Ferguson. I, like many others, feel that Chris will make a great
representative for the poker world. Congratulations also to the
runner-up T.J. Cloutier for a gutsy performance. I felt the
disappointment for T.J. as I know sometimes, "it just isn't written" for
something to happen. T. J. put on a great come from behind charge that
fell dead by one card. I guess if there is any consolation for T.J., he did
walk away with almost a million dollars and a mantel of success in
becoming the all-time leading money winner at the World Series of
Poker. Some people say that is what it's really all about, "The Money."
Chris Ferguson, I am happy to say, is a good friend of mine. My wife is
always chiding me by saying, "Everybody is a good friend of yours." Not
that I ever lie, but maybe I do stretch the meaning of good when it come
to referring to my friends. In this case I actually am not stretching the
truth, because Chris is a good friend. One would be hard pressed not to
like Chris. He is low key, always polite, generally an agreeable guy-one
of the few players who never bleeds at the table.
One of my first thoughts after Chris won was that I should do an
interview with the new champ. I knew I would be seeing him back here
in California so I bided my time and a couple weeks after his big win, I
ran into him at one of the local tournaments.
I greeted him with the obligatory hug and congratulations. We talked a
while then I broached the subject of an interview. Chris, always the
gentleman, came up with the perfect reply, "Sure, anything you want to
do is fine." "Great," I said, "but you've already given some interviews.
Maybe we could so something different." Chris agreed that something
novel, out of the ordinary would be a good approach. We parted both
agreeing to think about it and talk later. We saw each other a few
times in the next couple of weeks and as expected, neither one of us
could come up with a novel new approach at an interview.
The more I pondered what sort of innovative questions I could ask, the
more I realized that part of my brain doesn't work very well. Finally,
one day a very simple idea hit me. I should ask for help. Why not enlist
the help of all my faithful readers. I would ask them to e-mail me all the
creative, innovative questions that I'm to dumb to think of. This also
would give a lot of players, who maybe get tired of hearing answers to
the same old questions they could care less about, a chance to ask
something that they think is important. Then Chris and I would sit down
and try to come up with what we (mostly he) thought were good
questions, and later one or maybe two of my upcoming columns would
be called something like, "Inquiring Minds Want to Know."
The next time Chris and I met, I excitedly ran my idea by him. He
paused for a second and said, "You must really be hard up for a column".
I said, "Yeah, that's true but what do you think of the idea?" After a
short pause, he laughed and said "Sure that's a good idea."
So here's your chance to be an interviewer and ask all the different,
unique questions that no one else ever seems to ask. You are now all
cordially invited to e-mail me any and all questions that you would like to
ask the new World Series of Poker Champ, Mr. Chris Ferguson.
For what it's worth ...
