The first major poker tournament I ever attended was the 1999 Carnivale of Poker, at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. I wasn't there to cover the event. I'd come to gather data on a book I was working on about Phil Hellmuth, and one of the people I wanted to meet was Huck Seed, whom Phil had described to me as tall, good-looking, athletic, young, brilliant, and brimming with confidence.

I saw this long, cool drink of water walking around, and I thought he might be Huck, although he looked too young, because, the physical description aside, there was a keen intelligence in his eyes, confidence in his walk, and a calm, analytical manner about him that had "winner" written all over it.

I asked someone if this kid was Huck, and he said, "No, that's Allen Cunningham."

It's been a little over two years since I first saw Allen Cunningham, who was then 21 and who just recently turned 24, and while the guess about him being Huck obviously proved wrong, everything else in that initial read has been right. He's become a tournament terror, winning the all-around title at the Legends of Poker later in 1999, and coming close to a couple of other all-around titles.

"TAKE MY MONEY, PLEASE"

He's also a feared side game opponent, because he is cool and tilt-free, but maybe "feared" isn't the right word, because just about everyone in the poker world seems to like Allen Cunningham, even though he wins their money.

A couple of weeks ago, in reporting on Allen's final table appearance in the $1,500 Omaha event, I referred to him as "Allen Cunningham, the Ventura, CA pro who had already made one final table at this Series and who will probably win a half dozen bracelets before he's done playing."

Today, in the $5,000 Seven-Card Stud final at the 2001 World Series of Poker, I decided I might have to revise my estimate upwards, and the rest of the world got to find out what the poker world already knew: Allen Cunningham is a champion.

When we started play today, the seats and chip counts were

Some personal business kept me away from the finale until about 7:42 p.m., though, and when I arrived, they were playing with $1,000 antes, a $2,000 low card bring-in, $6,000-12,000, and we had four players left, whose chip counts I estimated at

Danino, $165,000
Roberts, $25,000
Sheikham, $16,000
Cunningham, $314,000

My timing was pretty good, all things considered, because we lost a player on each of the first two hands I was around to witness.

On the first, Roberts, who was making his third final table appearance at the Series, hooked up with Danino, and all the money had gone in by fourth street, so we got to see that Danino had started (9-7) 10-K-J-9, and Roberts (4c-5c) 6c-7d-Ac-Kd.

Danino had the lead with his pair of nines, but Roberts was pulling at both a straight and a flush on the end. He learned he'd need one of them when Danino turned over the nine he caught on the river for trips, squeezed out his final card, and turned his hand over without showing it.

HEY, I JUST MADE 20 GRAND THE EASY WAY, WHY NOT MORE?

Danino was pleased, but not as much as the short-stacked Sheikham, who had suddenly climbed the ladder from a $30,265 payday to a $50,440 payday, and who immediately joked, "You sure you two guys don't want to make a deal?"

No one took the joke seriously, and Sheikham went out on the next hand when he and Cunningham got all of the money in on third street, when the two players held

Cunningham, (As-8s) 10
Sheikham, (2-K) 2

Cunningham immediately took the lead by spiking an ace on fourth street, but Sheikham got it back with a king on fifth for kings-up. Back and forth we went, as Cunningham caught a ten on sixth for aces-up, and when Sheikham didn't fill up on the river, we were heads-up at 7:47, with the chip counts roughly

Cunningham, $330,000
Danino, $190,000

I caught my breath from this flurry of activity, and went over to sit down near Daniel Negreanu and John Juanda, who were sweating their buddy Allen. Forgetting that I had written just two weeks ago that Allen didn't have a bracelet yet but was likely to win six before he was finished, I asked Daniel, "Allen doesn't have a bracelet yet, does he?"

"This will be his first one," said his confident pal.

A STUDY IN CONTRASTS

You couldn't have had much more of a study in contrasts than these two final players. Danino is average in height and barrel chested, about 50, wore a lot of gold jewelry, wore dark sunglasses, and in general fit just about every big-time gambler stereotype you could imagine.

Cunningham, on the other hand, is tall (a tad over 6'2"), slender, and wore no shades to hide his boyish countenance. Although probably smarter and definitely thinner, he's in one way exactly what I was at his age, the kind of guy that the Moms probably want for their daughters more than their daughters do. I can just hear one saying, "Why can't you bring home more boys like that clean-cut Allen fellow, he seemed like such a nice polite young man."

Mom might reconsider if she knew Allen's profession (just as they might have reconsidered if they'd known more about me), but the look is about as All-American as it gets.

I'd just finished making a margin note that heads-up, with fairly low forced action compared to the stack sizes (only $4,000 before anyone had to put any optional money into a pot), we might be here for quite a while, when I had to scribble through it, because Cunningham won a big pot soon thereafter with the boards:

Cunningham, 5c-2h-5h-6c
Danino, Kc-Qc-5d-Js

Cunningham brought the pot in for the forced $2,000, Danino completed the bet to $6,000, Cunningham raised back $6,000 more, and Danino re-raised it to $18,000, with Cunningham calling. Danino bet fourth street, and Cunningham called.

When Cunningham paired his doorcard, he bet out $12,000 on fifth street, with Danino calling, and then things really got exciting on sixth, with Cunningham betting out, Danino raising to $24,000 and Allen re-raising to $36,000. Danino called, and then called $12,000 more when Allen bet the river.

Allen turned over three fives, and Danino mucked his hand, down to only about $90,000 to Cunningham's $430,000.

DON'T RUSH TO JUDGMENT

In case you've played a lot of full table seven-stud, but not much heads-up, don't sit back and think Danino was foolish for raising into Cunningham's paired doorcard. Although in a full ring game a paired doorcard is usually cause for real concern, you have to play a lot faster heads-up, and the odds are far smaller that the paired doorcard means trips for your opponent. This time it had meant just that, though, and Danino was in trouble.

Danino fought back with a series of wins on smaller hands, $7,000 (don't forget the ante) here and $13,000 there, and then really got back into the game on two hands where the players got $18,000 each in on third street, only to see Allen chose to release his hand on fourth street on the first and on fifth on the second.

Cunningham regained his big chip lead with an impressive call a few hands later. The boards showed

Cunningham, 9-Ac-5c-Jc
Danino, 3-Q-9-8

(I'm only calling suits when they might be relevant)

Cunningham bet out the entire way, with Danino calling him the whole way, and then Allen check the river. Danino bet $12,000, and without much in the way of hesitation, Cunningham called.

"One pair," Danino announced.

AND THE AMAZING KRESKIN ASKS…

"Threes?" asked Allen, and indeed he was correct; Danino turned over the same pair of threes he'd started with.

Allen Cunningham turned over his lowly pair of fives, and swept in the huge pot. I asked him about his bold call afterwards.

"I had read him for threes to begin with," Cunningham said, "and normally in stud, if you think you have someone going to the river, you're supposed to call on the river, especially with the pot that big."

Cunningham had Danino down to about $75,000 when the burly guy showed he had a few tricks in his own arsenal. The board showed

Cunningham, 4c-8h-Js-10h
Danino, Kh-10c-9c-8c

On third street, Cunningham opened for the obligatory $2,000, Danino completed to $6,000, Cunningham made it $12,000, and Danino re-popped it to $18,000, putting $38,000 into the pot before we saw fourth street.

Danino bet out on fourth ($6,000) and again on fifth and sixth, $12,000 each, and Cunningham called the first bet but declined the second. As Danino accepted the $74,000 pot, he turned over his hole cards: Qs-2s. He'd had nothing more than king-high and an inside straight draw.

A NEW KIND OF FULL HOUSE

Cunningham nodded in appreciation at the move, and Tournament Director Bob Thompson cracked, "What'd you have, a full house, three clubs and two spades?"

What Danino had was nerve, and now a stack approaching $150,000 again, but he lost $60,000 of it when Cunningham made queens-up on the river on one hand where Danino also had a pair of queens, and after losing a few more chips in smaller dust-ups, the final duel commenced with the boards showing

Cunningham, 10h-8d-9s
Danino, 5c-Ah-As

Cunningham made it $6,000 on third street, with Danino calling. On fourth, Danino led out with his ace, and Cunningham called the $6,000. When Danino paired his aces on fifth and bet out, everyone assumed Cunningham was going to fold, but instead he raised to $24,000, and just about everyone knew that meant Allen either had made a straight or a set.

Danino had a real hand and too much money invested in the pot to go away now, though, and called for his final $11,000. They turned over the hole cards, and we now saw the completed hands were

Cunningham, (6h-7h) 10h-8d-9s
Danino, (Q-5) 5c-Ah-As

Cunningham had started with three connected hearts, and wound up making a straight, while Danino had aces-up. When Danino couldn't fill up on either of his last two cards, we had a champion. Danino didn't feel like talking to the press, so you're going to learn a little more about Cunningham.

AND SO AFTER WANDERING IN THE DESERT FOR 40 YEARS…

"FINALLY a bracelet, Allen," called out one spectator in jest, as if a 65 year old legend had at last entered the promised land, instead of a 24 year old picking up what will be the first of many.

Cunningham stood up, and picked up a can of soda he'd had sitting next to him unopened since before I'd arrived. "Well, I guess I can afford a cold Dr. Pepper now," he joked, "this one has been here for a while."

Afford it he can, because all $201,760 was his, except for a friend who owned 2% of him. Because Allen has been pretty successful, I wanted to know if this was life-changing money.

"This is my biggest cash ever," he said. "The most I've ever won in a live game is about $35,000, and while I've won a lot of tournaments, none of the first prizes has been more than about $50,000. So no, it's not going to change my life, but it's nice, it makes me more comfortable, I guess you could say it doubles me up."

A PRECOCIOUS LAD

I hadn't been exactly sure about his age, so this was when I asked, and he told me, "I'm 24, but actually I've been 24 for about seven years now, and this is the first year I've actually been 24," meaning, I concluded, that he'd been getting into cardrooms at a fairly tender age. I wanted to know if he'd used fake ID's: I'd be carding him now, I can only imagine what he looked like when he was 19.

"No, I'd played poker in high school, and liked it, and then one day, my friends and I went down to one of the Indian reservation casinos, where you only had to be 18 to play," he said. "I really liked it, and I decided I wanted to get better at it."

So there had been no underage play?

"Actually, there was," Allen said, "but I was kind of dumb about it, it was pretty funny, I had been playing on the Indian casinos, where playing at 18 was perfectly OK, and then after a while, I wandered into the Commerce and the Bicycle Casinos, thinking 18 was the legal age there too, and I'd been playing there for about three weeks before I found out it was 21… but I kept playing."

He kept playing enough to be taking all-around titles at age 22, appropriate enough because he plays all of the major games with roughly equal skill, and he'll probably never have to return to the only other job he's ever had other than playing poker.

"I delivered pizzas for a while when I was at UCLA, studying civil engineering," he related. "I gave that up about the same time my grades started going downhill, the beginning of my third year, because I was playing so much poker. I left school and have supported myself with poker ever since."

"So," I wanted to know, "You're a handsome young guy, everyone in the poker world seems to like you, you've got some money, is there a girlfriend in your life, or should I alert the women of the world that there's a real catch sitting out here?"

Allen laughed. "No, no girlfriend, you can tell them I'm available."

All that, and Mom will love him too.

Final Results, $5,000 Buy-in Seven-Card Stud

19th-12th, $7,565 each: Craig Hartman, Helmut Arthur Koch, Layne Flack, Frank DeBus.

13th-16th, $5,045 each: Kenneth McMahan, Mickey Appleman, Max Stern, Tony Ma.

GET READY FOR ROUNDERS, PART II, AND ANOTHER AWESOME FINAL TABLE

I just finished watching the last three tables of today's No-Limit tournament, and we have another awesome final table ready to go. Erik Seidel is (I believe) the chip leader with $267,000, after knocking out players eleven and ten with A-A against A-K (he had a lot of chips before that happened anyway), and the great Johnny Chan is probably #2 in chips. If you saw the movie Rounders, you remember their famous confrontation in the 1988 World Series final. Stan Goldstein is also among the leaders, as is Jim "Cincinnati Kid" Lester, who won some unbelievable hands that I will detail in tomorrow's report!

Andrew N.S. Glazer, Editor
Wednesday Nite Poker

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