Beginner’s Luck: It’s All In The Cards

Marcus Riley, NBC5 Street Team (video)

You ever wonder why it’s always the woman who doesn’t really follow sports and picks her favorite team based on uniform color who ends us doing well in your March Madness office pool? It never surprises me. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, or rather, too much information or knowledge can be a liability. Or perhaps, it all comes down to pure luck.

Whatever it is, I’m not sure what I was thinking when I agreed to play at the media table at the World Series of Poker Qualifying Tournament last week. Sponsored by Horseshoe Casino, it was one of many pre-events for Chicago Gateway Green’s Green Tie Ball XVII.

But here’s the rub — I’ve never played poker before. But I dutifully sat at the table, read up on some of the rules before the first hand was dealt, and jumped right in. Bottom line, I was on fire. Within a couple of hours, I had cleaned out most of the table, which included HGTV Design On A Dime host Ali Azhar, Survivor Fiji’s Mookie Lee and more importantly, the player on my immediate left, B96 general sales manager Ben Ponzio, who won $600,000 in the World Series of Poker last year and was sporting the gold bracelet to prove it. I’m not sure he’s happy about offering all that advice to a novice, but hey, who would’ve known?

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Slideshow: Poker Qualifying Tournament

Slideshow: Green Tie Ball 2007

Video: Green Tie Ball 2007

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Anyway, after advancing to the next round, I was quickly dispatched by some of the other players, and I walk away with the same view toward Poker as Blackjack — no matter how much you think you know what you’re doing, there’s not much you can do if you’re dealt a crappy hand.

By the way, this year’s Green Tie Ball (one of my favorite parties of the year), is scheduled for September 13 at a new location — Chicago Scenic Studios. This year’s theme is Greenivale — where Green meets Carnivale.

Two more pre-events will be held prior to the big September bash. For more information, visit www.greentieball.org.