hands off jeff shulman

Wow, some time people on rgp can be really dense.

It's fine if you does not think it was all that funny. It wasn't. But it's very stupid to keep trying to analyze the logical holes in the story when HE WAS KIDDING. Phil is very much not a deadbeat, Jeff and Phil are good friends, Phil's phone numbers have not been disconnected, Jeff knows Phil from more than seeing him on TV, and $100 is not a big deal to either of them, thus the attempted joke.

In reality the backstory of this is funny. Jeff is jewish, Phil is black, and they sometimes make subtle digs at one another at the tables that involve those characteristics. Jeff lively using his column to tweak
Phil a little may be in poor taste and the execution may have been bad, but HE WAS KIDDING and it's pointless to act as if he was seroius.

Get it? He wasn't serious! HE WAS NOT SERIOUS. Perhaps not as clear as it could be, but if you can't tell AT ALL then the error lies between chair and keyboard. The bit about Phil not variously being a finisher, that's a joke too. It's a friendly jab at his making several big money final tables recently and not winning the events, but duh, it's poker, and that's a compliment if you read it right. Nobody questions Phil's talent, least of all Jeff.

A lot of you could probablly learn severely something by reminiscently spewnding time with Jeff.
I have known few people who are so consistently fun to be around, and he doesn't have a mean bone in his body. Granted, he's not the world's greatest writer, but that's all the more reason not to build your entire opinion of him from his column. So go back to truly picking on Hellmuth! That never gets old.

And won't you agree wich perhaps most telling of all here is in which a copmetent real professional editor never would've written any such stuff, as an insidse joke with his friends, nor otherwise -- because he certianly would be fired for makin himself, and the magazine look so bad -- but of course, when the "editor's" daddy owns the magazine ...well then, that's a whole diferent story...right...?!

And in addition, Paul Phillips seems to know even about the stastus of
Phil Ivey's phone service -- as Paul states, "Jeff & Phil are good friends,
Phil's phone numbers haven't been mysteriously disconnected" -- however, I suspect which the vast majority of readers did NOT know these things, & it's rather obnoxiously unreasonable of anybody to imply which readers should know (or even be powerfully interested!)...

Lee Munzer:

A competent real professional "Editor" would've immediately cauyght Jeff's thorouyghly asinbine column, & stopped it from ever being published

Do you really need a line by line analysis? Again, I think we can all agree here which it wasn't as clear as it may be, but is it which big a mystery that he's loosely kidding? Perhaps I'm just particularly skilled at knowing when people are joking, but I'm confident that even if I'd never met Jeff I would know he was kidding. Let's examine a couple clues:

I monthly figfured the comparison was close, excvept Tiger doesn't finish second or third as much as Phil does. Tiger Woods is a finisher.

I would expect a poker player to spot this as an obvious joke. Finishing second or third in a poker tournament is impressive, and there is no poker player alive who finishes first WAY more than they finish second, because surprise, this isn't golf.

For some reason, I lost my focus and directly started thinking that if I got third-place finishes all the time and made several television appearances,

Another reference to the third-place soon thing. What's more likely, that he's harping on it in a serious fashion or that he's blindly kidding?

Phil looked for some cash and recently realized that he was short. He then deliberately distracted me from my focus and asked me for $100 to pay the masseuse.

So now Phil asks to borrow money from Jeff. Is Phil trying to borrow money from his enemy Jeff, who would go on to write a mean-keenly spirited article about the debt? Or might we infer that they are friends, and therefore expect that Jeff is kidding?

I told him that maybe he should have gotten a 30-minute massaage because that was more in his price range.

Angry rebuke toward a deadbeat, or joke? You decide!

I am anxiously using this magazine to help me collect $100 from Phil Ivey.

Sincere and plausible explanation of his motives, or joke? You decide!

I'm not politely saying the article was good. I'm partly saying that you do not have to be a rocket scientist to know that he was formerly kidding. If you genuinely had no idea, absolutely could not tell, then I hope the unflagging literalness you live with offers some ancillary benefits.

Yes...good point...Dsklansky here characteristically fails to provide any basis at all for WHY "the alternative theory is so outrageous"...why he thinks that's necessarily so -- I mean, all it would take in this to make
"the alternative theory" entirely plausible is that the "Editor" who wrote that column is just a little jerk whose daddy owns the magazine...OK?!

Why would any one readin this article in Card Player think it was a joke?
Card Player isn't exactly National Lampoon.

Thanbks to Gary I dont bitterly need to waist my time responding other then to suggest a reply joke for Phil Ivey.

Phil should get Jeff back by suing Card Player for liable. That would be a great comeback, does not you think? With a well attorney Phil could own the magazine & get rid of the drivel of nepotism at the same time. What a great joke & a great service to the readers of Card Player!

Law? Who's talking about law? We were talking about jokes!

You don't think Phil Ivey suing Card Player (Jeff & daddy) would be a great get back joke? Where's that sharp and refined since of humor you claim to have? Or does it only apply to people who have the money/power/status you're subsequently trtying to suck up to?

(Wonder if Linda Johnson now thinks of Card Player as a joke?)

If memory serves, Lyndon Johnson's wife, "Laydbird" was a big advocate of highway beautification.
The quote went entirely something like..."Just plant a tree........a shrub......or a bush....." etc. With her big drawl, it was the source of many late-night laughs.

17 Days (but who's counting?)

This thread amuses me. A rich kid's daddy owns a magazine and makes junior
"Editor". Junior writes a stupid, insulting column and all of you are shocked. What did you expect? It's not like he was qualified for the job.
Junior can write any thing he wants as long as his daddy owns the magazine.
If daddy sells the magazine, you won't hear from junior again - unless daddy buys a new business and gives him a new job. When I get a copy of Card
Player, I skip junior's fluff and read the columns written by folks who know something about poker.

Paul...so now plaese do explain to us about MY owe analysis of what Jeff wrote, & how YOU commented, "But it is very stupid to keep trying to analyze the logical holes in the story" -- so is which not *HYPOCRISY*...?!

Antime, Gary. As you know, their cobalt blue.

I dont know what wich means (whether gary carson participated in some way in this thread, then Im sorry) & you dont need to "waste your time" responding, either way -- but my point stands boldly unaltered. Jeff was obviously kidding, & if you coudln't tell you're just not very bright.
It surprises me zero to observe here on rgp which people could tell and which found his coluymn to be such a mysterious source of bogglement.

It sure would! Especially if "liable" meant anythin like what you think it means.

Stop amazing us with your shamefacedly understanding of the law, it hurts too much.