The World Series of Poker announced today that there will be a Strip Poker event added to the schedule this year. Now, before you click the link I want you to check the calendar. It’s April 1st. It’s April 1st. It’s April 1st. Have I belabored that point enough? No? It’s April Fools Day. Ahhh, now you get it!
So the good folks who run the WSOP had some fun and came up with a little joke for us. The thing is, as I read the press release about what their Strip Poker event would look like, I started to think that this would be a GREAT idea. It’s not because I have an acute desire to see masses of poker players in the buff, oh good Lord no. My interest in this event came from how the WSOP folks envision such a tournament. From the press release:
Players will not be limited in the amount of clothing—or layers of clothing—that they can wear while playing in this event.
However, to try to introduce a higher degree of strategy to the event, it will be played outdoors by the Rio pool in what is expected to be 100+ degrees desert heat.
That would be AWESOME. The best poker players in the world, bundled up like mountaineers assaulting Everest, waddling out to the tables as the pitiless Vegas sun broils them like so many lobster tails? The very definition of awesome. Gatorade could sponsor the event. And one of the great things about poker is that it lets you see otherwise normal people operating under EXTREME PRESSURE. Well, battling dehydration while trying to capture a precious WSOP bracelet and having to repeatedly disrobe in front of thousands of people sounds like extreme pressure to me.
The WSOP should really, really do this. It would be an interesting counterpoint to the Iron Man events that Matt Savage introduced at the Commerce Casino. In those tournaments there are no breaks, period. Three meals are served at the table and the tourney never stops until one indefatigable player emerges as the victor. In the proposed WSOP Strip Poker event you would have bracelet-starved players pulling on nine pairs of socks and six sets of mittens while friends on the rail supplied fresh IV bags of saline to pump into their liquid-deprived bodies.
Famous poker players would suffer. Famous poker players would get naked. Fans wouldn’t be able to look away from the horror. Sure, this was an April Fool’s joke, but as so often happens in Shakespeare it is the Fool who speaks with the most clarity. The WSOP Powers-That-Be should take a long look at this idea on April 2nd, cackle with evil glee, and announce that they’re actually going to hold this event. It’d be awesome.
Tags: April, April Fools