Lee Davy wants to know why the most influential ambassadors in the poker community aren’t combining their strength and lobbying power to help hundreds of thousands of Americans play online poker.
How did a writer manage before social media was created?
It must have been such a hard job.
Today, when you are struggling for something to write about, you just browse through Twitter. Pick up a few notable poker players. Find a story. Write about it.
Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy.
I always check Phil Hellmuth’s Twitter. I never check Dan Colman’s. I always check Daniel Negreanu’s. I never check Philipp Gruissem’s. All four of them are professional poker players. All four of them have completely different values and beliefs. They all have strengths. They all have weaknesses.
Philipp Gruissem visited Uganda to see first hand how the donations he was raising through Raising for Effective Giving (REG) were being put to work. Dan Colman recently did likewise in Central America with the One Drop Foundation.
Hellmuth and Negreanu also dig deep into their charitable pockets. But there is also a celebrity role that they both play that neither Gruissem nor Colman are interested in. Negreanu was recently snapped on the red carpet, alongside Maria Ho, at the One Night for One Drop special event at The Mirage. Hellmuth was spotted hanging out with Floyd Mayweather.
This morning, Sky Sports lead with the headline: “Floyd Mayweather ‘destroying’ sparring partners as he prepares for Manny Pacquiao.”
I hope Hellmuth wasn’t in that queue, although by the look of this photo I think he might have been.
PIC: @FloydMayweather and PH pic.twitter.com/nZeTWzGICc
— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) March 21, 2015
Daniel Negreanu won the Best Ambassador Award at the recent American Poker Awards (APA). It made me wonder what the job description was?
Mike Sexton stood on that same stage and said that poker gives more money to charity than any other sport in the world.
When Daniel Colman paints his name on an old El Salvadorian wall, alongside a child who is smiling because he now has water, he is being an ambassador for poker.
When Philipp Gruissem plays in the dirt with a Ugandan child that has a deadly tapeworm inside his belly, he is being an ambassador for poker.
When Daniel Negreanu stands in front of the flashing camera lenses, on that red carpet, he is being an ambassador for poker.
When the Floyd Mayweather YouTube channel interviews Phil Hellmuth, and all he does is talk about his back stage shenanigans with Floyd and 50 Cent, he is still being an ambassador for poker.
But what are they doing about the Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA)?
I know.
I heard the needle scraping.
What is anyone doing about it?
I am just passing through this town.
If the residents want to stay, then they need to be fighting for their livelihoods. I watched Selma the other day. It made me think. Why aren’t poker players marching towards Capitol Hill?
If we really are saving so many lives through our charitable donations then why isn’t that being slapped on a banner, being thrust into the hands of Phil Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu, and waved proudly in the air in a demonstration against those trying to kill poker.
Now that’s seems like something that’s included in an ‘ambassadorial’ job description if you ask me.
“Do you have anything to promote?” the interviewer asked Hellmuth on an interview that could be tweeted to over 5.6 million people.
“I am selling these PH hats,” said Hellmuth.
Please pick up that banner and march.
