Jerry Yang: What We Needed
What a gracious winner!
You want to talk about the real deal, Jerry Yang is the real deal. This guy took down the 2007 WSOP after several bad beats and ended his showing with a ton of class and humility. He was real, genuine, and gracious in victory. You couldn’t ask for a better winner ever!
The poker world was just infused with a great champion and embassador that everyone can admire and truly look at as a role model. Poker needed Jerry Yang desperately to bring class, dignity, and how to handle yourself at the table.
Half of the hold’em regulars are simply horrible sports and players. Most of them are flat out punks. Look at how trashy the table becomes when Mike “The Mouth” sits down or the incessant whining and crying Phil Hellmuth brings. Fade back to the young brat Eric Molina who desperately needed parent supervision and his square off against the elder, similar Jaime Gold and his blatant disregard for table rules and manners.
I’m tired of seeing tables full of guys that start cursing because someone called them with QJ. Its great to watch a humble guy come in and show a lot of grace and then trump all the Josh Ariehs and other punks of the poker world.
There are a few true class acts like Dan Harrington who genuinely display the type of sportsmanship needed, but not enough.
Throwing in a guy like the ultra deserving Jerry Yang is a breath of fresh air. Forget that he just topped a field of over 2,000. Listen to the struggles he has overcome and how he now wants to use his position and earnings to help others. He thanked everyone he possibly could and couldn’t have been any more real about the whole situation.
Jerry Yang, you are a class act in the truest since. Poker needed you almost as much as you wanted to win. I’m extremely happy for you and you are a great example that everyone - including non-poker fans - should admire and boast of.
In a society where the negatives parade media headlines, you are the one of a kind gem I want to see on center stage.
You just set us forward 10 years.
Congratulations 2007 WSOP champ Jerry Yang!
published by sportsblog.ws