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Chippy Poker

Filed under: Imported

"Everybody should gamble--and those who don't I have no respect for." -- attorney Joe Friedberg, speaking on the O'Connell-Rosenbaum show this morning.

I once wrote a profile of a guy named Danny DiLiberto. He was one of the greatest pool players that ever lived. He'd also been a professional boxer and a semipro baseball player. Most of all, though, DiLiberto was a hustler. He was 64 at the time that I wrote the piece and claimed to have never worked a steady job in his life. (Shortly after my story came out, he was indicted on cocaine trafficking charges, but was ultimately exonerated.) He was a funny, arrogant, tough little son of a bitch. And he would gamble on anything at any time.

Luck wasn't exactly shining on DiLiberto by the time I caught up with him in Hollywood, Florida, though. He had prostrate cancer. He was legally blind from cataracts. He was largely trying to "make the nut" by betting on simulcast dog races in West Memphis, Arkansas. Each afternoon he'd go down to the Hollywood Greyhound Race Track and sit in one of those plastic chairs with a TV attached to it that you generally only see in really seedy bus stations and scream bloody murder at some drugged up dog running around a dirt oval a thousand miles away.

It was a bit depressing, but here's the rub: I'd rather spend six months straight at a dog track with Danny DiLiberto than I would five minutes with Tom Prichard or any of the other goofball jackasses who are morally opposed to gambling.

But the real point of this post is to point out that it's now legal to hold poker tournaments in Minnesota bars. Under the following restrictions: Players can't be charged tournament entry fees and the payouts can't be more than $200. 

A couple of degenerate gamblers that I know have started a company called Chippy Poker. They're running tournaments at bars across the metro area. Tonight's is at the legendary BeBop in Blaine!  

Posted by Paul Demko at July 12, 2005 2:38 PM

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