You're 21, play poker for a living, have inch-thick wads of disposable cash and are perpetually surrounded by dozens of degenerates just like you. Umm, yeah. Things get excessive.
As you can imagine, a lot of the "activities" high-rolling young ballers get up to aren't exactly fit for publishing (read: they have been known to involve a pile of Bolivian marching powder and some amenable ladies of the night).
Or not, actually. Some just spend a lot of time talking about being baller on the Internet. Somewhere in the middle, however, are a few of your more popular nontraditional recreational activites for young poker ballers.
5 Things Rich Poker Players Do for Fun
5. Renting mansions in Vegas for the WSOP. 1,000-square-foot bedrooms for everybody; dollar-sign-shaped swimming pools; backyard golf holes; more plasma screens than physically possible to watch at one time; leather toilet seats.
Nothing is too excessive for the young ballers when it comes to Series accommodation. It is seven weeks after all, and you need a place that will impress the ladies for your pre-tourney "baller" bash. Also a nice room to play the Sunday tournaments in.
4. High-end binge drinking. Just because they have money doesn't mean they are less apt to indulge in every 20something's favorite pastime.
The difference: They're no longer puking PBR into an old Subway bag while their friend's girlfriend rubs their back. They're hurling a gallon of Dom off their baller balcony while their friend's girlfriend rubs their back.
Looking for a binge-drinking role model? Check out Mark "Newhizzle" Newhouse, winner of the 2006 WPT event at the Borgata, dabbling in some textbook baller binge drinking.
3. Flipping for outrageous sums of money. For those unfamiliar with the term flipping, it comes from flipping a coin (obv). Two or more players agree to push whichever cards they're dealt pre-flop. The board runs and whoever has the best hand at showdown wins the pot.
Repeat as necessary. Since this is a neutral EV gamble it is referred to as flipping.
2+2er Grimstarr, a regular $5,000 NL player, allegedly went on a $250k downswong thanks to some Omaha flips on Fult Tilt Poker. Not gonna say whether he deserved it or not but you can do your own research ;)
2. Credit card roulette. This can be fun for all ages; however, these guys do it for much more than you or I would be comfortable with. Let's say you and your four buddies go out for dinner and drinks. When the tab comes you all throw your credit cards into a hat. The waitress pulls them out one at a time. Last one left is stuck with the bill.
A bunch of high-stakes poker players are out to dinner at a fancy steak house in New York. Emil "Whitelime" Patel, being a vegetarian, passes on the $100+ steaks and orders a salad, which he has to have specially made.
Come time for the roulette, he feels he should be exempt since his meal cost pennies compared to everyone else's steaks. After a few minutes of being called a nit he throws his card into the hat. Sure enough, last card pulled is his and Whitelime is stuck with the $1,800+ bill that he pays cash for.
1. Prop bets. Not only for the grandpas of poker anymore (I'm looking in your direction, Doyle and Amarillo). Prop-betting and poker playing have gone hand in hand since the game was Five-Card Draw on the Mississippi.
Now all these online poker
young guns bet on everything from throwing playing cards into garbage
cans, to foot races, to bowling matches, to drinking games. On the line
are not only excessive amounts of cash but also humiliating punishments.
Tom "durrrr" Dwan makes a bet that he will show up on time to go to a
bar with some friends. Something happens and durrrr misses his deadline.
The stipulations of the bet allow the victor to choose a hat for durrrr
to wear on each day he plays in the WPT Final at the Bellagio.
durrrr goes on to finish in ninth place wearing some of the most ludicrous hats ever manufactured.
