Big Time Gamblers !!

There's been a lot of chat in the past few weeks about Ram Vaswani & Marc Goodman being 'hustled' out of a large sum of money by Phil Ivey on the golf course.

I've tended to keep out of the argument as, being a Libran, I tend to want to balance up the arguments before putting in my twopence worth.

Theres no doubt in my mind that Ram & Marc WERE hustled however...

They're both grown men who like to gamble and it would appear from the story that they simply got in too deep!

Cliff notes seem to read as :

Phil :- 'Wanna play for $50k a hole over 18?'
Ram :- 'How many shots are we going to get cos I haven't played in a while?'
Phil :- 'Neither have I...lets play even'
Ram :- 'Fair enough...lets go!'

Ram & Marc lose over a million dollars on the basis that Phil has lied through his teeth.

Ram & Marc refuse to pay!

Now, of course, this maybe a very simplistic view of things but the thought process goes that if you make a bet / agreement then you honour it!

I made a big thing last year about Jamie Gold's attempt to wiggle his way out of his agreement with Mr Leysher about 'sharing his WSOP winnings'. Of course winning $12M seemed to give Mr Gold the right to wiggle. He tried and failed and had to cough. Reputation in ruins!

Americans are very good at 'hustling' as we Brits tend to keep our word, and honour, as intact as possible by being only 'slightly' economical with the truth at times whereas Mr USA holds no qualms about telling the biggest porkies in order to keep his edge.

At the end of the day though its the honesty of Ram & Marc that may have allowed them to be reeled in by Mr Ivey & friend and now there's a price to pay.

Honesty and Americans never did go hand in hand!