Things certainly have changed. Poker is no longer the province of gunfighters and rogues. What fun is it thinking about Doc Holliday and Wild Bill Hickock, when their favorite pastime has been taken over by the MIT Blackjack Team? Sigh.
Today’s $5000 No Limit Hold’em winner, 21 year old James Mackey is about to walk into a bank with a check for $730,740. The bank teller will then call the bank manager. The manager will call the bank President. The President will call the FBI. Fingerprints will be checked. Why? Because through no fault of his own Mackey will be getting carded at bars for at least the next ten years. There’s just no getting around this. The diminutive Mackey looks just like Ron Howard, but not the Richie Cunningham, Ron Howard. The Opie Taylor, Ron Howard, and the young one at that, the episodes before his voice broke.
He obviously has game. He took down the likes of main event table final table-ists Michael Binger and Tex Barch like he had someplace else to be. The whole final table lasted 48 hands.
After the win, Aunt Bee and Barney Fife took Mackey to Circus Circus, where they ordered up some prostitutes and blow and celebrated taking down the biggest first prize of the Series so far.
I’m sorry. It’s clearly envy on my part. I just can’t see Mackey performing well in the Old West. What would James Mackey do when Johnny Ringo stood up and accused him of cheating? What would James Mackey do when he was playing with Doyle and Sailor Roberts and they had guns pulled to their heads? (Well, probably the same thing as Doyle and Sailor actually, fork over his dough.) He’d probably actually be in better shape, since the thieves would probably mistake him for the drink boy. “Dance, Spider, Dance … Big deal, so he got shot in the foot … Take him to Ben Casey. Let him crawl like he crawls for the drinks.”
Hey, James, great win baby, wanna back me?
1 $ 730,740 James Mackey
2 $ 448,892 Stuart Fox
3 $ 295,245 Michael Binger
4 $ 194,319 William McMahon
5 $ 140,091 Karga Holt
6 $ 108,457 Nick Schulman
7 $ 81,343 Jan Sorensen
8 $ 60,254 Tex Barch
9 $ 43,684 Michael Gracz
