Men in Women's only poker event at IP (3 of 5).

Part three of five...

You'd never have this problem with internet poker. Because on the internet every person that says they are a chick is usually a dude. Or maybe I just hang out at the wrong sites. Okay, back on track... say a drunk bachelor party stumbled into the poker tournament room and had never played Texas Holdem poker before and made the same offer, I’d be willing to bet they’d be welcome with open arms. Please come donate and enrich our prize pool. Don’t even worry about dressing in drag. Course welcoming Kai and Monkey meant that there was less of a chance any decent female player was going to win the big prize.

Though, this rationale is more about the female pros than the novice women giving poker a whirl. I get that some female pros may need that score for their bankroll, some women may COUNT on that score for their bankroll, so why would they want to make it tougher to win. Here it’s not the timid little lilies that are scared of a big, bad man it’s the better players scared of somebody else sipping from their honey hole. Course now the motivation isn’t about protecting the spirit of the women’s tournament, it’s about greed. Poker is about greed, so I’m not knocking this viewpoint, but let’s just be clear about it.

-It’s a women’s event not a charity event.

Let’s say you sell newspapers on a corner and a guy sets up shop next to you. Except he says “I’m selling newspapers with all the profits going to charity.” You watch all day as he takes all of your sales. In effect, all that guy is doing is making you donate to charity because you are the only one suffering. The other people are still buying newspapers preferring to buy the ones that help a charity then the ones that line your pocket. But now you have no income because instead of buying from you they chose to buy from the charity. Should you protest, the guy can counter “what you don’t want to help the charity?”

That’s a bad spot because it’s hard to argue without looking like an ass. Now, that isn’t completely analogous to two skilled men entering the tournament (because it’s far more likely they would have just enhanced the prize pool rather than win it all) but it’s close enough. Even worse, even if they didn’t cash, anybody they eliminated would have felt like the newspaper vendor because in their mind those guys shouldn’t have been there to knock them out in the first place.

Women could argue it wasn’t a charity event it was a women’s event. The charity aspect is a noble cause but it’s not one that has to be done during a women’s event. The women could argue the same benefit could have been conveyed by playing the nightly in drag, or a noon event. Jumping into a women’s event merely changes the event. To me this is the best argument and has merit.

Again, the following won’t be an exact parallel but I think the feeling it evokes in me is similar to maybe the one some of the participants had. I give to my charities as I see fit from home. I hate when a store or a promotion (or as supposedly the Ante Up for Africa event did with unmitigated hounding of some 2+2 ers at the WSOP) thrusts their charity in my face and tries to dip into my wallet by public guilting.

I don’t want to have to decline an overeager, earnest check out girl asking me to contribute to the stores charity in a loud and impassioned way to help some poor child without a face every time I pick up a newspaper from a Bookstore chain but I do.

... To be continued....