$2,000 Pot-Limit Hold'em

Could Attempted Mob Takeover Succeed in Las Vegas?
By Andrew N.S. Glazer

It's getting to be rather old hat. Final tables in World Series of Poker limit events feature a couple of stars and a lot of unknowns, while pot-limit and no-limit event are usually star-studded. Today's final table in the $2,000 pot-limit hold'em event proved no exception, with a field as scary as anyone is likely to experience in a while.

There were 15 bracelets owned by members of the final table, and among the non-bracelet holders were John Juanda (runner-up in the 2001 player of the year and far and away the best American player never to have won a bracelet), Barney Boatman (Captain of the European Ryder Cup team and a member of England's famed "Hendon Mob," Aaron Katz, a hugely successful high limit player who has just started playing tournaments in the last year and has a ridiculously high success rate in reaching final tables, and Phil Gordon, who finished fourth in the 2001 Big One.

The only two players I didn't know anything about were Robert "X" (he wanted to be called that for some mysterious reason, almost certainly NOT related to Malcolm X, but I even knew two things about him: first, he had survived a stretch at that "Table of Doom" I mentioned yesterday, along with Cloutier, Hellmuth, Hoff, Jason Viriyayuthakorn, Hasan Habib and David Plastik and second, he was a former dealer).

That left the balding 35 year old Jay Sipelstein as the only player about whom I didn't know ANYTHING. Facing this field, I was guessing that the complete unknown must have worn his brown trousers to the event.

When we started back to play, there were 25 minutes left on the clock at the $1,000-$2,000 level, and the seats and chip positions were:

Chan won the draw for the button, and on the tournament's second hand, Chan raised it to $5,000 from the button. Katz decided to push all-in from the big blind, and Chan called.

Katz showed my favorite "trouble" hand, A-J, but it looked pretty good against Chan's Q-10. The flop came 7-9-7, and as a king hit the turn, announcer Diego Cordovez noted that this also gave Chan a gutshot straight draw. Katz must not have been listening, because when a jack hit the river, he jumped excitedly for a moment, only then to realize the pair of jacks he'd made and hadn't needed had given Chan a straight. We were nine-handed.

THIS X-MAN DOESN'T WEAR YELLOW SPANDEX (I HOPE)

The very next hand proved interesting in more ways than one. With Clark now in the big blind, the X-Man made it $7,000 to go (in case you're not familiar with pot-limit, the original raiser can raise any amount from double the size of the big blind to an amount that calls the big blind, here $2,000, and then bets the size of the pot, which would be $5,000 after the call, thus making the raising zone at this level $4,000-$7,000).

Eskimo Clark decided to re-raise all-in (he would have been allowed to bet as much as $28,000, a $7,000 call and then a $21,000 raise, but he only had $26,000 in front of him), and X called. Eskimo turned over pocket queens, and X showed Ad-10d. The board came 5h-Qd-4d-7s-2d, a flush draw hit on the river (although all the money had gone in pre-flop, when Eskimo was a 2-1 favorite, and he'd become a 3-1 favorite on the flop despite the flush draw, because his set could have filled).

Because X had started the hand with $500 less than Clark, Clark should have had only $500 left. Somehow, after the pot got pushed to X, Clark still had $2,500 left in front of him. I immediately asked tournament officials how this could have happened, and it turned out that the sheets printing out player totals had been in error: Clark had indeed started out with $28,000, not $26,000, and the players knew this.

WHOEVER WOULD HAVE THOUGHT MATH COULD BE USEFUL?

I gave myself a couple of points for keeping my eyes open, and added up the ten starting stacks, which should, theoretically, have come to $432,000. Instead, they added up to $436,500, even before the Clark adjustment.

I checked with tournament Co-Director Steve Morrow, and he explained that there had been a rather large number, 54 to be precise, of stacks that had been left out and blinded off at the beginning of the tournament (players frequently buy in at the last moment and officials don't want to shut out anyone who is in line or who oversleeps by a few minutes). Morrow's estimate was that all of this blinding off created about an extra seven thousand dollars in chips in play, and so he had been surprised to see that the starting chip counts were only 4.5k over. The Clark "error" actually wound up comforting him as it put the chip positions more in line with his estimate of what the blind-offs should have altered the theoretical chip counts by.

The accounting/printing mistake didn't wind up mattering to anyone but Tran, because on the very next hand, Clark tossed his $2,500 in with K-Q, and Tran played along with A-10. An ace hit the flop, and Eskimo was out 9^th.

Four hands played, two players out. Ya gotta love pot-limit.

It took two whole more hands before a major equity swing struck again. With Seidel holding the button, Chan made it $5,000 to go, and BB (Barney Boatman or Big Blind, take your pick) made the maximum raise of another $13,000. Chan re-raised $39,000, no doubt hoping that Boatman had been making a play and wouldn't be anxious to risk his chip lead so early, but Boatman decided to push the last few chips he had after the $39,000 into the pot, and of course Chan called.

TO WIN A TOURNAMENT, YOU'VE GOT TO WIN WITH A-K, AND...

Boatman turned over A-K, and Chan turned over 8-8 as he got up to walk away from the table, not wanting to look as the board came down, despite his status as a slight favorite. He could have stayed. The board showed 6-4-Q-3-5, Boatman's lead was destroyed, and six-time bracelet winner Johnny Chan was now the chip leader.

I was hoping that Boatman would have been nervous and biting his fingernails as the dealer tossed the board cards out, because then I could have said "For want of a king, the naildom was lost," but Boatman remained calm and I remained safe from a terrible pun. Hmm, come to think of it, maybe not.

On the very next hand (this was not a good day to show up late), Boatman made it $7,000, and Juanda decided to call. The flop came Ad-Qh-6c, Juanda checked, Boatman pushed his last $8,000 all-in, and Juanda called so fast I knew a trap had been sprung.

Boatman turned over 9c-10c, and Juanda A-4. Boatman was drawing close to dead. He needed some kind of perfect runner-runner, like 9-9, 9-10, 10-10, club-club, or 7-8.

Nine-nine it was, and just like that, Boatman had some chips again, and he'd cost Juanda half his stack in catching the miracle finish.

At this point "The Hendon Mob" (or a few of them at least) started cheering wildly for their man. The Mob are four rather talented Brits: "Balmy" Barney Boatman, "Rocky" Ross Boatman, Ram "Crazy Horse" Vaswani, and Joe "the Elegance" Beevers. Only Beevers is actually a resident of the London suburb Hendon, but the four used to show up at various private illegal games in England and as talented friends started being referred to as the Hendon Mob. They even have their own website at www.thehendonmob.com where one can purchase Mob Merchandise.

THE FAB FOUR, PART TWO

Those Brits think of everything. I think they just can't get over the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the way we saved their bacon in WWI and WWII, so they get inventive and spring creations like the Beatles and the Hendon Mob on us.

We breathed for several more conventional hands, and the blinds moved to $1,500-$3,000, allowing an opening raiser to bet anywhere from $6,000-$10,500 for the 90-minute round.

Juanda got back into the game on hand #25, when he raised it to $8,000 from the cutoff seat. X, sensing a blind steal, raised right behind him, and when the blinds got out of the way, Juanda called all-in. J-Q for Juanda, A-9 for X, and the board came 10-6-2-7-JACK to double JJ through and make up, in some small measure, for the nasty runner-runner defeat he'd suffered earlier to Boatman.

Meanwhile, Boatman had been losing ground, and two hands later, when Tran limped in from the small blind, Balmy Barney decided to raise it 6k from the big blind. Tran called, almost guaranteeing an all-in shortly thereafter.

The board came 5s-3h-Kd, and Tran immediately moved the 9.5k Boatman had left in front of him into the pot. Boatman decided to call fairly quickly, but didn't like what he saw: A-6 in his own hand, the better starting hand, but A-3 in Tran's, a pair on the flop. A seven hit the turn, giving Boatman outs not just to his six but also to a four for a straight, and WHAM, the 4c hit the river, Boatman's second runner-runner escape in the first hour. At least this time he'd gotten at least part of his money in when he was leading. Although Balmy Barney plays a mean game of poker, "The Miracle Worker" might have been a better nickname in the early going today.

At this point I estimated the chips at

Chan, 134k
Tran, 61k
Boatman, 36k
Seidel, 74k
Sipelstein, 31.5k
Gordon, 47k
Juanda, 30k
X, 25k

On hand #31, Sipelstein raised it to $8,000 from the button, and Juanda re-raised $17,500 more from the big blind. Sipelstein called, a moderately odd move as this left each player very short on chips, and the flop came 6-3-2. Sipelstein bet out, Juanda made the mandatory call for his last few chips, and we got to see A-9 for Sipelstein and J-8 for Juanda. Although a five on the turn created a split pot possibility were a four to hit the river, a harmless queen fell, and the dangerous Juanda was gone in eighth place.

I asked Sipelstein about the hand later on a break.

"I know Juanda's aggressive game well enough to know that he's going to raise me with any two cards there," Sipelstein said. "So I figured if I was up against a random hand, I should be willing to go with A-9, and it held up."

X-MAN TRIES TO DEFEAT UNKNOWN MAN

Thirteen hands later, someone else tried to pick on Sipelstein: this was starting to feel like elementary school, "let's pick on the new kid." With Runner-Runner (I mean Balmy Barney) holding the button, X raised it to $8,500, and Sipelstein decided to do more than defend his big blind by raising 18.5k more. X called and we looked at a flop of 7s-4d-6h.

Sipelstein checked, X moved in, and Sipelstein called. This time Sipelstein had the goods, or at least some goods: A-K, to X's K-Q (new guys get tired of getting picked on). The closing J-10 didn't change anything and the one guy no one had give a ghost of a chance was making a move towards the lead, muscling Robert "X" Miller out and turning him into Robert "Ex" Miller.

Five hands later, Boatman raised it $6,000 from the small blind, and Seidel re-raised $18,000 from the big blind. Boatman had only $21,000 left in front of him, so he went ahead and shoved the whole stack in, a raise of $3,000.

Seidel is usually terrific at snapping off bluffs, but he miscalculated this time: A-Qh for Boatman, and Q-7 for Seidel. The board came 4h-5h-9h, and when the As hit the turn, Seidel had no outs.

"First time he's in front," joked Chan, referring to Boatman's use of numerous lives to survive his earlier all-in confrontations.

BOATMAN HAD THE LEAD, SO HE WAS EDGY

"I know," Boatman joked back. "That's why I was so nervous on the flop."

Seven hands later, on #56, Phil Gordon, who had continued to show the aggressive, re-raising style that had served him so well in the 2001 WSOP throughout the day, made an initial raise to $10,500, and in one of those "what is Chan up to now?" moves, Johnny merely called the bet. Gordon only had $15,000 left in front of him.

The flop came A-5-8, Gordon moved those last few chips in like lightening, and Chan called like equal speed, answering most of the questions about what Chan had been doing when he flat-called: laying a trap. Gordon showed A-6, Chan A-K, and even though a nine hit the river to give Gordon some chance to win with a straight if a seven hit, a lowly four sent Gordon out in sixth place.

Seidel and Gordon had earlier given the crowd a bit of a thrill when they exchanged re-raises, only to find that each held A-K. We now had a bit of a replay, again involving Seidel, but this time with Chan as his opponent, and with one big difference: Seidel held A-K suited in diamonds, and after the flop came Jd-7s-5d, Seidel was on a double-up freeroll. He didn't have to wait long to get the news, either: the 7d hit the turn, and Seidel had new life with about 66k.

A few hands later I had the chips at roughly

Chan, 152k
Tran, 68k
Boatman, 28k
Seidel, 77k
Sipelstein, 112k

The equities shifted mightily when Tran made it 8k to go from the button, Boatman re-raised all-in, and Tran called. Boatman held 7-7, and Tran two overcards with K-Q. It was a classic coin flip hand, but the Mobster had fate smiling on him this day: the board came down 6-4-J-9-9, the second time he'd won a hand with running nines at the end, although this time they'd merely served as blanks instead of miracles.

HAND #64 SHAKES THINGS UP

Boatman, the earlier leader turned trailer, was back in the middle, and An Tran was now the trailer, and if THAT hand shifted the equities, #64 shook them like an earthquake.

With Chan holding the button, Sipelstein made it 10.5k to go, and as had happened several time before, he got a couple of callers, as the more famous players made it indirectly clear they thought/hoped they would be able to outplay The Unknown One after the flop. Chan and Boatman each came along for the ride this time.

The flop came 3h-10h-4s, and Boatman fired a pot-sized $33,000 bet straight out. Sipelstein released his hand, but Chan moved all-in (more than enough to cover Boatman, in any case), and Boatman called. Chan and Boatman had played hoping to trap Sipelstein, but had instead flopped a big hand against each other: Chan had a set of threes, while Boatman held the nut flush with Ah-4h.

EVEN DEALERS GET NERVOUS, I SUPPOSE

As was his wont all day, Chan stood up from the table, not wanting to watch the board as the cards came down (he and Seidel must have trained at the same school), and he missed a harmless Jd on the turn. He didn't have to see the river, though: the crowd roar's British flavor told him the flush draw had connected on the river, the 8h to be precise, and there was so much excitement in the air that the dealer almost completely screwed up the whole pot, shoving the main pot right into Boatman's stack and intermingling the two.

Under other conditions, this would have been a disaster, because we would have had difficult recreating the amount Chan had to ship to Boatman, but because Cordovez had been calling the bet sizes very clearly, we were able to reconstruct the main pot's size, thus figuring out what had been in front of Boatman. It turned out that Chan had to send over $49,500, and suddenly the chip counts were:

Chan, 58k
Tran, 46k
Boatman, 135k
Seidel, 72k
Sipelstein, 128k

It wasn't exactly like the Mob taking things over in Las Vegas was something new, but this really was shocking, because Boatman had lost his early lead so quickly and had been the recipient of several final card or runner-runner miracles on the way back. I don't mean to take anything away from Boatman (after all, I grew up in a mob town myself, albeit the kind that REALLY used to own Las Vegas), who moved his chips well and who plays well too, but it was starting to seem like he'd brought not only his fellow Hendon Mob supporters with him, but the Thames as well.

The lengthy delay in sorting out the dealer error brought us to the break, where they removed the $500 chips from the table and replaced them with easier to track $1,000s.
It was during this break that I held my discussions with Rocky Ross Boatman, when I learned much of my Hendon Mob history. "We learned our poker watching and reading about people like Erik Seidel and Johnny Chan," Ross told me, "so it's a real thrill to be here watching Barney give it a go against them." I now own a Hendon Mob hat. It should be fun to wear, unless I ever go back to my hometown of Massapequa, New York, where the question of belonging to another mob would not be treated lightly.

In any case, when we resumed, we had blinds of $2,000-$4,000, with an opening raise possible anywhere in the $8,000-$14,000 range.

Two hands into the new level, Seidel held the button, and Chan called Boatman's 12k raise out of the big blind. The flop came 9s-6s-2h, Chan checked, Boatman bet $7,000, and with the pot now containing $34,000, Chan was able to re-raise all-in.

Boatman called, and Chan sighed and said "you got me" as he turned over Jc-10c, a stone cold bluff. Boatman flipped up Ah-9h, top pair top kicker, and when the board finished 5-8, the great Johnny Chan, one of Boatman's early heroes and inspirations, was gone, and Boatman now had a sizeable chip lead.

Six hands later, the other inspiration, Seidel, raised a pot to 12k, and Tran decided to raise $28,000 more. A call would have come close to putting Seidel all-in anyway, so he re-raised his last few chips, and after Tran called, Seidel flipped up K-K.

THE $64,000 QUESTION

Tran turned over A-Q, and the ace that always seems to haunt pocket kings (at least, if I'm to believe the roughly 97 bad beat stories I hear per hour) never appeared. Tran had to ship Seidel $64,000, and was left with only $12,000 of his own. This gave us a very even three-way game, with Tran trailing badly.

Two hands later, Tran tossed those last chips in before the blinds could get to him, and both Seidel and Sipelstein called from the blinds. From the speed with which both players checked as the board came down 8s-7s-4d-6c-8d, it was pretty obvious that even if Sipelstein wasn't a tournament veteran, he understood the "check down a short stacked opponent" strategy well.

Seidel flipped up Ah-Jh, and Sipelstein Kd-7d for a pair of sevens. Tran threw his hand away, and after 75 hands of play, we were three-handed.

Facing two pros like Seidel and Boatman, Sipelstein might have been expected to start faltering now, but he didn't look nervous at all, and in fact when Seidel quietly asked if anyone wanted to save anything, I saw Sipelstein shake his head "no." This meant the unknown wasn't facing either money pressure or fear, and my impression of his chances increased considerably.

Sipelstein really started showing he could play with the big boys on hand #79, when he raised to 12k from the small blind, with Boatman calling. The flop came 5h-Jd-8c, and Sipelstein bet 20k. Boatman raised him back another 20k, and after some thought, and with a furrowed brow, Sipelstein called.

THAT PUSHING THE NEW KID AROUND DOESN'T ALWAYS WORK

Both players checked when the Kh hit the turn, and when the Qs hit the river, Sipelstein bet out for 40k. Boatman mucked, and Sipelstein had made his point: he wasn't going to be pushed around.

This made the chip count roughly

Boatman, 135k
Seidel, 82k
Sipelstein, 212k

Seidel worked his way back the way you'd expect a pro of his caliber to do it, chipping and chopping, picking off bluffs, and staying away from big pots. It was like watching a master at work, and he had worked his way back up to about 130k by hand #99 when he raised out of the small blind and Sipelstein called from the big.

The flop came Ac-Ks-3c, Seidel checked, and Sipelstein bet 20k. Seidel raised it to 50k total, and Sipelstein promptly shoved his whole stack forward. Seidel let the hand go, and in one fell swoop, Sipelstein had grabbed back all the money Seidel had accumulated a little bit at a time.

"SUSQUEHANNA HAT COMPANY!!!!!!!!!!!"

Slowly I turned, inch by inch, step by step...whoops, wrong story, I think that's the old Abbott and Costello routine about the Susquehanna hat company. Slowly Seidel started repeating the process of working his way up the ladder, and unlike before when both he and Boatman had shown a decided preference to play against Sipelstein instead of each other, the two pros now made it an equal opportunity game. Sipelstein had too many chips, and was playing in too fearless and sturdy a fashion to be a target any longer.

Boatman used his chip-moving magic to keep pace with Seidel and then some, and when we hit the next break, the chip totals were

Boatman, 128k
Seidel, 126k
Sipelstein, 185k

We were now playing with $3,000-$6,000 blinds, allowing an opening raise from anywhere between 12k-21k

The pattern of Seidel winning small pots and Sipelstein occasionally winning a big one with a big re-raise continued, and eleven hands into the new level, it struck at a point when Seidel couldn't back down.

Boatman held the button, and raised to 18k. Seidel raised him back 42k more, and Sipelstein pushed his whole stack forward. Boatman got rid of his cards like they were on fire, and Seidel, pot-committed, had to call. Erik showed two red sixes, and Sipelstein two red queens. The K-7-4-2-8 board ended Seidel's run in third place.

The heads-up duel commenced on hand #130, with Sipelstein leading almost exactly 2-1, $289,000-$150,000. We now had a rather classic Las Vegas showdown of a Mob member vs. a guy who looked about as corporate as you could get.

Boatman was confident, even though he trailed, and very little of consequence happened for the first five hands. On #135, Boatman held the small blind on the button, and raised it to $18,000 from there, with Sipelstein calling.

"C'MON, BALMY!"

The flop came 6c-Jc-9h. Sipelstein bet $20,000, Boatman raised exactly that amount, and Sipelstein shoved his entire stack forward. Boatman hesitated for perhaps two seconds before calling, as the Mob shouted "C'mon, Balmy!"

"Balmy" didn't have a bad hand at all, A-J, but Sipelstein flipped over two sixes for a set, and when the 3h hit the turn, Boatman was drawing dead, the final Qs irrelevant except as an appropriate "death" card.

I first approached Boatman to ask about the final hand.

"Maybe I should have gotten away from it," said the Brit wearing the Texas ten-gallon hat (what's that in liters?). "I don't think I stopped long enough to think about it. He was playing very solid poker and I hadn't seen him push big stacks in with any junk hands."

And what of Jay Sipelstein, the lone unknown amongst a table of nine better known players? How had he managed this win? Had he been afraid of his opponents' reputations? Had he had a battle plan?

"I knew it was bad going in," the Penn Valley, PA resident said. "First they announced there were 15 bracelets at the final table, and that didn't even include the guy who was runner up for Player of the Year last year or the guy who finished fourth in the Big One. I knew it wasn't going to be easy."

"I decided to mostly stay out of the way," Sipelstein continued, "and to let the name players bash themselves. I decided to wait for better hands: I'm not the dynamic player that a John Juanda is. But he's a good example. That hand with the A-9, I knew when I made it $8,000 that Juanda was going to raise me back everything he could no matter what two cards he held. I figured A-9 was better than any two random cards, so I was willing to go with it (Juanda held J-8)."

I asked Sipelstein what he did for a living, and he said he was a computer programmer and a stock trader.

"Do you trade for your own account, or for a firm?" I asked.

"I trade for a firm," Sipelstein said, "but the firm trades for its own account.

ANDY STARTS TO GET AN EERIE FEELING (AND THAT'S NOT ERIE, PA)

When I added this information to the knowledge that Penn Valley is a Philadelphia suburb, the hairs started creeping up on the back of my neck. "You don't trade for Susquehanna, do you?" I asked.

"Sure do," he said, smiling. "How do you know about them?"

"Well," I told our new champ, "I hardly know them at all, unless you count the fact that I almost moved to Philadelphia 15 years ago to go work for them, and that one of my best friends in the world works for them. You know Howard Ring?"

"Sure," he said. "Out of the Chicago office now, though, right?"

The world is a spooky place sometimes. One unknown at the final table and he turns out to know one of my best friends and work for a company I almost joined. That Sipelstein works for the highly successful Susquehanna trading firm (which also employs Jonathan Kaplan, an RGP poster who finished in the money in the Big One on his first try in 2000) explained why he didn't feel any money pressure. I also knew, via Ring stories, about the after-hours no-limit poker games that often take place in these offices.

"We use poker to train our traders," Sipelstein added. "It involves a lot of the same skills. You need to be dispassionate and analytical. If you make the right play often enough, the money will be there at the end. You just have to forget about the fact that there's money involved and make the right play."

THERE'S CARDS, AND THEN THERE'S POKER

Jay Sipelstein made the right plays today, and it really turns out to be kind of funny. Here he was, the only unknown at the table of supposed killers, and HE's the one who plays "poker" every day for stakes that are infinitely higher than those played by the "real" poker players. When he plays "cards," Sipelstein plays between 20-40 and 50-100 in Atlantic City, or those low-limit no-limit games in the Susquehanna offices.

So you high stakes poker players out there, before you decide you're intellectually superior to most of the population, or that you possess nerves of steel that no one in any other occupation has, think again. There are other folks who possess the same qualities...they just practice them in offices, at regular hours, and for higher stakes.
Art imitated life today, with the corporate guy beating out the "mob" in Las Vegas, but there were some less poetic and more practical lessons to be learned.

I came so close to moving to Philadelphia 15 years ago, it's almost spooky. Instead, I've walked a lot of other paths, with no regrets, but it certainly is ironic (and maybe not so strange) that the guy who DID move to Philadelphia is strapping on a World Series bracelet before me.

Final Official Results
$2,000 Pot-Limit Hold'em
April 29, 2002
Total Entries: 212
Total Prize Pool: $406,080

1. Jay Sipelstein, $150,240
2. Barney Boatman, $77,160
3. Erik Seidel, $38,580
4. An Tran, $24,320
5. Johnny Chan, $18,280
6. Phil Gordon, $14,220
7. Robert "X" Miller, $10,160
8. John Juanda, $8,12
9. Eskimo Clark, $6,500
10. Aaron Katz, $4,880

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