Speaking of Image

So a few nights ago (Saturday night-Sunday morning) I had one of of those weird, vivid dreams most of which survived to remain in my consciousness upon waking. I’ll spare you the crazy chain of circumstance that led up to the dream’s final scene, but it ended with me watching the Olympics -- both in person and on television (not sure how).

I was watching a newly introduced sport that combined platform diving and card tricks. Divers would dive into the pool from ten meters or whatever it was, swim the length of the pool and get out the other side, then on a small table perform some sort of card trick. I’m not making this up.

When I explained the dream to Vera Valmore, she asked me if the cards were waterproof. I assumed they were. She also asked me what I thought might’ve inspired the dream, and all I could come up with was last week’s announcement of this summer’s WSOP schedule, with its novel tweaks and various whatnot.

Would’ve been easier to explain, I think, had the dream come the next night, after I heard the news (along with everyone else) about Michael Phelps’ apology following a U.K. tabloid’s publication of a photo of the 14-time Olympic gold medal winner hitting a bong.

When I read that story, I immediately thought of that Todd Brunson article in the November 11, 2008 issue of Card Player describing Phelps bringing an entourage of 40-50 people to Vegas to stay at the Palms and meet and hang out with some famous poker players.

Brunson describes a long, fairly raucous night beginning with a big steak dinner (with lots of drinking), followed by a basketball game, a poker tourney, then some roulette in which Phelps won over a grand. By then it was early morning, and Brunson leaves the group to sleep for 12 hours. When he rejoins them at dinner the next night, “Michael was already in full swing at the bar,” ordering a drink for Brunson and “making fun of one of his friends for not drinking.”

The article goes on, with Brunson marvelling at Phelps’ capacity for liquor. “‘Incredible,’ I thought to myself. This guy was drinking some sort of mixed drink when I got here, then the tequila, then the whiskey, all in less than five minutes!” (I suppose a dude who consumes 10,000 calories a day or whatever it is should be able to handle a bit more booze than yr average drinker.) In the end, Brunson concludes Phelps to have been a super friendly guy who was “on cloud nine,” letting go a bit after the many years of discipline that led up to his Olympic triumphs.

I’m not judging Phelps at all, and in fact would tend to echo Brunson’s conclusion that the man is certainly entitled to live it up a bit. I was actually surprised when I read the Card Player article that the story told there didn’t appear to make the mainstream media, although perhaps some tabloids did pick it up and I missed it. Of course, drinking never suffers the backlash smoking dope does, even if the moral distinction the public tends to make between the two is a sketchy one.

Knowing the significance of appearances, it seemed a little remarkable to me that Brunson would report Phelps’ drinking and partying with such nonchalance. While letting go like that would be perfectly normal behavior for yr average 23-year-old, for a guy like Phelps there are obvious risks in doing so. Especially in public. As it turns out, that probably was a mighty expensive buzz the swimmer caught off that bong, as many of those lucrative endorsement deals he snagged along with those eight golds last summer have opt-out clauses regarding just this sort of conspicuous, public embarrassment.

I guess the other part of the story that interests us poker players is the fact that Phelps has made known his interest in our game and even played in a tourney or two during his Vegas trip. I wrote a post back in August in response to the news that the star athlete was talking about playing in the 2009 World Series of Poker, optimistically titling that post “The Poker Cause: Phelps Helps.” There I speculated a bit how Phelps coming around to the WSOP “instantly affords poker a kind of credibility in mainstream society.”

Of course, now I suppose we have to wonder if that is really the case.

Phelps has time to rehabilitate his image, certainly. But I guess I wonder now whether poker perhaps takes an image hit if Phelps comes around to Vegas to play in some more tourneys? That is to say, would Phelps playing in the WSOP inspire the general public more readily to associate poker with other vices...?

I ask that question knowing full well how absurd such a line of thinking is. But the human mind works in strange ways, making associations where one would least expect it.

Like this dream I had the other night....

The Poker Cause: Phelps Helps

Like most of the world, I tuned in yesterday to see some of the coverage of the conclusion of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. In the morning saw the tape of the U.S. men’s basketball team hang on against Spain, then last night watched a bit of the closing ceremonies. As much as I like Zeppelin, I ain’t too sure how exactly “Whole Lotta Love” (with suitably expurgated lyrics) fits into the larger message of the Olympic movement. But whatever. As with the opening ceremonies, the whole spectacle was pretty eye-popping.

For poker fans, the highlight of the games was probably that story about swimmer Michael Phelps’ professed ambitions to play in the 2009 World Series of Poker. That one surfaced (pun intended) soon after Phelps had grabbed the eighth of his gold medals.

I saw it first in The New York Times (8/19/08), where in an article about Phelps’ intentions to “return to normalcy,” he was described as an “avid card player,” saying “it would be cool” to play in the WSOP. It was at an initial, post-medals press conference that Phelps spoke of his interest in poker. “‘My game is a little off right now, so I’ll have to start improving it a little bit,’” he is quoted as saying.

I then saw the Poker Shrink’s notice the same day as the NYT article that Phelps had already been invited to play in the 2009 NBC National Heads Up Poker Championship. Soon after that I read that the Asian Poker Tour had also invited Phelps to play in the Macau event (which begins on September 1). The letter to Phelps from Jeff Mann, an APT rep, explains how the APT would happily “fly you in, organize your accommodation, and buy-you in [sic] to the tournament.” Mann also goes on in a somewhat silly vein to joke that Phelps “almost certainly [has] more chance of making good money from our $1,500,000 prize pool than securing any commercial deals.”

Of course, everyone wants Phelps -- his star shines more brightly than any other celebrity at the moment, and will continue to glow for some time. Even before this year’s Olympics, Phelps had secured sponsorships with Visa, Nike, Speedo, Kellogg’s, Adidas, Rosetta Stone, Omega, and other large corporations. And he’s not going away. NBC has already announced its intention to televise the World Swimming Championships for the next three years, their primary motivation being to take advantage of viewers’ interest in Phelps’ exploits moving forward.

How should poker players and fans feel about these developments?

In the thread over on 2+2 one finds the usually high noise-to-signal ratio, but several posters are correctly identifying the development as “good for the game” (as they say). (One also learns there, incidentally, that Phelps apparently plays a lot of online poker.)

Why does poker -- or, more precisely, those who manage and direct large scale poker events like the NBC Heads-Up Championship or the APT -- want Michael Phelps? For the event organizers, Phelps’ presence instantly attracts the attention of non-poker fans, thereby enlarging their overall reach (very good for securing sponsors). For the poker community, Phelps identifying himself as a poker player instantly affords poker a kind of credibility in mainstream society. Which poker can use, frankly.

Who knows whether Phelps will pursue his poker ambitions or not. Even if he doesn’t, his acknowledgment on the world stage of an interest in poker most certainly helps the game’s proponents as they wage their battles in other (e.g., political, social, moral) contexts.