WSOP Chip Bet

This one time, at band camp BARGE, after Greg Raymer had won the World Series of Poker main event, both he and "Jesus" Ferguson were present. Jesus brought with him a bunch of custom poker chips that had his face on them. He was generously giving them away to BARGErs.

I grabbed one of those custom chips and took it over to Greg, asking him to write on it "To D.H., Chris". In the spirit of BARGE1, once I explained why I wanted it so inscribed, he cheerfully did so.

My plan was to prominently use the chip as a card protector and see if I could find a fellow BARGEr to comment on it in any way. Once the ball was rolling, I'd try to maneuver the conversation to the point where I could say something about having the chip signed by the current2 WSOP champion.

At least in my mind, the pigeon would then respond with something akin to, "No, he won a few years ago" or "No, that's the 2000 World Champion." My goal was to—after a little back and forth—make a bet along the lines of "The winner of the main event in the World Series of Poker for the year 2004 wrote the inscription on this chip." And since he's at BARGE, we'll ask him and he'll verify.

Alas, this being BARGE, I was drinking. Before I knew it, the "signed" chip was gone. Presumably, I mistakenly treated it as a real chip and used it to call, bet or fold, inadvertently shorting the pot and preventing my r00l.




1

What I describe here is (attempted) hijinks between friends. The goal would have been for the bet amount to be just enough to cause the victim to sting from embarrassment, with an ear full of cider.

2

Or perhaps it was the prior year's; it's been too long or me to remember exactly which BARGE this occurred at, but my guess is