Sir Al's Q & A

From Sir AlCantHang's website, a question directed at me:

Joanne - who's going to be the first female blogger to win a major tourney, eh?

First of all Al, I am glad you added the 'eh?' cause otherwise I may not have understood the question. Us Canucks get confused easily you know.

I would love to say that the first female blogger to win would be me. But you know what? It ain't gonna happen. I have far too many obstacles to overcome before I could even consider achieving that goal.

Logistics

The most obvious is logistics - first you gotta get me to the damn thing. You know firsthand that no amount of asking, begging, pleading, coercing, bribing, threatening, guilt-tripping or forcing is going to actually make me leave my house. Hell, if I can't even make it to a blogger event, how am I going to make it to a major tournament?

Dial-A-Shots

Let's imagine, shall we, that I managed to stop ice fishing for a moment and the dogsled teams were able to drag me from the vast hinterland I call home to the nearest airport. The stars somehow managed to align and I actually made it to the event. Would I now have a chance? Oh no - there is still far too much to overcome.

I would be seated at the final table with the likes of Johnny Chan, Hellmuth and Scotty Nguyen, when all of a sudden my cell phone would ring. Sure enough, it is the Philadelphia Chapter of Quantity Control on the other line inquiring if I have reached my daily quota of liquid sunshine yet.

Sheepishly admitting that I haven't, you proceed to wax poetic about the virtues of SoCo and Dial-A-Shots. Like I could say no. Has it ever done me any good before?

No Al, I can’t have a shot cause my parents are over
No Al, I can’t have a shot cause it is only two in the afternoon on a Tuesday
No Al, I can’t have a shot cause I have to work for another four hours

Yeah right. Like any of that has ever worked. Even before I could say...

No Al, I can’t because I am at the final table of a major tournament

...BigMike would join you on the line and all I'd be able to hear would be a rousing chorus of “Joannada” until I caved and ordered a damn shot from the cocktail waitress. I’d have to tip her big and tell her to keep ‘em coming, cause there is no such thing as a single Dial-A-Shot during momentous occasions like that one.

Eventually I would have to sit out and run over to Pauly’s laptop, because you know he would be there covering the tournament. I would proceed to get my fill of IM-A-Shots with everyone else as my hands got mucked over and over in my absense.

This could only lead to drinking games at the table (cause you know I’m not going to party by myself) and I would talk Scotty Nguyen into having Fold-A-Shots and Bluff-A-Shots with me. Before long, he and I would be sitting out constantly, as we would need to keep going for those in-between-drink smoke breaks. We would bust out, but who would care at that point?

The point, Al, is that you are probably –EV for my game. (And Scotty Nguyen’s as well, apparently.)

The ‘Eh’ Factor

Even if I managed to successfully leave my cell phone at home, I still wouldn’t have a hope in hell of winning the damn thing. There would certainly be an incident that sparked the tournament director to declare English-only at the tables, and my vocabulary simply wouldn’t cut it. I can understand this though, really. It would certainly be too much work for the film crews to add subtitles or dubbing so the general population could understand me.

Imagine me getting into it with Phil Hellmuth.

PH- You called me all the way to the river with that hand?
Me- Take off, eh?

PH- If it weren’t for luck, I’d win ‘em all
Me- What’s this all abooot?

PH- You are a Jopke
Me- Ya Hoser

Yes, I would certainly be disqualified for being too damn Canuck.

So, to answer your question, there isn’t much chance of me winning a major tournament. The actual game of poker? Ah hell, that is the easy part – raise, fold, check, bet. It’s the rest of it that is too difficult to master.

My vote is for Maudie.