It was in the latter stages of the Warsaw EPT when I discovered Johnny Lodden, renowned Scandie, had made a 'last longer bet' with one of his fellow players. Surely, you would say, there is nothing inherently unusual about that within itself? Well, quite, but here the wager was not about money, no instead, the loser of this bet would suffer a non-monetary kind of humiliation. The terms of this bet were that the man knocked out first would be forced... to work in a grocers for a day back home, and the outcome after a couple of tournament days? Suffice to say, you can expect to see photos of Mr Lodden in an apron of the Norwegian equivalent of Tescos sometime soon.
This got me into looking up other proposition bets, which from reading, tend to go from the slightly bizarre to the craftily ludicrous, from Ted Forrest's ability to drink ten beers in half an hour to Huck Seed's athletic prowess that has been bet upon many times over.
But where to begin? You would have to go back to the old school hustlers of the early years when Johnny Moss was given 15/1 odds by another gambler to beat up a huge guy in a bar (who had no idea of the bet), with the condition that Moss could get the first shot in. Two weeks in hospital later with numerous broken bones, Moss said, “Fifteen to one was too good to pass up.”
More recently, Huck Seed seems to be the man involved in all the most interesting prop bets, the 1996 WSOP champion has managed to win a bet that required him to shoot four rounds of under 100 on a golf course in one hot summer day using just the five iron, sand wedge and putter. He learnt to do a standing backflip to take $10,000 off Howard Lederer, whilst losing bets first, not to shave for a year (a family funeral meant he had to). Then when Phil Helmuth bet he couldn't stand in the ocean with water up to his shoulders for eighteen hours, Huck could only manage three, costing him $50,000.
So why are these sort of bets common between players? The most obvious explanation is that the poker lifestyle isn't really gambling to them, it's more of a job, and these bets are just their version of our bets on horses and football, albeit a little more colourful perhaps.
The latest rivalry in the prop betting stakes is the Gavin Smith vs Joe Sebok one. Last year at the World Series, the two agreed on a points system for all the Hold'Em side events, and the one with the fewest points would be forced to wear superhero costumes for time spent in the Main Event. Eventually, Joe Sebok would turn up in a Robin costume from Batman & Robin.
This competition has continued between the two, to the point of a last longer at the LA Poker Classic, where the first one out was forced to get a tattoo of the other's initials on their, ahem, posterior. Personally I think I'd rather lose the superhero one than this one. Either way, Gavin Smith now has J.S tattooed somewhere he won't forget...
I was forced to write this article after losing a prop bet to Jen Mason about counting tractors on the train trip from Krakow to Warsaw. Hawk-eyed Jen counted 37, whilst I could only muster just 4, my count knocked down from 17 due to the rest actually just being cows.
Care To Make A Little Wager
by NoflopsHomer
Submitted by: snoopy on Mon, 06/08/2007 - 1:03am
Submitted by: snoopy on Mon, 06/08/2007 - 1:03am