up $10,000 in the early 1970s to play against shady Texans and aging mobsters?

Postmodern Las Vegas. Disney World for Adults. The Main Event is fantasy camp, sort of like venturing out on an African safari where the animals walk right up to your jeep. Every year, they keep coming. UIEGA. Doesn't matter. Economy in the sitter? Who cares. Swine Flu? Who gives a fuck, give me an aspirin, and shuffle up and deal.

I got paid good money selling the Moneymaker Dream the last five years, even though it does a really good job selling itself but I can't tell the people who pay me that -- otherwise I'd have to figure out some other way to pay for my herbal supplements.

From an entertainment perspective, the lack of star power at the Main Event final tables affects ratings. You can't fix a televised major tournament like professional wrestling where the good guy meets the villain at the final table. The sheer numbers of entrants, the integrity of the WSOP and ESPN, compounded with the fickle nature of luck produces a lackluster final table with one random pro and eight unknown players. That has been a standard formula the last few years.

One of the driving forces behind the November Nine was that the final table delay allowed the industry to fabricate the next batch of stars, since odds were against them of getting three or more household names at the final table. I can only imagine in a boardroom somewhere, one of the ring leaders of the military-industrial-entertainment-poker complex (MIEPC) is looking at the November Nine chip count while screaming, "If we don't have any stars at the final table, then god dammit, we'll make new stars!"

And that's where I come in, along with the rest of the media who get compensated generously to hype up the November Nine and brainwash you into thinking that those nine players are the coolest thing to hit poker since rakeback. By the time the public catches up with the Main Event episodes on ESPN, the MIEPC hopes that the masses actually give a shit about the story lines and become enamored with the new stars that we made from scratch, like fresh blueberry muffins right out of the oven. It worked. Ask Dennis Phillips.

Vote for Eskimo. Why not? The entire TOC is a friggin' joke anyway, besides he deserves an opportunity to redeem himself. We all make mistakes in life, even Eskimo. Shouldn't he get a second chance? Yes.

A vote for Eskimo is as anti-establishment as you can get. I showed you how the system is rigged. The hippies in 1968 were bold enough to stand up for their beliefs and change the rigged system even though it meant that they'd get their heads bashed in by fascist cops.

So here's your chance to buck the system -- without getting drenched by a water cannon and your nuts stomped on by a stormtrooper. All you have to do is vote for Eskimo.

In fact, vote for Eskimo and a bunch of 20-something year old. As the saying goes (all of you Baby Boomers and hippies know it), "Never trust anyone over 30." Yep, I'm voting for Eskimo, Annette_15, OMGClayAiken, and all of the online kids. It's time to put some of these unknown faces in front of millions. After all, they are already underground stars among the online poker community. Middle America (and parts of Canadia) hasn't seen them yet, shit, at all.

You have power. Use it wisely. A vote for Eskimo is a vote for a better tomorrow.

The future is in your hands.