Even people not associated with the poker world have heard of The Cincinnati Kid, the movie where Steve McQueen, as Eric Stoner, "The Kid," tried to take down Edward G. Robinson's Lancey Howard, "The Man," in a high stakes five-card stud game. The Kid outplays The Man most of the way, and is on the verge of breaking him, when The Man wins the final huge pot making a straight flush to beat The Kid's full house.

What most average movie watchers don't know, of course, is that the final hand, the big confrontation between "The Kid" and "The Man" could never have been played that way by two good poker players, never mind two great poker players. It still made for good theatre, and besides, there was Ann Margaret to keep things interesting during the non-poker scenes.

Today, April 30, 2001, in the $3,000 entry Limit Hold'em Championship at the World Series of Poker, Jim Lester, a Cincinnati native who was playing $100-200 poker at age 14 and, I "kid" you not, $1,000-2,000 poker when he was 16, won the title, thanks in large degree to a catching a big hand against a guy who is The Man in Texas Hold'em, not in age, but in WSOP bracelets, with seven of them, Phil Hellmuth, Jr. I guess this gives the real life sequel to the real life Cincinnati Kid.

192 players started this tournament, and when we started play at the final table, the seats and chip counts were:

As I reported yesterday, Hellmuth's appearance at the final table was a minor miracle, because he had been so short-chipped earlier in the day. It turned out that Lester's appearance was another minor miracle, because he had been down to six $500 chips with four tables to go.

With a start like that, it isn't surprising, in retrospect, that Mike Shi nearly outlasted chip monster Paul Ladanyi, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's see how the action went down.

We started play with 43 minutes left on the clock at the $2,000-4,000 blind level, playing $4,000-8,000. This gave the short stacks little time to find a hand or make a move.

EVERYONE GOT A SEAT? GOOD, LET'S START WITH A BANG

I recorded every single hand in this tournament (don't worry, I won't torture you with each and every one), and my entry for Hand #1 got us off to a flying start.

Phi Nguyen, on the button, brought the hand in for a raise, and Hung La three-bet his Vietnamese countryman from the small blind. Alphons, a Swiss player (this table had a very international flavor: Shi is Chinese, Ladanyi from Hungary, and Brenes is from Costa Rica) called two bets cold from the big blind, and Nguyen also called, putting $36,000 into the pot before anyone could settle comfortably into his chair.

The flop came a moderately scary 10h-9c-8d, La bet right out, and both opponents folded, a good move as La turned over pocket aces for a $24,000 stack increase in one hand. Now that's how to start a final table.

The shortest stack, Shi, more than doubled through when Ladanyi raised hand 3 and Shi called all-in. A-J for Ladanyi, A-Q for Shi, a queen hit the flop, and Shi had a tiny bit of breathing room.

La raised hand 12, got no callers, and showed A-A for the second time. Bob Thompson joked that we were sure there were only four aces in the deck.

JACKS NOT SO NIMBLE FOR NGUYEN

Nguyen, who had started as one of the chip leaders, continued a quick slide when he brought hand 14 in for a raise, only to get 3-bet by Alphons. He called, the flop came Ah-9d-6s, Nguyen bet out, Alphons raised all-in, and Nguyen called. K-K for Alphons, J-J for Nguyen, a King hit the turn to seal matters, and Alphons had doubled through.

Hellmuth, who was playing tight, looked a little wistfully at all these pocket pairs, as if to say, "Where are my pocket aces?" (I guess he wouldn't have wanted Nguyen's pocket jacks, at least not when Nguyen got them), but he finally got involved on hand 17 when he raised, Nguyen called, the flop came A-Q-7, Hellmuth bet, Nguyen raised to put Hellmuth all-in, and Phil called. A-5 for Hellmuth, K-7 for Nguyen, and Hellmuth would up making an unnecessary nut flush when a fourth heart hit the board on the end.

Ladanyi, who came in owning nearly a third of the chips, continued a slide of his own on hand 19 when Alphons bet out at a 10c-Jh-Kc flop, Ladanyi raised, and Alphons called. The Jc hit the turn and the Qc the river, with Alphons leading out each time and Ladanyi calling each time. Alphons turned over Ac-Kd for a royal flush, and Ladanyi tossed his hand away with the look of a man who had flopped two pair, probably with K-10.

Nguyen's slide straight downhill ended on hand 25, when he brought the hand in for a raise, Alphons called two bets cold, and Brenes, looking colorful and patriotic in a red, white and blue Costa Rica sweatshirt and hat, 3-bet the hand.

DANGER, WIL ROBINSON!

Too bad that robot from Lost in Space wasn't around. A 3-bet from a strong player like Brenes after a raise and a cold call would have had him flailing his arms and yelling, "Danger, Wil Robinson." Everyone called, despite the danger, and the flop came 8c-6c-5c. Everyone checked to Brenes, who bet, with Nguyen calling and Alphons deciding discretion was the better part of valor. The 8d hit the turn, Brenes checked, Nguyen pushed in his last $7,000, and Brenes called. Ad-Kc for Nguyen, Qs-Qc for Brenes, but he dodged the better flush draw when a harmless 7h hit the river, and Nguyen was out 9th at 4:50 p.m.

A couple hands later, Ladanyi raised again, and got three-bet by La from the small blind. Ladanyi called, the flop came 8c-8h-3d, La bet right out, Ladanyi raised, La re-raised and Ladanyi called. La bet his last $3,000 in the dark, and Ladanyi called. A-A for La, the third time he'd held the hand in the game's first three rounds, and A-Q for the fast falling Ladanyi, who'd run into pocket aces on hand 26, too. He slammed his hand flat on the table when he saw La's hand, in an understandable non-verbal "How many times am I going to be up against aces today?" gesture.

Lester made a big move by check-raising and winning both hands 29 and 30, hurting Ly on the first hand and Alphons even worse on the second, where the action went all the way to the river.

We'd played 30 hands in the first 43 minutes, and Ladanyi's chip lead was gone, with most of his chips, albeit indirectly, now in Lester's stack. The blinds moved to $3,000-6,000, playing $6,000-12,000.

POCKET ROCKETS STRIKE AGAIN

Pocket aces reared their ugly (or pretty, depending on your point of view) head again on hand 37, when Mihn Ly (the Las Vegas version; there's another good player with exactly the same name in California, I think one of them is going to have pick or get a nickname) opened for a raise, Lester 3-bet from the big blind, and Ly called. The flop came 4h-7s-Jh, Lester bet out, and Ly called. Another jack hit on the turn, Lester again led out, but this time Ly raised. Lester thought about it, but called, and both players checked when the 6s hit the river. Lester showed his aces, and Ly mucked. Lester was now the clear chip leader, with more than $125,000.

We lost Alphons, who played gamely but called a few too many double raises cold for my liking, when he raised under the gun on hand 41, Ly 3-bet him, and Alphons raised his last $3,000 all-in. A-10 for Alphons, A-K for Ly, the board came Q-5-3-K-3, and we were seven-handed at 5:30.

Ladanyi dropped to $57,000 on hand 45, and for a moment it looked like the impossible was going to happen and the monster chip leader exit early when he hooked up with Brenes on the very next hand. Ladanyi raised, and Brenes called from the big blind. Brenes bet out on the Qs-4h-10h flop, and Ladanyi called. Another four hit on the turn, Brenes again bet out, and Ladanyi raised, with only $15,000 left in his stack. If Brenes had a real hand, Ladanyi was gone, but Alex mucked, and Ladanyi had a playable stack again.

WHO'S THAT TALL, QUIET GUY IN SEAT SIX?

Hellmuth had mostly been missing in action during these early stages, waiting for some kind of hand with his short stack, and he found one on the next hand, raising from the button with Ly calling from the big blind. The flop came As-2h-Qh, Ly checked, Hellmuth tossed his last $4,000 into the pot, and Ly declined. Hellmuth showed 10-10.

Lester, who had become the table bully, raised hand 52, and Hellmuth popped him back, putting his last seven chips out on the table as if assuming that Lester was going to raise him essentially all-in, but Lester did something very few initial raisers do when they get 3-bet: he laid the hand down, probably because Hellmuth had been in such a tight gear. Hellmuth showed Q-Q, and now had enough chips to start putting his foot on the accelerator, the way he likes to play.

He hit the gas two hands later, but didn't find anyone else who wanted to drag, so he took the blinds uncontested, and then he started playing some of those mind games that unnerve some opponents and annoy others. On hand 59, Shi raised Hellmuth's big blind, and Phil started giving him "the stare." A look at Shi, then a look down at his own cards, back at Shi, back down at his own cards, back at Shi, and then he finally said, "For some reason, I think you're a little weak, but I don't have anything of my own," and he tossed his cards away.

Shi, unlike so many players who give away unnecessary free information in situations like this, didn't cooperate by showing Hellmuth his hand: he just tossed it into the muck as he collected the pot.

"YOU ARE GETTING SLEEPY… VERY SLEEPY…."

Hellmuth collected the next one on the turn, though, and suddenly his stack had hit $72,000, real money in this game, when the mind games recommenced when Shi raised Hellmuth's big blind again on hand 66. Phil gave him the stare, said, "This time I read more strength," but called. The flop came K-5-9, Hellmuth bet right out, and Shi folded.

Hellmuth raised the very next hand out of the small blind, and Brenes called from the big blind. The flop came Qd-10c-9h, Hellmuth bet straight out, Brenes raised, and Hellmuth folded. Brenes turned over 8-5 offsuit, apparently having sensed that Hellmuth had gone into "take over the table" gear. "Oh, man, I had him drawing dead, I had king-eight," Hellmuth said.

"Why didn't you try to read him?" asked someone.

"I didn't bother because I figured when he called me before the flop, he had me beat," Hellmuth said. "I can't imagine him playing 8-5 against me there."

At hand 71, I estimated the chips at

Shi, $25,000
La, $25,000
Lester, $160,000
Hellmuth, $60,000
Brenes, $80,000
Ly, $66,000
Paul "Ebb and Flow" Ladanyi $160,000

Brenes grabbed $30,000 from Ladanyi on the next hand, hence my nickname for Ladanyi, who now resides in Malibu, where he gets, I suppose, to see the Pacific tides ebb and flow more slowly than his chips were.

A WAKE-UP CALL FROM BOB THOMPSON

As hand 76 was being dealt, Tournament Director Bob Thompson announced that we had eleven minutes left at the $6,000-12,000 level, at which point we'd take a break, and then come back playing with $5,000-10,000 blinds, playing $10,000-20,000. Although all the players knew the structure before they sat down, and all had to be sensing the round was nearing its end, I wondered if this announcement would spur anyone into playing faster, in an effort to pick up some chips before the limits got out of hand.

Apparently I wasn't the only one to have had the same thought.

Hellmuth raised the next hand, La re-raised all-in, and Hellmuth called. 8-8 for La, A-10 for Hellmuth, and the board came down 4-Q-7-9-10, sending La out in seventh place.

Two hands later, the other fast guy pushed. Lester raised from the button, and Hellmuth looked at him briefly, and then looked over at Brenes, sitting in the big blind. Hellmuth looked left and right again, said, "OK, I'll throw away the best hand," and folded. Brenes called.

The flop came 4d-6s-8s, Alex checked, Lester bet, Alex raised, Lester raised, Alex raised, and Lester called. The 2c hit the turn, Alex checked, Lester bet, and Alex called. The 3s hit the river, completing a flush if Alex had been on a draw, and Alex bet straight out. Despite the huge pot, Lester released his hand.

SAY "LESTER RAISES" THREE TIMES FAST

Lester raised the very next hand, and took the blinds. Lester raised (sense a pattern?) the very next hand, but this time Hellmuth 3-bet, with Lester calling. The flop came 2s-9c-4s, Lester checked, Hellmuth bet, and Lester called. When the 7h hit the turn, Lester checked again, Hellmuth bet again, and Lester let it go.

Lester had lost a ton of chips in three hands, even while winning one of them.

We returned from the break at 6:45, with six players now contending at the vastly higher limit, and the chip counts were

Shi, $20,000
Lester, $97,000
Hellmuth, $120,000
Brenes, $140,000
Ly, $58,000
Ladanyi $130,000

Hand One after the break proved to be even more action-packed than Hand One of the tournament, and I think it was one of the key hands of the tournament.

THE KID'S REMATCH AGAINST THE MAN

Lester raised out of the small blind, and Hellmuth re-raised, with Lester calling, putting $60,000 in the pot pre-flop. The flop came 6s-Jc-5c, Lester bet, and Hellmuth called. $80,000 in the pot. The 9h hit the turn, Lester bet, Hellmuth raised, pushing two $20,000 towers into the pot, and Lester re-raised all-in for his last $17,000. Yikes! J-9 for Lester, two pair, and Hellmuth had no outs with his A-K. The Cincinnati Kid had The Man, this time.

Lester had grabbed a big chip lead with $194,000, and Hellmuth was on fumes at $23,000. On the very next hand, Lester raised from the button, Hellmuth re-raised all-in from the small blind, and Lester called. 3s-3c for Lester, 10s-10d for Phil, and the board came Ac-4c-Qc-blank-club. Lester had made a flush with the random trey and four clubs on the board, and Hellmuth was gone.

THIS TIME, THE OTHER GUY PROVIDES THE CONTROVERSY

Hellmuth, who had a history of stormy exits in his younger days, just inhaled his lips, exhaled, patted the table, and wished everyone good luck. I mention this not to chronicle a non-event (i.e., a non-tantrum) but because I then witnessed something I'd never seen in covering about 70 WSOP final tables, which meant it was something I'd never seen in watching more than 500 people get busted out of a World Series event.

The guy who busted Hellmuth out, Lester, called across the table with what most observers at the time thought was a taunt: "Hey, Phil, don't put me in your column for making a bad play." I had never seen the winner taunt someone who had busted out of a tournament before. Hellmuth glowered, but merely said softly, "Pretty funny, Jim," accepted his money, and left.

Max Shapiro and I converged on Lester about this after the tournament was over, the first question we each wanted to ask. "No, I didn't mean it as a needle, although he took it that way" he said. "I put a real bad beat on Phil with twelve players left last night, raising with 7-8 offsuit and staying in the hand and eventually making a straight on the end. I knew that when I put my money in, I was beat."

"It was a bad play to stay in," he continued, "Phil said it and I knew it, but I stayed in because I had no interest in getting to the final table with a tiny stack. I wanted to have enough chips to play and go for the bracelet, not just make a final table, and if I'd gotten off the hand, my stack would have been just too small. So that was the hand I was talking about."

OK, I'LL BUY IT, BUT THE TIMING WASN'T GREAT

Plausible enough, and perhaps even understandable as a release of tension, but I've never seen even "the Poker Brat" say anything to someone he'd just busted out of a tournament, and I wouldn't recommend that you do it, either. It's hard enough to be graceful, in that moment of hurt when you stand up, when people are clapping, or congratulating you for finishing where you did. You might feel good about a high finish a few days later, but the moment you have to stand up is an empty, awful place. No joke is ever going to be funny to someone who has just busted out of a big tournament near the title.

Nonetheless, I think Lester was telling the truth about his intent, and while judgment is important, intent is more important, so lets move on.

Shi busted out on the very next hand (yes, the $10,000-$20,000 limits were having their expected effect), taking Kh-7h up against two aces, and at 6:45 we were four-handed, with the chip counts

Lester, $250,000
Brenes, $110,000
Ly, $90,000
Ladanyi $125,000

Three hands later, Ladanyi raised, Brenes three-bet from the small blind, and Ladanyi called. The flop came 3h-7h-3s, Brenes bet and got called, which also happened when the Ks hit the turn. The 2c hit the river, Brenes bet his last $15,000 all-in, and Ladanyi called. Brenes turned over Ks-Js, and collected the $200,000 pot when Ladanyi mucked.

IT WASN'T LADANYI'S DAY

I don't know what Ladanyi had, but I guess it's safe to assume he was leading on the flop. Although the guy did play fast, that's not a crime; indeed, it's often the path to victory. On this day, he ran into a lot of big hands before the flop and some tough hits after the flop. A few hands later, he lost a tough one to Ly when an ace hit the river, giving Ly the win with his A-K after Ladanyi had been leading out on the flop and turn.

At hand 105, K-J did Ladanyi in for good. Ly raised from the small blind, and Ladanyi called from the big blind. The flop came Js-4d-2s, Ly checked, Ladanyi bet, Ly raised, and Ladanyi raised all-in. He turned over As-8s to Ly's K-J, an overcard and the nut flush draw, but a harmless 6h-7h finished Ladanyi in fourth.

At this point, the three remaining players grew extremely interested in their precise chip counts, which were

Lester, $215,000
Brenes, $165,000
Ly, $197,000

It was 7:20, and the boys took a little stroll to gear up for the final battle, and after their break, the chips flew fast and furiously.

LESTER THE AGGRESTOR

Lester, as he had been for most of the tournament, was the most aggressive of the three, but unlike Ladanyi, who seemed to run into big hands whenever he pushed, Lester wound up turning over winners. He gouged Brenes when he raised from the button, Brenes 3-bet from the small blind, and Lester called. The flop came Ah-8d-6d, Brenes bet out, and Lester called. The 5h hit the turn, putting two flush draws out, Brenes bet out again, Lester raised, and Brenes mucked. Lester turned over the Ad-5d, two pair and a nut flush draw, a pretty spiffy hand in three-way action.

He kept pushing, and his stack kept increasing; Thompson called him "a freight train rolling downhill" at one point, when Brenes and Ly both seemed defenseless to the onslaught.

It looked like the whole thing might end on hand 120, when Lester raised from the button, Brenes re-raised from the small blind, and Ly re-raised from the big blind. One more bet from Lester put them both all-in, and it all happened so fast, we had to back up for a moment to figure out whether Brenes or Ly had started the hand with more chips, in case Brenes busted them both. Brenes had one more than Ly, but it didn't matter. 7h-6h for Lester, A-Q for Brenes, A-J for Ly, and as Lester cried out for some little ones, the board came down K-Q-8-J-4, sending Ly out third, and giving Brenes about $100,000 to Lester's $476,000, and suddenly rekindled hopes.

BRENES DRAWS THE BLACK QUEEN

The rekindled hopes last two hands. Lester raised from the small blind on the button, Brenes re-raised, Lester re-raised, Brenes re-raised, and Lester finally called, with $50,000 each in the pot. Brenes bet in the dark, Lester looked at the 7c-4d-8d flop, and raised Brenes all-in. As-Kd for Brenes, Jd-Jc for Lester, and the 2d on the turn gave Brenes real hopes for a 200k stack with an ace, a king, or a diamond on the river, but for the second tournament in a row, that all-so-appropriate black queen fell on the river, and we had a champion.

The Cincinnati Kid made a small fortune playing while he was a kid; he had talent and a backer, and his regular opponents were guys who arrived with suitcases full of cash and "no idea about how to play," Lester related. He'd grown rich enough by the time he was 22 that his wife asked him to quit playing poker full time and put the money into a business, which he did; he's a contractor.

He still plays a LOT of poker, about a hundred days a year, he estimates, usually in big side action; he flies to Las Vegas or Atlantic City or Tunica three or four weekends a month. Charlie Brahmi, a 1999 WSOP winner, Atlantic City player, and a Lester pal, was sitting nearby as Lester related this, and said "Andy, you wanna know how high this guy plays, he calls me up at the Taj on the weekend to ask if the games are big enough" (the weekend action at the Taj gets pretty big, so someone who would bother to check before traveling must indeed want the big-time action).

Tournaments are a relatively new love for The Kid. He's 40 now, and played his first-ever tournament last year, at the Commerce, in one of those $330 buy-in limit hold'em events with rebuys that draw six or seven hundred entrants, and he made the final four before they chopped up the money ("I was hooked on tournaments then and there," he said). Incredibly, he's played seven limit hold'em tournaments in his life, and has made the final table in five of them.

The real Cincinnati Kid knocked out The Man, and then polished off his other opponents in grand style. You da Man, Kid. You da Man.

Final Official Results, $3,000 Limit Hold'em:

192 entrants, total prize pool $558,720

10th-12th, $6,705 each: Thi Thi Tran, Jeannie Kim, John Spadavecchia.

13th-15th, $6,145 each: Rafael Perry, Glenn Hughes, Harry Thomas, Jr.

16th-18th, $5,585 each: James Taylor Allen, Kevin Dykstra, James Payton.

A PAUSE IN THE ACTION

Your reporter is officially gassed. After my physically and emotionally exhausting three days in New York with my family, and then a return here for my usual insane WSOP schedule, I'm running on fumes and running out of colorful metaphors. I'm taking tomorrow off. You will get a report of the results from the Seven-Card Stud final, but no story, and I expect to be back in action, making more bad jokes, talking a little more about the color and pageantry of the whole WSOP experience, and a little less about how the flop did this and that, on Wednesday. See you then.

Andrew N.S. Glazer, Editor
Wednesday Nite Poker

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