Sam Grizzle has to win the 50k H.O.R.S.E. to save poker. BAM! That’s right ladies and gentlemen. I said it! Mark my words. If Sam Grizzle cannot find a way to grind his way from 86,000 in chips to H.O.R.S.E. world champion, all hope for the sport is lost. Promises!
I’m sure all of you out there are waiting for me to corroborate this bold claim with some sort of logic. So, while I don’t feel that I owe it to any of you , in any way, I’m going to oblige. First, let’s take a look at our savior, Samuel Grizzle.
Sam Grizzle of Las Vegas, NV
Grizzle has over $1 MILLION is lifetime tournament earnings. That’s right, Sam has managed to make $1 over the last million years playing the game, and that is no easy feat in this day and age of large field tournament poker. Some highlights from “The Grizz’s” career: He booked five-digit, FIVE-dig-it scores at the 1989 Poker Superstars, and the 7th Annual Diamond Jim Brady (in the ever popular ½ hold’em, ½ lowball event). That’s right. Sam Grizzle ain’t just some jerk-off No-Limit hold’em player.
By now, many of you may have forgotten, but Donald Key will NEVER forget, that Sam Grizzle once punched (at the time 9-time) bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth in the face, and then threatened to do it again on national television. This is what poker needs, folks, more physical violence! Look what it’s done for the NHL!
As Phil Hellmuth continues to distance himself with bracelets, final tables, and cashes, poker moves closer and closer to wrap around shades and chair massages, and farther and farther away from 10-gallon Stetson’s and leather asses. Donald Key likes a nice leathery ass. I would have called on Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson to make a stand for poker’s endangered species, but alas, “The Godfather of Poker” has been eliminated, and so, the onus is on the Grizzle. Or as I like to call him, “our only hope.”
That’s right! Poker is under siege, folks, and in Donald Key’s estimation Sam Grizzle is the only man who can take it back and return it to its former glory. Let’s face it, poker has lost its key demographic. Sure, in the meantime it may have landed THE key demographic, the 18-35 year-old upwardly mobile male. But these adderol addicted, here today gone tomorrow, whichever way the wind blows newbies can’t sustain the game the way the old guard has for hundreds of years. They just can’t. They may have added some flash with their Armani shirts and Prada loafers, but Sam Grizzle, and Sam Grizzle alone has the ability to put poker back on top with guys whose wardrobes consist mostly of items purchased with Camel points. And this is where poker belongs.
I know what you’re all thinking, “Get with the times, Key. Donald Key. Poker has evolved.”
I admit, the game has certainly undergone wholesale changes over the past 5 years. But for the better? I’m not so sure.
This is what we have to show for ourselves as a poker community since the Moneymaker:
The internet boom
Huge fields
Huge prizepools
Non-Smoking card rooms
No-Abuse policies
The F-bomb rule (recently retracted, I’m convinced, because of the imminent Second coming of the Grizzle.)
Corporate sponsorship
And look at all the awesome things we’ve left behind – things Grizzle can bring back:
Cheating
Collusion
Smoking cardrooms
Dealer Abuse
Player abuse
The word fuck
Was it worth it? The answer is no. We lost a whole vocabulary word. If poker keeps up at this pace, the English language will be completely decimated by the year 96,250,347 A.D. – Assuming no new words are invented between now and then.
So here we are. On the cusp of a poker revolution. A resurrection. A real chance to turn back time. To relive glory days. Chances like these come along once in a lifetime. And this one depends on Sam Grizzle making up a 600,000 chip deficit. Am I scared? No. Should you be? No. I don’t know if you were paying attention, but Sam Grizzle won the ½ hold em, ½ lowball event at the 7th annual Diamond Jim Brady. Need I say more?
Disagree? Call 1-888-7-Suited or email RickDeriss@aol.com
