More on poker, and race. First off, Amir, from my previous post, finished well into the money in the Main Event of the World Series of Poker, coming in 226th out of 6,494 for $32,963. Not bad for a week's work.
In the past few years, the Main Event of the WSOP has become controversial among professional players many of whom feel that since the shocking victory of an unarguably everyday Joe named, of all things, Chris Moneymaker, in 2003, spurred on an international poker craze, it's become a travesty, with so many inexperienced players putting down $10k like they're buying a lottery ticket that the contest is more a measure of dumb luck than of who is anywhere near the best player in the world.
Of the 6,500 players who entered, I'd say that the pros are outnumbered 10-1 or better. While, it must be stated, this gives the pros more "dead money" to take away from the suckers ("fish" or "donkeys" the hotshots call them), poker remains a game in which luck plays a huge role. Thus, in the end, for the cream of the crop, it's kind of like Mike Tyson trying to fight ten guys at once. He might get in a few good shots at a couple of them, but in the end he'd surely be overcome, run into one or more debilitating "bad beat"s. In the past six or so years, the final tables of the World Series have been filled with a mix of rank amateurs, hobbyists, and middling pros, but hardly any of the game's elite. There are just too few of them with too many chances to lose a big hand to an ignorant tyro on a hot streak over the course of the week.
But this year we're down to the final nine (who will duke it out in November), and, to the celebration of pros tweeting and blogging and writing and talking far and wide, Phil Ivey, one of the players who's absolutely always among the top 5, usually top 3, in any conversation about who the best player in the world is, is going to be there. Ivey is a phenomenal player who's had a great run at this years series (winning two coveted bracelets in the preliminary events.)
Ivey, (the only guy you might not recognize in the image above) because of his race, his skill, his aggression, and his general build and looks (beyond just race), is often called the Tiger Woods of poker. I've found myself objecting to this comparison because it obviously stereotypes both men. But last night, as I too celebrated Ivey's making the final table, I found myself thinking not just of Tiger and Ivey, but also of the President, as a trio, and happily imagining, a poster of the three of them.
While of course the three men are radically different from each other in innumerable ways, they share interesting, inspiring similarities, the most distinctive of which is that they have all risen to the very pinnacle of their professions, professions which have traditionally, steadfastly, kept people of color out of their highest echelons. In a country that more and more doesn't support it's poor and people of color with schools and other services nearly comparable to those that suburban whites take for granted, what better way to encourage young people to reach for that more and more elusive American Dream than to point out these three men as a group, as paragons of success (and yes, that ugly old phrase "credit to your race" comes to mind, but so be it). As different as they are, these three share more than success and one hot-button biological trait; they all have a drive, focus, a leanness, if you will, both physically and in terms of personality. While the president is certainly much more of a people person, a charmer, than Tiger and Phil, they all have a no nonsense matter-of-factness that strikes me (perhaps in part because it's so unlike me). And the two "athletes" (although arguably Barack is more of an athlete than Ivey) are gritty and taciturn in the gritty American cowboy vein. Steve McQueen comes to mind too.
It's also interesting to note that at least two of these guys (I don't know about Ivey's racial hertiage) are more and more what America is starting to look like, a mixed-race nation, a true melting pot. As I've written before, I often find it hard to love much of what the US has become, but I do love the idea, no, the FACT that we will soon live in an arguably post-racial (though of course not post-racist) country. And the vindictive little shit in me loves to think of the fear and revulsion this strikes in the hearts of certain folks (hello Senator Sessions!).
Thus I give you three (male, for now) versions of the realization of the American dream, icons of a new America, Barack Obama, Tiger Woods, and Phil Ivey.
