No members of the proletariat need apply for the bracelet in the $5,000 (with rebuys) World Series of Poker No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Lowball Draw event.

The "Deuce," as most folks around here call it, is and always has been an event for poker's aristocracy. If the $5,000 entry fee isn't daunting enough, the availability of $5,000 rebuys is. The game isn't played very often in modern poker, except in very high limit side action. Only poker's best and richest players bother to enter.

YOU CAN'T BUY THIS BRACELET

Although I've heard some small bankroll players enviously call this the "buy a bracelet" tournament, because the fields are very small compared to other WSOP events (we had 33 entrants today, and tournament assistant Robert Thompson, Jr. thought that might be a record, as we had 30 last year), the fact is the fields are remarkably strong (virtually any starting table would make an outstanding final table for the World Championship event), and no-limit deuce is, for reasons we'll see as we get into the hand-by-hand analysis, a poker game, not a card game.

Although there is luck in any poker game, it's much harder for a weaker player to get "hit in the face with the deck" in no-limit deuce, and so it's no surprise that the final three players left can usually be found playing in the same high stakes games at the Bellagio, and that this year's winner is one of the most brilliant and eloquent men in the world of high stakes poker, Howard Lederer.

The 33-player field made 43 rebuys, putting $380,000 in chips into play for the 5-man final table. We started play today with 49 minutes left on the clock, $500 antes, $1,500-3,000 blinds, and the following seats and chip counts:

On the surface, Deuce might seem similar to the game I chose to skip for my off day, Ace-to-Five Lowball draw, but there are some huge differences. First, the Deuce is played no-limit, which dramatically increases the skill level over a limit game, because bluffs and reads become a major factor, rather than just pot odds and card math, and second, as the name "Deuce-to-Seven" implies, the best possible low is 2-3-4-5-7 offsuit.

Aces count as high cards, and straights and flushes count as high hands, so when you're drawing at a hand like 3-4-5-6, you don't have as many good cards to hit as you might think. An ace is a brick, even worse than a king, and a two or a seven give you a straight. Any seven low is a monster hand, and any eight counts as pretty monstrous also.

A HIGH CLASS REUNION

Lederer, Deeb, and Weitzman are high stakes Bellagio regulars, and Zalewski, a Houston player, is an extremely tough no-limit player who comes into town regularly enough, and is usually one of the players on whom you can get an individual price in The Big One (i.e., he's considered amongst the top 20% of the field). I was particularly familiar with his game because he was part of the Murderer's Row I found myself staring at in my first table in the 2000 Championship Event.

Only Hoeppner was an outsider, and not much of an outsider. He plays a lot of high stakes poker too, he's just not quite "one of the Bellagio boys," and with his extremely short stack, he was the obvious target, especially as half of his $6,000 starting stack went into the first pot as the big blind.

Lederer made it $6,000 to go from the button, Zalewski called from the small blind, and Hoeppner looked at his cards, the $17,500 already in the pot, and decided to toss his last $2,500 in to contest it, even though he knew Lederer and Zalewski were extremely likely to not bet at each other in an effort to maximize their chances of knocking him out. Be sure you understand this isn't an "insiders against an outsider" strategy: it's just the best way to ensure you knock a player out, and the ladder steps at this stage of the tournament were worth a lot of cold, hard cash.

Lederer drew two, Zalewski and Hoeppner one each, and even though Hoeppner caught an ace, both Lederer and Zalewski paired, so Hoeppner was back in the game, more than tripled up.

THAT'S PAT JACK, NOT PAT SAJAK, I MUST SAY

He only lasted three more hands, though. He moved all-in on #4, and Deeb called from the small blind. Hoeppner stayed pat, Deeb drew, and as Deeb examined his draw, Hoeppner spread his pat jack-low out on the table. He'd probably have preferred to steal the blinds and antes, but a pat jack is better than you think in this game.

With Deeb drawing one, the pat jack wins if Deeb catches an ace, king, queen, jack with a worse kicker, or any pair. That's 12 outs for the four aces, kings and queens, and 12 more for the cards that could pair Deeb, a minimum of 24 possible wins against 28 possible losses, perhaps better than that if Deeb was drawing at a hand like 2-3-5-6, where the fours would also be losers, and hugely better if Deeb were drawing at something like 3-4-5-6, where any A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Q, K or A would be a losing draw. Of course, for exactly that reason, good Deuce players don't draw at hands like 3-4-5-6 very often.

OK, enough Deuce lessons. Deeb caught a nine for a 9-8 low, and Hoeppner was gone.

JUST CALL HIM FAST FREDDIE

Four-handed, the blinds and antes represented $6,500 in dead money, and Hassam "Freddie" Deeb, who had already made two final tables in four tournaments entered at this Series, was playing the role of "Fast Freddie" and making a lot of raises to $9,000 to capture that dead money: six uncontested raises in the first 15 hands. Just about the time I felt someone was going to take a stand against this bullying, sure enough, Lederer came over the top of him for $25,000 more on hand 18, and Freddie let the hand go.

At the first break, I counted the chips at

Weitzman, $39,000
Deeb, $149,500
Lederer, $139,500
Zalewski, $52,000

When you're short stacked in no-limit, you have to find some hands, especially when the blinds and antes are high enough to eat away at your stack. With the new $1,000 antes and $2,000-4,000 blinds, it would cost a player $10,000 to sit out a round, and a round now consisted of only four hands. The short stacks were going to have to jump into the game fast, and everyone knew it.

On the very first hand at after the break (#38 overall), Zalewski made it $14,000 to go from the button, and Weitzman pushed all-in from the small blind, a raise of $24,000. Zalewski called. Weitzman stayed pat, Zalewski drew one, and Weitzman turned over his J-10-8-6-2, a winner, as Zalewski, who had been drawing at a seven low, paired his deuce, and was now extremely short stacked.

A FAMILY POT CONSPIRACY

Three hands later, Lederer made it $8,000 to go under the gun, and Zalewski pushed his last $11,000 all-in. Everyone called the $11,000, as eager to use the check-down conspiracy against Zalewski as Zalewski and Lederer had been to use it against Hoeppner.

Weitzman and Deeb drew two each, Lederer stayed pat, and Zalewski drew one. Everyone checked, and Deeb turned over a 9-7. Lederer mucked his pat jack, and Zalewski stood up, having paired one of his cards. He was out fourth at 5:25 p.m., and the Bellagio Boys were back in familiar territory, playing shorthanded high stakes poker against one another.

It can get a little rough in these friendly little high stakes games, as we found out four hands later, when Weitzman raised it to $12,000 from the button, and Lederer, a fearsome physical presence at 6'3", probably about 280 pounds, a dark beard that's always trimmed at about two week's worth of growth, and an iron jaw, called from the big blind.

Lederer drew two, a pretty sure sign he figured Weitzman for an attempt to steal the blinds, and Weitzman drew one. After the draw, Lederer checked, and Weitzman bet $25,000, about half of his stack. Lederer considered for a while, and decided to call, showing that he'd made 2-2-A-4-8, a low pair with a bad kicker. Weitzman mucked his hand, obviously having paired something bigger than a two. Lederer had picked off a big bluff.

YEAH, AND I DOUBLE DOWN ON HARD 12, TOO

We had a brief comic moment when Deeb got confused about how many cards Howard had drawn. "You drew one?" Deeb asked.

"Yeah," Howard said, smiling, "I drew one to this." He spread out 8-4-2-2 on the table. "No, I guess that couldn't be it, I drew one to this," and spread out A-8-4-2 on the table. "Guess you drew two," Freddie said, returning the smile.

Later, after Weitzman had been eliminated, I heard him and Deeb discussing the play.

"He knows I've drawn two there, and probably haven't hit anything gigantic, especially when I don't bet right out," Howard told Freddie. "Then he goes and makes a pot-sized bet, one that's going to be tough to call without some sort of hand. I figure he has to either have a huge hand or something pretty bad, and if he has a huge hand, he probably bets a little less, so he might get a call. I don't have to be right, the analysis doesn't have to work out that way, but I just wasn't willing to hand him all the money in that pot."

When you're playing shorthanded no-limit, and someone establishes they can read you or figure you out that well, you're in a lot of trouble, especially short-chipped, and Weitzman exited eleven hands later, when he moved all-in for his last $17,000, and both Deeb and Lederer called. Deeb drew one, Lederer stayed pat, and Weitzman drew one.

Deeb and Lederer both checked after the draw, and Deeb showed that he'd made another 9-8. Howard tossed away his pat queen, and Weitzman showed the jack he'd caught. Weitzman was out on hand 56, and we were heads-up at 5:45.

THE BELLAGIO BOYS FIGHT IT OUT

Heads-up, the small blind goes on the button (SBB), and acts first before the flop but last after the flop. For a moment, it looked like we might have only one heads-up hand, because Deeb raised it to $14,000 from the SBB, Lederer re-raised $30,000 more, and Deeb almost immediately shoved his remaining $150,000 all-in. If Howard had a big hand, this was going to be a short tournament, but Lederer let it go, probably unwilling to gamble all his chips on a draw. Deeb showed a pat 10-8, and that he had plenty of speed and nerve.

At this point, with a timeout to get some of the smaller chips off the table, I was able to get an accurate count. After hand 58, Deeb led $258,500-$121,500, and we learned why Howard Lederer hadn't been willing to gamble all his chips on one big hand, as he started chopping away at Deeb, taking the aggressor's role, and Deeb rarely found anything with which he wanted to fight back.

WHY LOOK AT YOUR CARDS WHEN YOU KNOW YOUR MAN?

On hand 72, Lederer made it $15,000 from the SBB, and Deeb called. Lederer drew two, a clear sign he'd been on a steal attempt, and Deeb drew one. Freddie bet $20,000 after the draw, and Lederer immediately moved all-in on him. Deeb folded, and as Howard collected the pot, he said, "I don't even know why I looked (at his cards)." He'd figured Deeb would move at him, after his two-card draw, and had already planned on playing back. That's just another of those reasons why no-limit Deuce is poker, and not a card game.

Lederer was now closer, trailing about $160,000-$220,000.

Hand 76 showed, perhaps better than any hand in the tournament, how this really was an intramural affair. Lederer made it $15,000 to go from the SBB, and Deeb called. Deeb drew two, and Lederer drew one, and as Howard asked for the card, Deeb laughed and launched into a long story about a live (money) game that had happened two years before.

AND HEY, HOW ARE THE WIFE AND KIDS?

"I thought you were doing what this guy did," Deeb said, as the dealer sat that and waited for the two players to look at their cards. "This guy said, 'I have a good drawing hand,' and then he stood pat, and I sat there and thought, 'please don't let me catch a pair.' I caught a jack, bet $9,000, he moved in on me, and I called him, won the pot, and he went crazy, he couldn't believe I called him, but I knew when he made the speech about having a good draw and then stood pat he was making some kind of play, I thought you were doing the same thing."

I may have missed a detail or two, but that was the essence of Freddie's story, and as you can see, it took a while to relate. The two players had just left their cards on the table as they started talking about this live game from two years ago, just as they might do when playing live heads-up poker. Eventually they remembered they were in a tournament, Deeb looked at his cards and checked, Lederer bet $40,000, and Deeb folded.

A few hands later, Lederer's sister Katie showed up. I went over to say hi, and heard her say something about a tuxedo, and found out that Howard was getting married in a few weeks. Katie is a New York journalist who is writing a book about the poker playing Lederers (Howard's other sister is Annie Duke), and Howard, who'd already made one final table, asked tournament officials to swap out his XXL jacket for a medium for Katie.

TIME FOR A FASHION STATEMENT

"Oh, I got one last year," she said. It must be tough, getting souvenirs all the time from two of the world's best players.

"These are suede," Howard said, and indeed he's right, this year's jackets are indeed much spiffier.

"Oh, OK," she said. The atmosphere wasn't exactly tense here.

She tried it on, and it fit pretty well. "It may not be a designer cut," joked Howard about Katie and her New York fashion sense, but she seemed happy with the present.

We got back to playing poker, and Lederer got back to chopping away at Deeb, raising just a few more pots than Freddie was raising, and very gradually, Howard moved into the chip lead.

Meanwhile, Lederer, whom I'd started to get to know a bit at the Poker Million, started showing a little more of the analytical mind that had impressed me twice at the Isle of Man.

IF LEDERER IS SELLING, I'M BUYING

The first time came when he chose to be the only player in the entire field to use his pink "rebuy" slip to get his full $10,000 in chips onto the table from the start (I always like to have more chips on the table than my opponents in no-limit, in case I pick up a big hand, and in a tournament with the structure like the Poker Million had, with almost all of the money going to first place, any strategy designed to accumulate chips rather than survive seemed correct to me… but Lederer was the only player in the field who seemed to think it through and play it that way).

The second time when we were at dinner and he was debating Erik Seidel about the "viewing cards under the table technology" that was in use at the Poker Million and how while it would cost players something in terms of other people learning how they played, they would get it all back, and more, from the added money this exciting technology would bring into poker.

I like the way this man thinks, and he made a terrific point about Deuce as we approached hand 108.

A NEW GAME FOR THE MASSES?

"You know, this game would be great for that under-the-table camera technology," he said. "Probably a lot better than hold'em, because there would be none of the problems of the audience figuring out how the cards fit the flop. It's a pretty simple game to teach to non-players, the worst five card hand wins."

In a flash, I realized he was exactly right. The reason why draw poker, a completely dead game in the modern poker world, works so well in the movies is that the viewing audience can look at Bret Maverick's hand and see his royal flush draw. There's none of this fitting a hand together with the flop problem.

I like the way this man thinks.

We hit the next break, with the antes going to $1,500 and the blinds to $3,000-6,000, with a chip count of Lederer $235,000, Deeb $145,000.

Howard continued to grind away at Deeb, and Freddie finally started playing back at him, re-raising on hands 119 and 122, and each time, Lederer had to muck.

WHEN YA GOTTA GO, YA GOTTA GO

Lederer still had the lead on hand 127, when Deeb made it $16,000 to go from the SBB, and Lederer almost immediately re-raised a stunning $200,000. Deeb looked back at his hand, and decided to call. If Lederer won, we were done, and if Deeb won, he'd have a substantial chip lead.

Lederer drew one card, and so did Deeb. Because the action was all-in, they turned the hands over: 7-6-4-2 for Lederer, 8-7-3-2 for Deeb.

"You look first," Deeb said. "If you make it, I don't have to bother looking."

Lederer peeled back his hole card slowly, in that way that professionals have of looking at part of a card, to see how many pips they can see. Howard could see this card didn't have many pips on it.

He turned over the five of spades, and the tournament was over. Deeb looked anyway, his draw irrelevant with Lederer holding a made seven, and found he'd caught an ace.

THE MISREAD DIDN'T MATTER

"I thought I had a pat eight when I first raised," Deeb said. "I misread my hand, but it's the same thing, I'm going to raise to $16,000 whether I have a pat eight or a draw to an eight. I looked before I called the big raise, though, and decided this was a hand I had to go with."

Lederer smiled. "If the queen in my hand was a jack, you would have won," he said, meaning that if he'd held J-7-6-4-2, he'd have stood pat, and Deeb would have caught the five to give him an eight low.

Deeb seemed pretty calm afterwards, for a guy who had just lost what amount to a $73,720 dollar pot (the difference between first and second).

OH, HECK, $73,720, IT'S ONLY MONEY

"We know each other pretty good, we're good friends," he said, "so it's no big deal who wins, it's the same, we each have a bracelet already, I don't care about the title, I just wanted to win the money, and it's just money, and he's a nice guy." Ah, the life of the high stakes Bellagio Boys.

Suzie Weiss, the swing shift manager at the Bellagio poker room, whom Howard will be marrying June 2, would agree with Freddie's "nice guy" assessment, I guess, and there wasn't anything in Howard's post-game comments that indicated anything else.

"He (Deeb) is a challenge, he's got speed in his game," Lederer said. "The whole table was tough, most of these guys play a lot more live Deuce than I do, and Mark Weitzman was the guy who taught me how to play this game in the first place, but it's not like I was expecting a soft final table in this tournament, anyway. I'm a better limit hold'em player, but I must have something going in this game, I've played it in seven tournaments and won four of them (he won in back to back years at the Hall of Fame tournament, 1994-95), obviously I'm running lucky to win that many times, but I must be playing it OK too."

Seeing as how last year's Deuce winner, Jennifer Harman, got married about six months after the 2000 World Series, and this year's winner is getting married about two weeks after the 2001 Series ends, I guess the formula for winning the WSOP's #2 glamour event is becoming more clear: Play a lot of high stakes poker against the best players in the world, and fall in love with something other than your cards. After all, as Howard Lederer proved today, this game has a lot more to do with getting inside the other guy's head than it does with drawing the right tickets. Poker's aristocracy wouldn't have it any other way.

Final Results, $5,000 Buy-in No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven (Rebuys)

33 Entries, 43 rebuys, total prize pool $368,600

And now, for those of you who just can't get enough World Series poker….

Email me at: wednesdaynitepoker@casino.com

If you would like to read previous issues of Wednesday Nite Poker you can find them here.

Interested in advertising in this newsletter? Contact us at: ads@casino.com.

Wednesday Nite Poker is is published by the Casino.com Network
(http://www.casino.com) twice a month. The Casino.com Network publishes other popular newsletters; Craps Companion, Slots Report, Blackjack Insider, Casino Travel Showcase, CasinoWire Newsletter, The Casino.com Spin and Ask the Pro. If you wish to subscribe sign up here!

If you wish to unsubscribe from this newsletter please click here.