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 "He
Knocked Out the Cameras, Too"
TI first met my then Palo Alto neighbor Diego Cordovez when
he won an event at the 2000 World Series of Poker, and started
getting to know him better later that year at the Tournament
of Champions. At the 2001 World Series, we've been hanging
out quite a lot, exchanging poker theories and predictions,
and my respect for him and his poker game, as well as our
friendship, has been growing on an almost daily basis.
It was with some regret, then, that I approached his starting
table in the $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em Championship at the
2001 World Series of Poker, because even though I knew Cordovez
could play terrific poker, he'd drawn the toughest starting
table in the record field of 613 entrants.
You heard right, 613 players at $10,000 a pop, a new record
by 101 players, and just a dozen short of the 625 we needed
to create a $2,000,000 first prize. First place will pay the
same 1.5 million as last year, and the second place finisher
will take home more than a cool million.
IT LOOKED LIKE A BAD BEAT BEFORE A SINGLE CARD WAS DEALT
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"I
said something to TJ about the tough draw." |
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Diego drew table 48, where I saw Surindar Sunar in seat one,
TJ Cloutier in #2, Annie Duke in #4, Cordovez in #5, and Scotty
Nguyen in #6. I said something to TJ about the tough draw,
and he pulled out a betting odds sheet to show me that Diego's
neighbors were all listed among the top 25 picks to win the
event by the sportsbooks offering prices on individual players.
"Six hundred and thirteen players," Cloutier said,
"and we got four of the top 25 right here at one table."
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"The
kind of hand you're not anxious to play after the flop
in no-limit hold'em, J-J." |
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Cordovez changed that pretty quickly. A couple of hours into
the event, Duke raised a pot to $375 from the small blind,
and Cordovez raised back $1,100 more. Duke, who'd seen Cordovez
limp with some bigger hands already, decided the raise meant
weakness, and that, combined with her relatively short stack
and the kind of hand you're not anxious to play after the
flop in no-limit hold'em, J-J, moved all-in, and Cordovez
call instantly with his A-A. The community cards didn't change
anything, and Duke, who had nearly made the final table last
year even though eight months pregnant, was an early casualty.
AND FOR AN ENCORE…
Only two hands later, Cloutier raised a pot to $425, and
Diego flat-called from the button. The flop came Q-7-6 rainbow
(mixed suits), and Cloutier bet $1,000. Diego thought about
it for a while, and finally tossed three $1,000 chips into
the pot. Cloutier immediately moved his $13,000 all-in, Diego
called instantly.
"What, did you flop a set on me?" asked Cloutier.
"No," Diego said.
"Aces?" asked Cloutier, and Diego nodded, as Cloutier
turned his own K-K over. The turn and river changed nothing,
and in the span of three hands, Diego Cordovez had hit the
no-limit player's trifecta twice: pocket aces, someone else
has a big hand where you get big action from him/her, and
the aces don't get cracked.
Because table 48 featured so many stars, the TV cameras had
been set up nearby for quite a while, but after Cordovez knocked
out two of the four mega-names, they moved on.
HEY, WHERE'D ALL THE TV CAMERAS GO?
Ken Goldstein, a mutual friend, was sitting a few tables
over, and when I went by to speak with him about an hour later,
he said he'd spoken with Cordovez right after the event had
begun. Diego, like most folks here, had been happy that the
cameras had been floating around his table, and while he didn't
mind winning the chips and knocking out two tough foes, he
felt it was a novel kind of bad beat that he'd lost his chance
to be on camera more as a result.
"He was so hot, he knocked out the cameras, too,"
Goldstein said with a smile.
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"Fate
reunited him with Scotty Nguyen." |
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With players exiting table 48 (and some other nearby tables)
so quickly, tournament officials broke nearby table 44 and
sent its former residents to fill the empty seats. Phil Hellmuth
had been at table 44, and sure enough, Fate reunited him with
Scotty Nguyen, just two days after their final table fireworks
in the Omaha High-Low Split event.
HELLMUTH, NGUYEN MEND FENCES
There weren't any fireworks here, though, because Phil and
Scotty had had a chat about an hour earlier, when Phil had
approached the table, and asked Scotty if he had a moment
to talk.
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"They
talked for a full ten minutes, each forfeiting a couple
of blinds." |
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Scotty complied, and the duo left the room while the tournament
was in progress, going out to chat privately in a stairwell
just outside the tournament area. They talked for a full ten
minutes, each forfeiting a couple of blinds while they discussed
the events I detailed in my earlier story, "You Don't
Talk Trash, You Can't Win, Baby."
I wasn't present at the private meeting, but as they reentered
the tournament area, both faces looked friendly, and I saw
Phil give Scotty a hug. I asked Hellmuth about this on a break.
"I could see Scotty was in a lot of pain," Hellmuth
said. "Some people had told him he had gotten out of
line, and that's not Scotty, so for both of our sakes, I wanted
to clear the air. I wanted to get it out of my system, and
wanted him to feel OK about it too."
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"It's
alright, Scotty, just play poker." |
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When Hellmuth got moved into Nguyen's table, Scotty came
over to Phil's seat, and whispered something I couldn't hear,
touching his own heart as he spoke, and Phil said, as Scotty
returned to his seat, "It's alright, Scotty, just play
poker." I stayed by this table the whole time they were
together, and the two stars exchanged friendly chat the whole
time, each clearly going out of his way to speak kindly to
the other. Bygones were bygones, and I was very happy for
and proud of both of them.
Hellmuth had had only about $2,000 in chips left when he
arrived at table 48, and his stack stayed at about that same
level until they broke table 48 about 90 minutes later and
sent the two stars off in different directions.
I COULDN'T BE EVERYWHERE AT ONCE, BUT I GOT LUCKY
With 613 players, tournament officials needed 69 tables to
seat all the starters, and the main tournament room isn't
nearly large enough to handle that many, so as happened last
year, a large segment of the field played downstairs, on the
main floor in the area where the supersatellites and cash
games usually run during the rest of the Series.
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"I
got lucky again on the second move." |
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I'd gotten lucky in my "people watching" because
the star-laden table 48 had been close to 44, so I could watch
Hellmuth's progress (more accurately, the lack thereof) at
the same time I monitored the heavies at 48, while also within
easy sight of my friend Michael Konik a couple of tables away,
and I got lucky again on the second move, when Hellmuth landed
at a table near quote machines John Bonetti and David Plastik,
and also near to Cordovez, who found himself seated directly
between the two celebrities playing the event, Gabe Kaplan
and Wilford Brimley.
Hellmuth seemed to hover between $1,000 and $3,000 for an
eternity, even though it was only a couple of hours, and then
suddenly managed two double-ups in less than two minutes,
and was right back in the old ballgame. He kept accumulating
chips and had gotten near $20,000 when I saw one of those
moves that remind me why he has a lot of bracelets and I have
a lot of newspaper and magazine clippings.
DECISION TIME FOR PHIL
Reagen Silber, sitting in the nine seat, opened a pot for
a raise to $1,200 under the gun, at a point when the blinds
were $100-200. Hellmuth put $2,900 into the pot, a raise of
$1,700, and Silber, after about ten seconds deliberation,
moved his $15,000 stack all-in. Hellmuth had just about that
much left in front of him.
Hellmuth tilted his head sideways, looked at Silber for about
30 seconds, picked up his hand, flipped his two kings face
up on the table, and said, "OK, I give up, show me two
aces."
Silber complied, tossing his two black aces face up on the
table for everyone to see. It wasn't quite David Chiu and
Louis Asmo at the 1999 Tournament of Champions, because that
was a final table, but it was still a perfect laydown of pocket
kings before the flop, and I haven't seen too many players
willing or able to do that.
DOING THE MATH IS SIMPLE… FORTUNATELY
When the first day's play ended just before midnight, we
had lost 306 of the 613 starters, making the math on an average
stack size about as easy as you'll ever see it. An average
stack, when we start back tomorrow, will be $20,000 ($19,967,
if you're really picky about it).
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"Our
chip leader is Ontario, Canada's Ron Miller." |
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Hellmuth hit his high water mark for the day on the very
last hand, and has $26,700. Jack Fox, like Cordovez one of
my "dark horse who shouldn't be a dark horse" picks
to have a shot to win this thing, was down to $1,200 at one
point, but will start tomorrow with more than $16,000. Diego
Cordovez got his stack near $40,000, and our chip leader is
Ontario, Canada's Ron Miller, who has $79,900, thanks in large
part to a big hand where he took out 1999 World Champion Noel
Furlong.
We will have a new World Champion, because we lost 2000 winner
Chris "Jesus" Ferguson at about 10:30 p.m. I was
very sorry to see him exit, because in addition to being one
of poker's best players, Chris is one of poker's nicest players,
but he had a terrific WSOP, with a win and six cashes, and
I expect to see him among poker's elite for a long time to
come.
The sheer logistics of dealing with this many players make
it impossible for me to give you chip counts on everyone,
or to list survivors; as of 3:35 a.m., tournament officials
still did not have a list of the chip leaders.
The 307 survivors will find themselves with brand new opponents
tomorrow, because we will be re-drawing for new seats. By
the end of tomorrow's play, we should have the field reduced
enough for me to be able to provide you with chip leaders
and seats the rest of the way through the tournament.
Andrew N.S. Glazer, Editor
Wednesday Nite Poker
For more information on this newsletter read "What
to Expect from Wednesday Nite Poker".
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