It's All About the Money

Meandering post today.

There's been some discussion during the last week about the all-time tournament money list in poker. Several commentators feel that closed events like the WSOP Tournament of Champions and events like the $250,000 Super High Rollers at the Aussie Millions -- tournaments that are only open to the richest of the rich -- distort the list.

I was surprised that people care about such trifles until I remembered that poker players care about anything where ego is involved. I guess it's easy for me to be dismissive of how the list is tabulated; I'll never be on it. But I'm also someone long on record as preferring to be rich and anonymous rather than rich and famous (if given a choice). In that sense my ego is minimal.

To me poker is an intellectual exercise, the goal of which is to win money. Period. I'm not too concerned if I've won $9 million and then someone who won $7.5 million wins a $250,000 two-table sit-and-go for $2.2 million and leap-frogs me on the list. I say, "Good for that person. Congratulations on your score." And then I go to sleep "on top of my large pile of money, surrounded by many beautiful women."

Maybe there's an innate need to rank players against one another, to say that this player is better than that one. I suppose I understand that desire but in a game where luck plays a substantial role, ranking players is a Herculean task. Poker isn't tennis, where an elite player at the top of his/her game can go out week after week and compete for the top finishes and the top prizes. Some days Phil Ivey is going to be eliminated in Level 3.

That's got to be the rub. The all-time money list is supposed to represent "the long run" for a player. We're all told that "over the long run" a player's skill edge should become apparent and that "over the long run" the best players should win the most money. The long run will correct for this eliminated-in-Level-3 days, and the total amount of money won is the best way to "keep score".

I guess. But if I've got $9 million in career earnings, I'm pretty sure I don't care where I fall on an arbitrary list.