Really Big Bet Poker

It's just talk so far, but it might turn out to be the biggest poker game the world has yet seen.

Last May, Texas banker Andy Beal played in a $100,000-$200,000 limit hold'em game at Bellagio. Apparently, he is piqued about "fish stories" about that game that appeared in the New York Daily News. In response, Beal issued a challenge, printed in the pages of Card Player, to Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, Todd Brunson, Jennifer Harman, Howard Lederer, Chau Giang, Barry Greenstein, Ted Forrest, Gus Hansen, Lee Salem, John Hennigan, Ming La, Lyle Berman, Phil Ivey, Johnny Chan, and Hamid Dastmalchi:

Call me naïve (I've been called worse), but I believe that I am the favorite in a heads-up limit high-stakes game against most of you. For the record, I challenge you to put up or shut up about your "professional play." Come to Dallas and play me for four hours a day and I will play until one of us runs out of money or cries uncle. If your play is so great and your wins have been as large as you claim, you should have plenty of bankroll and be jumping at the chance to come and play another $100,000-$200,000 game and win a lot more money. I should add that you can bring your own independent dealers and your own cards, and can play in a different location of your choice every day if you wish. You should provide a slate of any six or more of the above players and I will pick from your slate who plays. Observers should be free to attend in order to record exactly what happens at this game, so it won't turn into another fisherman's story.

Observers may not realize, wrote Paul Phillips about this challenge, that this is a poorly disguised attempt to bust the corporation via variance. . ("The corporation" is the syndicate of players who pooled their money to take Beal on at Bellagio.) That is to say, Beal might be using his deep pockets as a weapon against the corporation: he might not have an edge in the game, but he can take them on without risk of ruin. The corporation players, on the other hand, might be risking everything they have for the sake of their competitive advantage.

Doyle Brunson has just responded to Beal's throwing of the gauntlet by throwing down a gauntlet of his own:

As far as your challenge goes, we concede that you have more money than all of us put together. So, why would we want to get into a $100,000-$200,000 game in which we would be underfunded? We are pros, and we know the disadvantage of this. So, here is what we propose:

1. We will raise a $40 million bankroll and post it along with yours. (Everything is contingent on raising the money, but I think it is very realistic that we can expand and raise it.)

2. We will play 30K-60K. If either side loses half of its post-up money, it can raise the stakes to $50,000-$100,000. There is an old axiom that applies here: Get out the way you got in!

3. We will choose who plays and when.

4. We prefer to play in Vegas, the gambling capital of the world. Most of us live here, and what would we do in Dallas when we weren't playing? This is negotiable. The first three points aren't.

Andy, I'm chuckling as I write this closing paragraph. If Bill Gates came to Dallas and wanted to flip coins for $100 million per flip for four hours a day until one of you ran out of money or cried uncle, would you do it? My money says you would decline.

Yes, $30K-$60K (and $50K-$100K) is a smaller betting limit than $100K-$200K. But an 80-million-dollar freezeout ... !

Part of me is saying "wow!" And another part of me is thinking that $40 million is a lot of money to risk on what amounts to a pissing contest, and maybe there are better things to do with that money.