Jackpot Jay Gets All Sweaty About WSOP; Gets Put Into Place

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ESPN’s resident poker neb, “Jackpot” Jay Lovinger, is gearing up for the World Series of Poker and is hoping the tournament shows him exactly how far he’s come with a year’s worth of constant playing under his belt. However, ever the inquisitve one, Jay solicited advice from longtime poker slag Russell Rosenblum who bitch-slapped him back into place via e-mail:

Sorry to say this, but there is no worse metric of how far you have come than the main event of the WSOP. Imagine a baseball player picking a single at-bat in the ninth inning of the seventh game of the World Series against a pitcher he has never seen – live or on tape – to define his whole season. Now consider that a great hitter may get a hit one out of three at-bats, while even the greatest poker player will not make the final table anywhere near that in these fields.

So, you heard it. It takes a lot to be the Francisco Cabrera, a seldom used pinch hitter who drove in the winning run against the Pittsburgh Pirates in game 7 of the 1992 NLCS, of poker. And even after that, well, you still could be the Francisco Cabrera of poker.

Jackpot Jay column [ESPN.com]