“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” – Verbal Kint from The Usual Suspects
“Nope, it’s true. In the end, it is I who is The Tourist. I’m just passing through folks. Don’t mind me one bit.” – Poker Champ, 4/5/06
“And poof. Just like that, he’s gone.” – Verbal Kint
The peculiar humor of poker bloggers has spawned a number of ruses over the last few years, illustrated by April Fools’ jokes such as high-limit blogger DoubleAs claiming he busted his accounts in a drunken blur to BadBlood’s “get your dog off my lawn” night in the slammer. While fun in their own ways, none of these jokes have approached the dedication and genius of “Poker Champ,” redneck poker blogger extraordinaire from neverbluff.blogspot.com.
It never occurred to me to bring it up, but since Tommy was over last night watching me play some online poker he asked why my Full Tilt poker player was a woman.
I said cause people think women don’t know how to play poker, and that I’d get some bad calls, and that some people would try to bluff me more.
In less than 10 minutes I had proved him right. Some tourist tried to come over the top of me when I flopped trips, and sure enough he didn’t have anything. I play big at women players too, but they don’t expect a bluff because they think I’m a woman player. It works out perfectly. Just a trick of the trade I told Tommy. I’ve got millions of them. — Poker Bitches and Tricks of the Trade – 1/24/06
Alternately misogynistic and idiotic, Poker Champ quickly gained the attention of the poker blogging community, with the debate on the true existence of this character evenly divided between believers and non-believers. While some were convinced this was someone’s idea of a joke, the over-the-top character from the blog was realistic enough that many of us knew a Poker Champ from somewhere, even with all his obvious character flaws.
We started at one of the bars by where I live. I’ve talked about it before because it’s where we go to play cricket and pool. I wanted to take Derrick there because he had never been, and always hears us talking about it. Tommy was in rare form too. One of the waitress/bartender-lady slapped him and asked him to leave after he dropped an icecube down the front of her shirt right between her tits. The owner of the bar calmed her down quite a bit, and didn’t make Tommy or us leave. It’s good to know people. Oh, and grow up you little floozy. If you’re going to strut around showing your tits off to every customer like you’re hot shit Marilyn Monroe, then you better be ready to take a little shit like an ice cube. I swear, some women are just fucking stupid as shit. Anyway, we were doing shots of bourbon, and ole Derrick ended up puking at the bar. We made the dumb bitch waitress clean it up and then left. She didn’t even get a tip! LOL! Serves her right though. I had about 8 beers, and maybe 5 shots so I was almost at my driving limit so I decided to go ahead and drive us downtown. Keith met us out after a date he was on. I asked to smell his finger and we all got a good laugh out of that. “NeverBluff, you’re the funniest sonofabitch I know.” Keith said. I was class clown too, which doesn’t usually go to a football player. Hey, what can I say, I like to be the life of the party. And I usually am. – The Weekend – 2/13/06
The dumbass brilliance of the Poker Champ character started to shine in his waning hours, as logic and reason started to fly out the window in Champ’s attempt to theorize and wax rhapsodically on poker, love and life. The intention was never to have Champ come off as intelligent, but instead thoughtful from the highest points of idiocy. For a guy with as many obvious problems with women as Champ, he still managed to find time to talk at length about poker and faith. The beautiful part of the following is how little sense it makes if you read it carefully.
Having faith that the river card will give you a flush so you can win a big pot can be helpful. Especially if it’s for the World Championship LOL and 5 million dollars LOL! But, not everyone will make their river flush. Some people will miss it, and then they’ll try to bluff at it, and get called and lose the pot. That’s the way life is too. Sometimes you have to bluff, but you will get caught and then you’ll have to pay the piper… Life isn’t all about trying to bluff, or having faith that the river will give you a flush. Life is one long session, and if you play it like a poker game you will have ups and downs for sure, but in the end if you can’t get forgiveness for your bluffs then is it all worth it? Tommy made a real good point about life being like poker especially when you’re feeling low and down and out. That’s when you don’t have a lot of chips and your looking to double up. Sometimes you do, and sometimes you don’t. The thing is, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and if you stay focused you will get there. This applies to our Cardinals and Rick Pitino this year. I have prayed for him, and I know he has faith. He is probably the best NCAA coach right now, and a lot of it is because he treats each game as a poker tournament, and the season is a session. His whole coaching career is the big long session, and that’s why it’s important for him to not get so high or not get so low. That’s why the greats are world champs. Can you name a time Raymer or Joe Hachem got low in the last two tourneys? That’s right, you can’t. And it’s not because they didn’t, it’s just because of how they adjusted to deal with it. They stayed focused on the task at hand, and now they’re both millionares and world champions. I have what it takes too, and it also helps to have faith. – Faith – 3/9/06
Unsurprisingly, when the veil was lifted the man with the machinations turned out to be Daddy from SnailTrax. One of the few people with the skills and background to invent a character like this, Daddy spent nearly four full months creating an entertaining look inside the head of a woman-hating semi-literate gawd-awful poker player, and his lasting legacy is one where the community is never going to believe another word that comes off his keyboard.
Rest in peace Champ. We’re already missing you.