TRANSFORMATION

                                                 

         I always get a kick out of hearing high profile players say it’s not the money that counts at poker, but winning the bracelet.  That sounds a bit strange when, by definition, the game is measured in terms of cold cash.  After all, is poker not a series of monetary challenges as to who holds – or will hold - the winning hand?  Chips are used in lieu of cash as a matter of convenience.  Admittedly, these celebrated players are referring to tournament games where chips cannot be redeemed, but with prize money in the millions of dollars, it strikes me as a curiosity to hear contestants repeat that they are competing for a garland of laurel (the bracelet) rather than for a lifetime of financial security. 

 

            Noble battle, monetary indifference and striving for excellence are of course aristocratic values.  Mighty Achilles sulked in his tent not because Agamemnon was enjoying the pleasures of the prize originally awarded to him, but because by taking the girl Breisis for himself, the commanding general had abnegated the public recognition of his chief warrior.  Great Hector recognized duty to self as a man’s primary responsibility, greater even than devotion to family and country.  Strange, you might think, to compare Mike Matusow or Phil Helmuth with the heroes of ‘The Iliad’, but do contemporary Texas Hold ‘Em players not achieve a degree of magnificence when they, like warriors of old, strive after the Homeric value of arête? 

 

            More than birth or education, financial ease opens the door to aristocratic values.  Balzac said: beyond every great fortune lies a crime.  After some vague ancestor has done the dirty work, I guess newly favored men and ladies are supposed to adopt the manners and morals of the upper classes.  Occasionally, a person with little or no monetary means also rises to the crème de la crème, as if to confirm that, however rare, true aristocracy can be inborn.  If not the case with the majority of our current poker stars, the quiet dignity of Phil Ivy or the polished grace of Doyle Brunson indicates that certain champions would have exhibited a patrician bearing no matter what their field of endeavor.

 

            Doubtless most of us who play poker would rather take home the millions than win a bracelet that says in this particular year at such and such a game, X- was the best in the world.  Of course in some cases, it’s all a matter of ego. While extraordinary men in art, science, politics or the military had inflated egos, as a rule they knew how to go about their business so that their achievements managed to dwarf any misguided sense of self.  Isn’t it significant when understatement prevails over hubris? Let us hope, therefore, on this eve of a new World Poker Championship, that such is the beauty of the game that even loud-mouthed brats with manners fit for a pigsty might undergo a transformation that sees them become veritable princes instead of the street rats they once were.