People have been collecting sports and entertainment memorabilia for ages. Most of us have at least one item in our homes that has some special meaning, be it historic or just personal, even if that meaning stems from what someone else did with that item. A homerun baseball, a musician’s guitar pick, a prop from a movie…a pair of plastic bags? Those first three would appear to be pretty normal, fun pieces of memorabilia to most, but how about a couple obscure items from poker history? If a New Jersey man has his way, someone will pay a lot of money for some very ordinary looking items.
Scott Neuman, who goes by the screen name “kickyourace” online, has put the bags that contained the chips of Peter Eastgate and Ivan Demidov prior to their heads-up battle in the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event up for sale on eBay. His asking price: $15,000 plus $55.75 shipping.
In his extensive listing, Neuman says that he acquired the bags when the WSOP auctioned them off for charity, though he does not say how much he paid for them. He says that he will use the proceeds from his eBay sale to buy-in to WSOP and “World Poker” (presumably World Poker Tour) events. Neuman also states that while there is no guarantee that he will cash in any event, “If you buy the bags, and I go and play any of the coming events from this money and cash in the event. I’ll give you a bonus that is completely up to me.”
When the inevitable questions arose about that “bonus” promise, Neuman responded on Two Plus Two, “As for the bonus, paypal and Ebay no longer allows a player to ask for direct sponsors but the buyer will get a killer bonus and as anyone that knows me can state, when I’ve accepted backing and I’ve cashed, I paid out in full within 12 hours.”
In encouraging people to buy the bags, Neuman claims, “I’ve certainly final tabled or gone very deep in over 100 events in small and bigger paying events including Harrahs, The Borgata, Mandalay Bay, Stars, Party, Ongame, and Full Tilt. There is an expectation that I will do well. I CAN NOT PROMISE I WILL CASH. No one can but in 2010, FTP had me ranked in the top 99% of a million players for tournament play. In 2012 and 2013, I’m probably having my best tournament results. My game has gotten better as I learn and grow.”
Looking at his documented tournament record, this does seem like a bit of resume puffing. TheHendonMob.com shows a total of just six live tournament cashes for Neuman, two of which were in the WSOP. The biggest was a $14,454 cash from a 40th place finish in a $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em event at this year’s World Series. PocketFives shows him as having $92,051 in lifetime online cashes; he reached 3,197th in the site’s worldwide rankings in 2010, which is fairly solid, though he is no longer ranked (which is understandable for a U.S. resident in the post-Black Friday world).
As a point of comparison for this sale, the actual final hand of the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event (won by Chris Moneymaker), as well as the rest of the deck of cards, was up for auction on eBay in July. The selling started the bidding at $5,000 and received no bids.
Neuman said on Twitter that he has received offers in the “mid four figures” for the chip bags but turned them down.
“FTP had me ranked in the top 99% of a million players for tournament play?”
Must be an extremely bad player. Sounds better than bottom 1%, though :-)
Or he’s very good but extremely modest.