Are Melbourne Breaching The Poker Salary Cap?

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This whole NRL salary cap scandal with the Melbourne Storm has overwhelmed the entire nation over the past week. I think as poker players we need to keep on top of this and ask ourselves if Melbourne poker players are also in breach of the salary cap?

Now I know there is no such thing as a salary cap in poker because, well, there are no teams, it is an individual sport, but still, the amount of talented poker players down in Melbourne is ridiculous. A lot of people have said that just by looking at the Storm’s lineup we should have been able to know that they were over the salary cap. Surely the same can be said about the list of poker players who ply their trade down in Melbourne. We should make these guys move around to other cities just so that we can even up where the winners come from!

Let’s look at those who play under the Melbourne banner. There are a host of PokerStars sponsored players down there including 2005 World Champion Joe Hachem, his brother, ANZPT superstar, Tony Hachem as well as former male model and EPT London runner up Emad Tahtouh.

The capital of Victoria is also where Jay “SEABEAST” Kinkade, one of the most successful online tournament poker players since the dawn of time, now calls home. Throw in other form players such as Kristian “BadaBing” Lunardi and Chris “Minesony” Evans and dozens of respected players like Bruno Portaro and the godparents of poker Dom and Angie Italiano, and you could only wonder how this city can keep underneath the salary cap with such a cavalcade of stars!

What about the high profile third party agreement between Full Tilt Poker and Van Marcus? Did Van organise this deal himself or did the City of Melbourne act on his behalf? Has this deal been made clear to the necessary governing bodies of Australian Poker and does this amount see Melbourne poker players as a whole being far too valuable?

Even with this many players you may try to argue that Melbourne is not over the salary cap. But how on Earth do you justify the high profile player transfer of Jarred ‘FlopNutsOnYou’ Graham, who left the highly regarded city of Adelaide to join Melbourne last year? You can’t! The guy wins literally every tournament or cash game that he plays in and just miraculously decides to leave his family and friends behind and move over to Melbourne! There must have been some kind of shady ‘underbelly’ style of deal made to lure him over. The whole situation reeks of brown paper bags! Somebody send an auditor down to Melbourne quick smart! Melbourne must be in breach of this salary cap!

I demand that all players from Melbourne, just like those at the Storm, be forced to play in every poker tournament left this season and not be able to win any money regardless of where they finish. 

Of course this will not happen, because it is a stupid, stupid suggestion. There is no salary cap in poker it is an individual ‘sport’. I am just jealous because when you compare the list of quality poker players from my home town Sydney to the other cities in Australia we fall depressingly short. I was just trying to cause a stir in the hope that some of these guys (most of who are in this city at the moment for the Sydney leg of the ANZPT) might decide that they should share the talent around and move themselves up to Sydney permanently. What do you say Hach? If you need somewhere to stay there is plenty of room on my couch.

This article is a little bit of fun and poker players who were mentioned were only mentioned because I wish I was at least half as talented as they are.