In The Well...............MessyJay

BigCityBanker · 28-08-2007 6:45pm #1

Guys I know the mods usually start these threads but Jesse May (forum lurker and infrequent poster amongst other things) has kindly agreed to be the subject of the latest installment of In the Well.

At this point laff normally inserts some warnings and the like :rolleyes: but im sure we have no requirement for them and that we will show Jesse the courtesy and respect he deserves.

Here are my questions..

What is your best moment in poker?
What is your most memorable piece of commentary?
Which big name pro impresses you the most/least?
Who is the most underrated player you know?

Lafortezza · 28-08-2007 7:00pm

Do you play online? Games and stakes?

:rolleyes:

sendic · 28-08-2007 7:00pm

do you play much? live/online? stakes?

funniest thing youve seen/heard at a poker table?

jbravado · 28-08-2007 7:01pm

Brilliant.

Jesses' book is my favourite book written on poker-must have read it around ten times.

Whats your worst ever moment in poker?
Do you ever regret starting to play?
What do you think you would have done career wise if it wasnt for poker?

MrPillowTalk · 28-08-2007 7:16pm

Firstly I'd like to thank you for your involvement in Late Night Poker, without that show I wouldnt ever have started playing.

1) Will the "poker show" yourself and Padraig did ever be reborn? I thought it was hillarious.

2) I know you play online a bit, do you ever play live these days, and do you want to be playing the circuit events?

3) Following on from 2, your enthusiasm when talking about the game is infectious so I imagine this probably isn't the case, but is your involvement in poker purely a journalistic twist of fate? what got you started down this particular path?

4) What do you think of the current state of poker, do you think its peaked?

5) Favourite poker story?

Thanks in advance for doing the well.

Messyjay · 28-08-2007 7:23pm

What is your best moment in poker?

Too many to pick from. Some that spring to mind.

Sneaking into the rooftop buffet at Binion's at the WSOP age 18.

Following Scott, Julian, and Shipley at the 2002 WSOP. We stayed up all night every night during that main event and the final table itself was mayhem. Padraig got the entire crowd singing some French football chant every time Scott won a pot. It was a truly great main event.

Any night playing 3-6 Hold'em at the Stardust during the summer of 1990. What a crowd of characters.

What is your most memorable piece of commentary?

There was one celebrity poker with the major who slept with Princess Diana. I rewrote the verses to "Modern Major General" from Pirates of Penzance to poker themes and sung one every time he was in a hand. Don't think any made the cut.

Padraig and I commentated on a 888 heat where a guy who had never played before absolutely tortured a table, including Donnacha Odea in one of the most remarkable series of hands ever seen. Ive never laughed so hard.

Which big name pro impresses you the most/least?

This is like the seasons. Players go in and out of style.

Who is the most underrated player you know?

Haven' seen him play in a while, but I'd still probably plump for John Hennigan. He deserves to be a hero. Some stories about Johnny World read like Stu Ungar. When he was a kid in Philadelphia, they called him Flakes, and he was considered one of the best 9-ball players on the east coast. He discovered poker when it was legalized in Atlantic City and things took off from there. he's had some bad luck and has plenty of demons, but his nerve is very sound.

ollyk1 · 28-08-2007 7:29pm

Cheers for doing this Jesse.

My questions are a little voyeuristic but as it's unlikely I'll get too many opportunities to get answers elsewhere I'll ask anyway and you can always tell me to f**k off.

Q1 Who is the biggest pr1ck on the professional scene? Example of why?

Q2 How common is it for deals to be done in respect of tv poker shows behnd the scenes?

Q3 Biggest welcher on the pro scene?

Q4 Do poker shows (HSP and the Full tilt for example) glamourising the poker scene have any responsibility for people going busto playing outside their BR??

P.S. I'd like to second the comments above re the poker show. Please bring it back. Absolute class.

Cuban Son · 28-08-2007 7:29pm

When Late Night Poker started back in 1999, did you think it would have the impact it had or did you see it as a bit of a non-runner?

Who is 'Micky Dane'?

The player that most impressed me from that series was Hemish Shah, and he was probably one of the reasons I started playing, he just seemed like a different class, who from that show most impressed you?

And who would have been your biggest infulence in the game?

nicnicnic · 28-08-2007 7:33pm

where did you buy that lovely pink jacket you wore at this years Irish Open

will you play Padraig's charity event this year

You obviously have a great affiliation with Irish Poker and Irish players apart from Andy who is really an old timer and Marty who is nearly an old timer why do you think no young/poker-boom era Irish player has broken through to the top level

btw N1 for being in the well

Messyjay · 28-08-2007 7:36pm

jbravado wrote:

Brilliant.

Jesses' book is my favourite book written on poker-must have read it around ten times.

Whats your worst ever moment in poker?
Do you ever regret starting to play?
What do you think you would have done career wise if it wasnt for poker?

I remember a time in 1997. The internet hadn't started yet and I was living about four hours away from Foxwoods in Woodstock, New York. I had spent three years going from having a good bankroll to having 12 credit cards maxed out. I had recently gotten stiffed in a local game. I drove down to Mohegan Sun and played for 24 hours straight ending up going on complete tilt and lost a ton. I was feeling like the game had passed me by. I drove home.

Messyjay · 28-08-2007 7:46pm

ollyk1 wrote:

Cheers for doing this Jesse.

My questions are a little voyeuristic but as it's unlikely I'll get too many opportunities to get answers elsewhere I'll ask anyway and you can always tell me to f**k off.

Q1 Who is the biggest pr1ck on the professional scene? Example of why?

Q2 How common is it for deals to be done in respect of tv poker shows behnd the scenes?

Q3 Biggest welcher on the pro scene?

Q4 Do poker shows (HSP and the Full tilt for example) glamourising the poker scene have any responsibility for people going busto playing outside their BR??

P.S. I'd like to second the comments above re the poker show. Please bring it back. Absolute class.

Not a fan of public slagging matches. People gotta eat.

I think deals are much less common than they used to be in big tournaments. It used to just be common sense that deals would be done at every stage. I think Lee Jones injected a lot of common sense into poker deals at Poker Stars with the idea that a certain percentage must be left on the table for the winner.

I'd prefer not to see deals done in TV tournaments, but until Poker Players have some sort of guaranteed tour salary and the added money becomes significant, it's their money.

I think tournament poker has a responsibility for sending people skint more than the TV shows. Although there is a disease of pride need to be on TV that sends a lot of poker players skint. Managing a bankroll is a completely different skill set to playing poker. Some people get very confused in thinking that success at one has any relation to success at the other.

If you currently have to make a living at poker you'd always choose to be a better bankroll manager than a player. This is changing more and more as time goes on and hopefully for the games sake the two will cease to be intertwined at some point. Michael Owen would be looked at in a very different light if he had to make all his money from betting on his game performances.

Messyjay · 28-08-2007 7:59pm

lafortezza wrote:

Do you play online? Games and stakes?

:rolleyes:

I play online much more than I would confess to, and much less than I would if left to my own devices. I'm an ancient piece of driftwood who still enjoys limit Hold'em because that was my first connection to poker way back when and where I put my first hours in. I'm not that bothered about stakes except I hate playing with people who are much better than me. Consequently, I am usually forced to play rather low.

Messyjay · 28-08-2007 8:14pm

A couple more questions somebody recently sent me for a magazine interview. I think he thought I was taking the pis. I wasn't. Everything I wrote is true.

When did you get into poker? What's your background with the game up to the
present day, and what are you working on next?

I first went to Las Vegas at age 16 with a pinstripe suit, duck shoes, oversized sunglasses, a corncob pipe, and a beard, trying to look on the young side of 54. It worked, and I was able to play enough poker to lose my first bankroll to a man from Texas with a hat. I dropped out of college to either become a professional poker player or achieve enlightenment through Zen. I spent three days in my closet contemplating the inevitability of death and decided I would far rather be on a Greyhound Bus to Las Vegas than study philosophy. I played poker in Las Vegas, New Orleans, Atlantic City, Connecticut, and Europe until enough people learned the game well enough that I had absolutely no chance of ever winning again. In desperation, I used the last of my bankroll to buy-in to the first ever televised poker tournament in Cardiff, Late Night Poker I. I disgraced myself so thoroughly with my play that I had no choice but to volunteer to do the commentary
for free. Things went from there. When I'm not doing commentary these days, most of my thoughts involve how to get large puppets more involved in televised poker.

How long did you spend as a poker player? What was the scene like back then?

I played poker professionally for about five years. Back then very few people knew how to play the game. I once heard a fellow professional describe it as standing under a window out of which money was being thrown holding a basket. Unfortunately for me, I never had a very large basket, but I did often manage to find windows underneath which no one else was standing.

What's the most you ever won in a tournament?

I've never been much of a tournament player. One time in Poughkeepsie, New York, I played in a private cash game at which I won every single chip on the table. I was given half of my buy-in back and a yellow piece of paper. I later on traded the piece of paper for a hamburger, a ride home, and a promise never to return to Poughkeepsie.

what's the most you lost in a single hand...?

The most I ever lost is everything I had, everything I could borrow, and whatever the pawn shop would give me for my binoculars and walkman.

What has been the most lucrative tournament you've commentated on, and who
won?

The first Poker Million on the Isle of Man will always be my favorite tournament, and John Duthie put on a poker performance that I doubt will ever be equalled while winning 1 million pounds.

How many people played in the first ever World Series? How did it begin?

The first World Series began as an elaborate ruse to get Jimmy the Greek to work off his gambling debts. There was seventeen people there, only eleven of whom would pose for the picture being that they were not currently wanted by the police.

What are the odds of making a Royal Flush with 5 cards? Have you ever
commentated on a Royal Flush? Or had one yourself? If so, when/how?

When I used to play at the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, if you got dealt a royal flush you received a framed certificate signed by the poker room manager. I had been playing seventeen hours and was stuck to my gills when dealt a royla flush in Omaha hi lo. There was one other player in the pot and we split it when he turned up a low. Two hours later I made a royal flush in Hold'em against a player who was all-in for the amount of the big blind. They brought me two framed certificates to the table at which point I had been playing twenty-one hours straight and was losing more money than I ever had at one time. I've still got the certificates.

Messyjay · 28-08-2007 8:27pm

Liam Flood introduced me to his tailor. Seriously.

I can't imagine anything that would keep me away from the Simon charity event. I try and find reasons to go to any event in Ireland, but the charity event is truly one of the best events of the year. For starters, the money raised is actually all for charity, something I've found rare in charity events. Secondly, the people involved are all involved simply for the sake of the charity, something even rarer in charity events.

I think young Irish players have broken through. I'm not sure where the top level is, but I'm sure that young Irish players are there. The young Irish guys are bringing an exceptionally strong team around Europe right now and I expect someone to go on a big run any day. It could be any of fifty people. As far as Las Vegas, is there any chance that perhaps they are having a bit too much fun and a bit too little business?

Ste05 · 28-08-2007 8:28pm

Fair play for doing this Jesse.

How does Phil Hellmuth act away from the camera's and would you have any kind of friendly relationship with him, I know you needle him alot in commentary and on your shows, and I was just wondering if he takes it all as just being part of the "Phil Hellmuth show". Similarly with any other similar players.

Do you think the US ban on on-line Poker will be lifted anytime soon.

Can you regail us with the craziest prop bet you have been involved in/ witnessed or heard about. Maybe one that isn't as widely known as it should/ could be (e.g. breast implants, etc.) obviously feel free to leave out names if necessary.

Did you ever play with Stu Unger, and if so, how would you rate him against the current luminaries of the Live/TV game and the current internet crop of phenoms (obviously this one is hard to quantify, but humour me possibly)

What other internet forums do you read, 2+2, Pocket5's, BlondePoker, Hendonmob, etc. and which one is your favourite besides boards obviously.

I'm sure there's loads of other questions but that'll do it for now.

brianmc · 28-08-2007 8:45pm

Messyjay wrote:

When I'm not doing commentary these days, most of my thoughts involve how to get large puppets more involved in televised poker.

Muppets or pinnochio style puppets?

Playing or commentating?

Thanks for doing this by the way. Despite my lack of questions I love reading these.

S: That George Burns is a great singer!
W: Well so am I, Statler!
S: What?!
W: Sure! Hey, you wanna hear me sing?
S: Only if you sing tenor.
W: Tenor?
S: Ten or eleven miles away!

Flipper · 28-08-2007 8:49pm

Hey Jesse, thanks for doing this.

1) If the poker industry collapsed tomorrow, what would you most likely end up doing?
2) Did you and your wife meet through poker?
3) What do you think of the american commentators: Vince Van Patten, Gabe Kaplan, Mike Sexton, A. J. Benza, Norman Chad and Lon McEachern?
4) What do you think of this years' poker million final line up?
5) What has been your most embarrassing poker moment?

FWIW, I always enjoyed meeting you at the bar at any event and you really are a great laugh... And you can skull the booze with the best of 'em!

Take care,

Flipper

nicnicnic · 28-08-2007 8:59pm

Messyjay wrote:

I think young Irish players have broken through. I'm not sure where the top level is, but I'm sure that young Irish players are there. The young Irish guys are bringing an exceptionally strong team around Europe right now and I expect someone to go on a big run any day. It could be any of fifty people. As far as Las Vegas, is there any chance that perhaps they are having a bit too much fun and a bit too little business?

I think your being a bit of a politician here Jessy, the ETP Barcelona kicks off today and I cant think of one player from Ireland in the field who started playing in the last four years (boom era), or under 30.

As for partying in Vegas I agree to an extent you only have to do a survey of nationalities at the hooker bar in the Rio at 4 am during the WSOP to prove this. However I'm not a great follower of the meditation and fruit brigade, I feel if you got it then you got it hangover or not

Messyjay · 28-08-2007 10:35pm

nicnicnic wrote:

I think your being a bit of a politician here Jessy, the ETP Barcelona kicks off today and I cant think of one player from Ireland in the field who started playing in the last four years (boom era), or under 30.

As for partying in Vegas I agree to an extent you only have to do a survey of nationalities at the hooker bar in the Rio at 4 am during the WSOP to prove this. However I'm not a great follower of the meditation and fruit brigade, I feel if you got it then you got it hangover or not

hmmm.... 7000 Euros is a lot of money, especially when you think about ten EPT events out of which if there was a market for a random world class player over/under how much they will cash out for during the EPT season what would it be? Not an index bet, but a over/under through one season.

My point is you are playing in the EPT circuit if
1. you have a sponsorship/backing deal
2. you won a satellite
3. you made a huge tournament result in the last year
4. you are on a really good cash game run

There are no professional tournament players. That statement may take flack. The current setup of professional poker doesn't allow for it.

Of the four categories mentioned, which one would you want to be, and what relation do these categories have to who the breakthrough players are? We are still so far from having an accurate method of knowing who the really best poker players are. How is quality defined? My guess is many young Irish players would be right up there.

nicnicnic · 28-08-2007 11:03pm

Messyjay wrote:

hmmm.... 7000 Euros is a lot of money, especially when you think about ten EPT events out of which if there was a market for a random world class player over/under how much they will cash out for during the EPT season what would it be? Not an index bet, but a over/under through one season.

My point is you are playing in the EPT circuit if
1. you have a sponsorship/backing deal
2. you won a satellite
3. you made a huge tournament result in the last year
4. you are on a really good cash game run

There are no professional tournament players. That statement may take flack. The current setup of professional poker doesn't allow for it.

Of the four categories mentioned, which one would you want to be, and what relation do these categories have to who the breakthrough players are? .

fair point and question I think I'd go for category one unless the tournament touch was really huge, I had a decent result this year in the Irish Open(you backed me at 66/1 in running, sorry I couldn't bring home the bacon for you and me) and wouldn't even consider forking out €8k for etp entry's.

Nicky

sumoward · 28-08-2007 11:07pm

nicnicnic wrote:

I
However I'm not a great follower of the meditation and fruit brigade

QFT

carfax · 28-08-2007 11:16pm

Messyjay wrote:

Padraig got the entire crowd singing some French football chant every time Scott won a pot. It was a truly great main event.

Allez Scott Allez......Allez Scott Allez......It was one of the best atmospheres I can remember at a final table with Padraig absolutely berating Phil Helmuth whilst he was being interviewed in front of TV cameras.

Jesse, why the affinity with Irish poker? Is it just through your friendship with Padraig? I know you've answered this before saying that your first trip over here included Noel Furlong to your left and Alan Betson to your right but is there anything more to it?

Irish poker owes a lot to you for the way you promote it around the world.

Stephen Mc Lean.

Fatboydim · 28-08-2007 11:40pm

Jesse are you in Barca? I'm out already

see other thread. but If you're out here PM me and we'll meet up.

DeVore · 29-08-2007 12:54am

Thanks for doing this Jesse....

My questions:

1. What is it about Irish poker that (obviously) appeals to you so much??

2. I commented with you on the Irish Open this year and the stuff the producer simply couldnt use was the funniest (at one point Jessy deliberately swore like a sailor because it annoyed the producer and ruined the hand). Have there been hands that couldnt be used because they were un-broadcastable?

3. (the serious question) What are you thoughts on the WSOP and where it is going from here vis-a-vis the commericialisation of it.

DeV.

rag2gar · 29-08-2007 2:12am

Interesting reading, thanks a bunch Jesse.

With your current contact woith Matchroom, were you disapointed that you had to bypass possible commentary jobs for key events like the William Hill GP II and the EPT's?

Is there any one major cause or infuence that has seen poker players triumph of fail when on the horizon of the big time that you have seen?

How do you handle the long stints of dull poker action that goes unnoticed on the tv, how do you keep your self always entertained and excited when theres sometimes very little to talk about?

The constant professional and hero commentator of Murray Walker proportions, how does it feel to be dubbed "the voice of poker"?

Requiem4adream · 29-08-2007 2:30am

1. Favourite drink ? 1a. Favourite pint?
2. Favourite movie? 2b. Favourite actress?
3. Favourite band?

If you won a huge event for life changing money would you quit commentary work or keep doing it? reasons?

Glowingmind · 29-08-2007 11:15am

How much of Shut Up And Deal is biographical?

Thanks for doing this.

Messyjay · 29-08-2007 4:21pm

Cuban Son wrote:

When Late Night Poker started back in 1999, did you think it would have the impact it had or did you see it as a bit of a non-runner?

Who is 'Micky Dane'?

The player that most impressed me from that series was Hemish Shah, and he was probably one of the reasons I started playing, he just seemed like a different class, who from that show most impressed you?

And who would have been your biggest infulence in the game?

We knew Late Night Poker was huge from the off. When I got invited it was all about hope. It sounded like something you had to be a part of. It honestly was something around my last 1500 pounds that I coughed up to play. I had very little experience playing no limit hold'em and almost no tournament experience and the idea of a one table satellite was completely foreign. to be fair it was pretty much the same with everybody else. There was a magical bonding experience at that tournament between the players. Your typical tv tournament today has a wife a girlfriend and a backer in the green room. Maybe. The first couple series of Late Night Poker were stuffed to the gills. The scene at the bar after the Devilfish won series #1 was a great moment of camraderie. And really, nobody in that first series knew each other. There was no Hendon Mob. The people I knew at that first series were Surindar, who I thought was a god as I'd seen him torture Phil Hellmuth 5 years previously in Atlantic City, Chip Winton, who I knew a bit from America and Amsterdam, Nic Szeremeta who'd invited me, and that might have been it. Sometimes now you see a great tournament and wonder if it will be as good on tv. then, with no experience, all we knew is that it was a great tournament. if you go back and watch the first series you will realize that it wasn't spectacular play. what it was was great editing, intensity, and drama. thats why it was great tv.

Hamish was a different class. he was just entering a phase of complete and utter domination when he died. I'm not even sure if NLH was his game, he was thrashing the PLO games around Europe. The bracelet he won in Limit Hold'em was completely crazy as well, as he could barely walk having just come down with the sickness which would take his life and had been completely ill leading up to the final. You never know what would have happened, but he was so ruthless with his poker management skills that you have to imagine he would be in the thick of it if he were still playing today.

Messyjay · 29-08-2007 4:36pm

carfax wrote:

Allez Scott Allez......Allez Scott Allez......It was one of the best atmospheres I can remember at a final table with Padraig absolutely berating Phil Helmuth whilst he was being interviewed in front of TV cameras.

Jesse, why the affinity with Irish poker? Is it just through your friendship with Padraig? I know you've answered this before saying that your first trip over here included Noel Furlong to your left and Alan Betson to your right but is there anything more to it?

Irish poker owes a lot to you for the way you promote it around the world.

Stephen Mc Lean.

Stephen, now I remember you were there. You must have been 12. I have some vague memory of you getting 3 handed in a one table satellite with two guys trying to chop you up and you slaughtered them. Yes, great year.

The whole thing about Irish poker is just a natural thing for me. The first thing I bought into is the history that was relayed to me from long times spent with Liam Flood. Liam did a lot of looking out for me when I needed some help during those lean times of the first few seasons of LNP. The history of Irish poker fits naturally into the psyche of the Irish poker player. I'm sure we can all appreciate how nice it is to meet someone at the bar and know that you are not going to hear a littany of bad beat stories. My love of Irish poker has more than anything to do with the philosophy of how most Irish approach the game. Serious about the game but not serious about the result. Respectful of other players. Honorable. You'd be quite happy to bring them home for dinner and introduce them to your wife. Even Aidan Bennett, who could be as crazy a soul as you'd ever encountered, is as nice a guy as you'd ever meet. The Irish bar at the WSOP was for years the only place to be. That was the only place in Vegas that you could really enjoy hanging out, for me from 2000 all the way through 2004. Everybody spilt through there at all times day and night.

Messyjay · 29-08-2007 5:08pm

Requiem4adream wrote:

1. Favourite drink ? 1a. Favourite pint?
2. Favourite movie? 2b. Favourite actress?
3. Favourite band?

If you won a huge event for life changing money would you quit commentary work or keep doing it? reasons?

1. Favourite drink ?

White Russian is the perfect Vegas drink - you can go for days

1a. Favourite pint?

Usually whatever the person next to me is having

2. Favourite movie?

Broadway Danny Rose/ Groundhog Day / The Cincinatti Kid

2b. Favourite actress?
The French Woman in Unbearable Lightness of Being is her name Juliette Binoche? Mariel Hemingway in Manhattan - Marilu Henner in Taxi

3. Favourite band?

Bob Dylan - though he's had many bands, no one else comes close

If you won a huge event for life changing money would you quit commentary work or keep doing it? reasons? I have no idea. I'd probably sit at home for a while. Who can say why we do anything? There's no question that for a long time all the commentary I did I would have done for free, and sometimes did. I'd like to think I would keep doing all the same things I do now, but the reality is that I'd probably stop drinking coffee, hire a team of psychologists, and expirement in brief bouts with strong hallucinogenic drugs.

It'd be nice to take a stab at setting up a professional poker tour along the right lines, but that would take more than one life changing sum of money.

bops · 29-08-2007 5:18pm

Hi Jessy!

Do you ever get to play live in Copenhagen? If so, would you recommend anywhere (besides Casino Copenhagen)

OK - your at an FT, your the BB with an average stack (say 15 BB's) - there's a couple of limpers and the SB completes...you look down at 88 - what do you do?

Cheers

Bops!

In The Well...............MessyJay

Comments