AimlesslyChasingAmy

I opine that before you could have a Hunter Thompson, there had to be a Jack Kerouac (pictured above with Larry Rivers, David Amram, Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso); the needed catalyst for counterculture literature - where the journey, not the destination, became the story.  

There are a number of gonzo poker journalists these days; the real (i.e. Pauly, the boyz at Wicked Chops, etc.) and the wannabes (nameless to protect the guilty).  There are a number of books chronicling life on the road as a player, like Jay Greenspan’s Hunting Fish.  Whether they realize it or not (and whether they read him or not), Tiger123 almost literally blazed their trail, perhaps best exemplified by his trip reports from the legendary 1999 Tiger Tours of America’s poker rooms.  While not providing the drug induced (it’s that obvious guys) irreverent content of his descendants, Tiger123 came to symbolize a movement; where poker was an experience, not merely a game, - and where the players you were to encounter were assumed to be friends that you just hadn’t met yet.  I confess I borrowed that last bit from one of the BARGE tenets.  But it truly fits as Tiger123 is part of the poker brain trust endowed to us via IRC and the early legacy of rgp.  And granted, he did not walk this path alone, having the Tiltboys and many early BARGE trip reporters as fit company.   

I am thinking a lot about that brain trust this month.  Bill Chen and Sabyl Cohen are mostly to blame.  Their stellar performance this WSOP - following in the footsteps of the many noteworthy IRCers and rgpers before them - has me fixated on the wealth of talent and intelligence represented by this pool.  What a unique group.  What a fascinating dynamic.  I can’t get past the amazing power of the collaborative process as invoked by these individuals.      

I have had sporadic email exchanges with Tiger123 over the last two years.  While I had long been a Tiger123 fan, it was he that contacted me.  In an email that tickles me still, he wanted to know who the hell I was.  He said he couldn’t read anything about poker anywhere without seeing my name.  I readily confessed that I was not a poker insider - just an empress of shameless self-promotion: one of the boats that the rising tide of poker had lifted.  He has sent me a few wonderfully crafted poker poems that I hope will see the light of day.  While this is not truly an ode, Tiger123 has penned many.  We corresponded through his heart surgery now many months ago, which he reported he had recovered nicely from - in admittedly one of our last exchanges.

I am obsessed now.  And yes, I’ve been drinking red wine. 

Like the character Ray Kinsella in the movie Field of Dreams, I want Terrance Mann to write again.  I want Tiger123 to reconnect with his past passion - to write about the origins and legacy of IRC Poker and the early days of rgp.  I believe it has to come from an insider.  Can you impose your obsession on another…?

Irwin?