Originally Posted by
Dan Druff
I have actually thought about the Guy Laliberte games. While I am not the NL cash player that some of his opponents were, I likely could have made good money in those games by being careful against the other pros and mainly focusing upon beating Guy. (I'm not talking about collusion, but rather just avoiding confrontations with dangerous players, as two big stacks often do at a tournament.)
However, I would have been terrified by the bankroll implications, as a bad run of cards could have completely wiped out my bankroll, and I would have had a very hard time assuming that risk, even if it were +EV.
I probably would have solicited others (not players in the game, btw) to share the risk with me.
Pretty sweet deal to get $40 million infused into the game by a billionaire, though.
I remember on Interpoker in 2004 and 2005, there were several huge fish in the 150-300 pound limit game, and in the best months, pretty much every pro on there was making 100k/month. Those were the days.
Funny story from those days, btw. I befriended an older woman who played on the site, who lived in the LA area. She was like 55 years old, and had been part of the mid-limit LA poker scene for quite some time. I was talking to her on AIM, and I said how it was too bad there wasn't a way to get an alert when one of those huge fish would sit. She said that she frequently watched the games (she didn't play as high as I did), and offered to call me whenever a fish sat. She wasn't asking for money or anything else in return. She just did it to be nice (or maybe because she had some kind of interest in me).
Sure enough, for about 2 weeks, she was reliably calling me and informing me about fish in the games.
Unfortunately, one of my real-life friends who also played on the site (and was known by everyone to be a close friend of mine) got into an argument with her online. I think she put a bad beat on him, and he made a comment in the chat box. Then she made a nasty comment back to him, and an insult war began. He called her an "old hag" and generally stuck to age-related insults. I was very upset when I heard about this, and indeed, she stopped talking to me after that. Guilt by association. She never talked to me again, and left the site.