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$5,000
Seven-Card Stud
|
|
Seat |
Name |
Chips |
|
1 |
Vince Burgio |
$44,600 |
|
2 |
Chris "Jesus" Ferguson |
$19,400 |
|
3 |
Chris Grigorian |
$8,200 |
|
4 |
Phil Ivey |
$33,100 |
|
5 |
Perry Friedman |
$25,500 |
|
6 |
Brian Nadell |
$38,600 |
|
7 |
Christina Hung |
$9,800 |
|
8 |
Diego Cordovez |
$107,300 |
Let's work it out by a process of elimination, shall we? Hung and Grigorian just had too few chips to be real threats. Everyone else had a chance, especially as all had some WSOP history on their resumes, but I figured that when I arrived we'd be down to Cordovez, Ivey, Burgio, Ferguson, Nadell, and Friedman, in that order, and that the final four would probably be the first four on that list, with Cordovez's giant chip lead still leaving him in the driver's seat.
IT'S A BIRD...IT'S A PLANE...IT'S...PHIL IVEY!
When I arrived, the chips Ivey had accumulated made it immediately obvious to me that I'd focused far too much on Star Wars and Star Trek in my later life, because I'd forgotten the old expression, "Faster than a speeding bullet...more powerful than a locomotive...able to leap over tall buildings in a single bound...SUPERMAN!"
Cordovez, whose nickname "D-Train" grew in popularity after he won more than a half million dollars in the Commerce Casino's limit hold'em tournament this year (the largest single cash ever made in a limit hold'em event, because Kathy Liebert, despite her win in the Party Poker Million, had made several deals that reduced her final take to less than $300,000), was an easy choice, with his giant chip lead, 2000 gold bracelet, win at the Commerce, and status as a semi-finalist in the 2002 Bracelet Holder tournament. (The other three, Johnny Chan, Phil Hellmuth, and Tom McEvoy, are all also columnists for Card Player Magazine, something I wouldn't have noticed had not Jeff Shulman dared me to write it.)
If "D-Train" Cordovez was the powerful locomotive, the lanky Ferguson could pass for a tall building, and Friedman was the speeding bullet, at least if you counted the speed of his mouth: he'd been talking so much with a neighbor (with the unfortunate Erik Seidel in the middle) in the $5,000 seven-card stud tournament that someone proposed a $1,000 as to which player, Friedman or his neighbor, could keep his mouth closed longest. Friedman managed to win, but only because his opponent couldn't resist an expletive when he got knocked out of the tournament.
IT'S NOT X-RAY VISION, BUT RATHER THE SUPER STRENGTH IN THAT RAISING ARM
If you've been following this year's WSOP, you already know who gets the Superman role, because Phil Ivey has already won two events and made two other final tables. Little did I know that Superman would be so super that in two little hours his aggressive play would not only knock out Hung, Nadell, Ferguson and Grigorian, in that order, but that he would have the chip lead and have both Friedman and Burgio on the ropes.
A TIP OF THE HAT TO MIKE PAULLE FOR RECREATING THE EARLY CARNAGE
With thanks to Mike Paulle, the highlights on the elimination of the first four were:
Hung exited first, going all-in on a stud high hand where she made sixes and fives. Brian Nadell was in the mix, making eights and sixes, but Grigorian made aces and threes to eliminate Hung, cut a little hole in Nadell's stack, and put himself into a position to climb far higher than his initial chip position had indicated.
Nadell left second, having been tortured several times by Ivey, including on his final hand, when Nadell started with split queens and made three of them. Going to the last card, Ivey had (8-8) 6-5-9-A, which meant he had a shot at a low draw, but could only win the high with a seven for a straight. Voila, a seven it was, and Ivey had not only escaped for half but had scooped the whole pot and eliminated Nadell.
Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, who would also make the "ten nicest people in poker" list I'll be discussing momentarily, got to the final table on skill: while cards can run over anyone anytime, most poker players feel that there's more skill involved in making a final table than in winning from there, because once the blinds and/or antes are so high, you have to gamble a lot more. Ferguson hardly played a hand in an hour, so bad were his cards, and his stack eroded. Playing stud high against Ivey, Ferguson started with a king showing, while Ivey had (4-4) 9. Ivey caught a third four on fourth street to end the 2000 World Champion's day.
Grigorian, whose early move got him back in the tournament briefly, started sliding backwards again, and got his last $2,500 in with split queens. Cordovez took him on in the low risk hand with a pair of his own, and wound up making sixes and threes, while Grigorian could never improve.
FOUR BRACELET WINNERS REMAINED
As a result, instead of the six players I'd expected to see there were only four (all of whom already owned WSOP bracelets: S.H.O.E. isn't a good game for amateurs, requiring skill in four different games), and it was almost worse than that. Perry Friedman, who'd already won a bracelet at this Series, was very short stacked.
The very first hand I witnessed, we were on the stud round, Ivey's specialty, and the short-chipped Friedman got his last few chips in early in a three-way hand with Cordovez and Super-Ivey.
Frequently in spots like this, players check down the all-in player, in an effort to climb the chip ladder, and among normal mortals that might have been expected, especially with this ladder spot the all-important climb from fourth to third, where the really big money starts.
CHECK HIM DOWN? NOT WITH A TITLE TO BE WON!
Neither D-Train nor Ivey are normal mortals, though, and Ivey kept betting at the pot, with Cordovez calling, as the boards came down
Ivey, Q-6-8-A
Cordovez, 5-3-8-J
Friedman, 5-9-4-5
Cordovez gave it up when Ivey bet again on sixth, and Ivey turned out to have made two pair, queens and sixes. Friedman also had two pair, but lower, and in one hand the six players I'd expected to see were now three:
Burgio, 40k
Ivey, 151k
Cordovez, 95k
"It's now age and wisdom vs. youth and strength," cracked Co-Tournament Director Matt Savage on the microphone, a friendly jab at his friend Burgio, one of the world's great players and nice guys (in fact, I'd bet my bottom dollar that if you polled tournament regulars about who the nicest players are on the tour, all three of these finalists would make the top ten), whose age roughly equaled that of his two opponents combined.
We got three more hands of stud (Ivey's specialty) in before the change, but Ivey won a big pot from Burgio on the last one when the boards came
Burgio, J-8-10
Ivey, 9-Q-9
Burgio had been leading at the pot, but when Ivey paired his doorcard, Burgio gave it up, muttering to himself, and staring at the 20k he had left.
THE GAMES MOVES TO LIMIT HOLD'EM
We switched over to limit hold'em, Cordovez's best game, but Ivey put a hurt on Burgio on the very first hand. Staring at a flop of 9-10-10, Ivey bet out, with Burgio calling. Aces hit both the turn and river, and Burgio called the extremely aggressive Ivey down.
Ivey flipped over A-4 offsuit, a strong enough starting hand in a three-way game, but a complete zero on the flop. It turned into a mere aces-full by the river, though, and almost immediately Ivey was near the 200k mark, with Cordovez left with about 70k, and Burgio his 20.
With the blinds $1,500-$3,000, you run through cash awfully fast in a three-handed game, and Burgio knew he couldn't wait. Down to about 10k, he raised a pot to $6,000, and Ivey played along from the big blind. The flop came Q-4-8, the rest of the money went in with Burgio completely pot-committed, and they turned the hole cards over:
Burgio, 6-9
Ivey, 6-8
This had meant that Burgio was a 2-1 favorite before the flop (although I had to wonder why he had raised someone who had shown a pattern of calling bets, because 6-9, while wonderful in certain circumstances, is worse than a random starting hand in hold'em), but the eight changed that instantly, and Burgio, looking rather stunned, had been eighty-sixed.
BURGIO LEFT BEWILDERED
"He's a good player, but he bets like he knows they're coming, and then they do," Burgio said. "I'm not talking just about the last hand, I'm talking about the whole final table, I've never seen anything like it, nothing like it anytime in my life" (which, as Savage had already noted, has been reasonably long).
Burgio wasn't angry, just stunned and depressed. "It's so tough," he said. "You work so hard and you get so close. These bracelets aren't easy to win, and it's tough to get so close and not make it."
THE "D-TRAIN" VS. "THE LOCOMOTIVE"
This left us heads up, the D-Train against the "more powerful than a locomotive" guy, and a pattern quickly emerged. Ivey wasn't going to back down from his usual aggressive style just because he was now in Cordovez territory. Heads-up, the small blind goes on the button (SBB), and acts first before the flop and second after the flop. Ivey raised from the SBB almost every time he held it, and Cordovez frequently three-bet him, making it clear he wasn't going to be pushed around.
PASSIVE PLAYERS NEED NOT APPLY
Things went pretty much the same way when Cordovez held the SBB, too. Of every limit hold'em hand I watched, I saw zero folds by the SBB, one limp-in for $1,500, and one four-bet hand. Every single other hand, in almost a dead-even split, we say either one raise and a call and a raise and a re-raise. This style meant the duo was contesting serious amounts of money on every pot before the flop ever arrived, which meant it was hard to get away from a hand on the flop.
When we started the heads-up battle, Ivey led roughly 200k to 86k, and Cordovez started gaining a little ground, but lost it when the pair he started with on one of the three-bet pots lost to a straight Ivey made on the river, knocking Cordovez, a Stanford alumnus and successful Internet businessman, back down to about 75k.
Cordovez got back into the fight on a hand when Ivey made it 6k from the SBB, Cordovez made it 9k, and Ivey called. The flop came 7-7-5, Cordovez bet 3k, Ivey raised (a real shocker, that), and Cordovez called (almost certainly planning, as you'll see in a moment, a check-raise on the turn). A king hit the turn, Cordovez checked, Ivey bet 6k, and Cordovez called. A third seven hit the river, and both players checked.
TWO QUEENS GET DIEGO INTO THE GAME
Cordovez turned over pocket queens, and Ivey mucked, a profitable hand for Cordovez, but given Ivey's tendency to push, I wondered if it had been profitable enough. It a lot of situations, you'd say that betting the river in this kind of situation is a lose-only situation, because you're only going to get called (or raised) if you're beaten (i.e., if Ivey held a seven or a king), but given that super-powered raising arm of Ivey's, I might have been tempted to shove another bet or two in. Regardless, the king on the turn was a real blow, because it had to scare both players, and cost Cordovez the check-raise that Ivey's aggressive style likely would have allowed.
Of course, I was covering this, and Cordovez was the one who has both a bracelet and the huge Commerce win on his resume. He and Ivey had also chatted when the tournament was down to three tables and "figured" that they would be the two playing it out at the end. It's awfully hard for me to say any Diego Cordovez limit hold'em play is wrong. I've just seen Ivey push so many pots that I think I'd have given it a go against him here.
The hand got the chips back to where we had a real battle on our hands:
Ivey, 166k
Cordovez, 120k
It was clearly anyone's tournament, and we had a long way to go in Cordovez's specialty game, and the very next two hands swung the equities considerably.
TWO HANDS GET DIEGO OUT OF THE GAME
On the first, Ivey made it 6k from the SBB, Cordovez made it 9k, and Ivey called. The flop came 4s-5s-Kh, with Cordovez betting out and Ivey calling. The 5c hit the turn, and again Cordovez bet with Ivey calling. The 7c hit the turn, Cordovez checked, and Ivey, whose super powers apparently also include a superb ability to smell weakness, bet, with Cordovez calling.
Phil Ivey turned over the Qh-4h, a pair of fours, and they were good.
On the next hand, Cordovez made it 6k from the SBB, and Ivey called. The flop came 9-9-4, Ivey checked, Cordovez bet, Ivey raised, and Cordovez called. Kings hit both the turn and river, with Ivey betting and Cordovez calling each time, and Ivey turned over his 9-7. He'd flopped trips and rivered an unnecessary (and indeed unwanted, in the event Cordovez had a king in his hand) full house.
Faster than you could say "Lois Lane, Clark Kent, Lex Luthor, Perry White, and Jimmy Olson, where are you when we need you?" (well, OK, you might have had to have said those words rather slowly) the chip position had now swung to
Ivey, 219k
Cordovez, 67k
Ivey understands how card values change dramatically in heads-up poker, to say nothing of his superlative understanding of aggression's value (hmm, come to think of it, I just did say something about it), and after he raised the next hand from the SBB, he stared at a flop of Qh-5h-2h, got check-raised but called on the flop, and also called on the turn, when the Ad hit. Both players checked the river, and Ivey's 7-2, a pair of deuces, took the pot when Cordovez showed the Kh, a big flush draw that had never hit or paired.
AN INTIMIDATION FACTOR?
Chris "Jesus" Ferguson was sitting next to me as all this was going down, and I asked him if he thought there might be an intimidation factor at work, with Ivey having such an incredible WSOP.
"I don't think so," Chris said. "Diego is a tough player. There might be some frustration, because of the way the hands have come down, but no intimidation."
Cordovez's chips hovered between 20k and 40k for about a dozen hands, and while he was near the low end of this spectrum, something very interesting happened. The dealer began dealing the next hand, and Ivey, sitting in the big blind, noticed as the cards were coming out that Cordovez already had two cards when Ivey only had one.
"Hold up," Ivey say. "You're dealing it backwards, you have to start with me," which is of course correct, and they pulled the cards back in to re-deal.
TALK ABOUT BEING FOCUSED...
Now that, I thought, is being locked in. Most players sitting with a huge chip lead and about to collect a record-tying third bracelet in one Series (it has only been done twice before, both times in 1993, when Phil Hellmuth and Ted Forrest each did it) wouldn't be so focused as to notice how the cards were coming out. Ivey's concentration was absolute. Nothing was getting past him.
When they re-dealt, Cordovez raised from the SBB, and Ivey called. After Cordovez checked, Ivey bet at the Jd-8c-2s flop, and got a call, but when the 6h hit the turn, Cordovez let the hand go, saving his last 13k.
For the very first time since the heads-up battle began, Ivey merely limped in from the SBB, and we looked at a 4-7-8 flop. Cordovez checked, Ivey bet, Cordovez raised, and Ivey put Cordovez's last chip into play.
Ivey turned over 3-7, a pair of sevens. Cordovez showed A-6, an overcard and a gutshot for a straight. An eight hit the turn, and quite appropriately, the king of diamonds hit the river, crowning our new champion.
I didn't want to get bowled over by the people rushing Ivey, so I spoke with Cordovez first.
THE SILVER MEDALIST ACKNOWLEDGES THE CHAMP
"He did catch some cards when we were heads-up," Cordovez said, "but there was a lot more to it than that. He's a great player. He made some great laydowns, value bet at exactly the right times, called at the right times. Cards had something to do with it but make no mistake, Phil got the absolute maximum value someone could have gotten from his cards and stayed away from trouble at moments when someone else might not have. The better man won today. He's a class act and a gentleman. I can't be too mad at him. I don't play much stud, and Phil even gave me a stud lesson at lunch yesterday."
Like Burgio, Cordovez was also disappointed at coming close and missing, but he had a slightly different take on it.
"When you come third, yeah, you're kind of close, but it's a good payday and you're happy with the money," Cordovez said. "Once you get to second, you REALLY want to win, and my record in these situations has been good. Over the last eight years I think I have a dozen firsts or thirds, but not a single second. Once I get heads-up, I usually win, so I really have to tip my hat to Phil."
CORDOVEZ PLANNING TO COMBINE BUSINESS, POKER TALENTS
Cordovez, like current World Champion Carlos Mortensen of Ecuadorian origin (but unlike him in that he grew up in the U.S. and sounds, no offense intended Diego, as American as I do) was certainly a worthy opponent for Superman. He's spent 15 years building software and technology companies in Silicon Valley, and been a serious poker player for 12 years. He says he is now combining areas of expertise to create world class gaming technology software, and is in the process of bringing in people who are world class in both the technology and poker end of things to build his next venture. More than that, Cordovez wasn't willing to say.
That was a lot compared to how much I could get out of the 25 year-old Ivey; he doesn't say much, especially when the subject is himself. Although he's confident enough when talking off the record with his friends, he has no desire to make some kind of media hero out of himself: he's about as soft-spoken as they come.
I asked him if, with eight events left, he thought he could get a fourth bracelet, and I almost fainted when he smiled (they have had the hardest time getting him to smile for any of the post-victory photos here).
"It'd be nice," he said, "but I'm not counting on it."
"You're so locked in, and playing so well right now," I said. "Do you think some of the other players are getting intimidated by it?"
HEY, WHICH ONE OF US IS FROM KRYPTON?
Ivey looked at me like I was from another planet. "No, not at all," he said. "I sure don't think about that. If they want to get intimidated, they can, but that's not part of what I think about."
What then, I wanted to know, accounted for this fabulous WSOP performance?
"I had a bad Series in 2001," Ivey said. "I really wanted to come here focused this time. No special routine, no special technique to it, but I just came here determined to stay focused every single minute I played."
THE BEST WSOP EVER?
Whether he gets the unthinkable fourth bracelet or not, when you add in the two other final tables Ivey has made, this should probably be considered the best World Series anyone has ever had, including Hellmuth in '93, when he had a second to go with those three firsts. Nine years later, the fields are much larger, and given the advances in poker literature, the players are much better.
As I wandered away from the tournament final area to check on the progress of $5,000 limit hold'em event, I ran into T.J. Cloutier, and said something about it having been a great Series for Ivey, and how we'd have to see if he could stand the test of time like Cloutier has.
"I think he can," Cloutier said. "Most of these other young kids want to party all the time, and sooner or later that will catch up with them, but not Phil. He's a decent straight arrow, and if he wants to keep playing and winning, I think he can do it for as long as he wants to. Most of the young guys don't know how to handle the dry spells, either, and they come just as sure as death and taxes, but I think Phil Ivey can handle them, too."
A week or so ago, when Max Shapiro was covering one of the events for me, Ivey won, and Shapiro called him poker's young prince. He's still young, and even with three bracelets he hasn't won as much money as Layne Flack has this year with his two, but I think it might be time to drop the prince moniker and pay homage to this year's king.
LONG LIVE THE KING, AND I BELIEVE HE WILL
Kings can always be dethroned, of course, and Ivey will have to stand the test of time to be ranked with the greats like Chan, Seidel, Hellmuth and Cloutier, but until players adjust to Ivey's style (and the better ones will: I certainly have some plans for trying to deal with him, if I'm unlucky enough to draw him early or lucky enough to be playing against him at a final table), the modest young man from Atlantic City, New Jersey figures to stay faster than a speeding bullet, and more powerful than a locomotive for a long time.
I think the "real" Superman wears form-fitting boots as his "shoes," something the always casually-dressed Ivey wouldn't go for, just as he wouldn't walk around in a Superman t-shirt, but until someone around here finds some version of poker kryptonite, I think we'll be doffing our hats to young Mr. Ivey for a long time to come. He certainly won't keep up THIS bracelet-accumulating pace, but he has done what very few poker players have ever been able to do, and I don't mean just collecting bracelets. He's taken the game to another level, and until his opponents learn to adapt and play in the Ivey League, I think we can expect to see him patrolling the skies of Metropolis for some time to come.
Final Official Results, Event #23, $2,000 S.H.O.E.
Total Entries: 143
Total Prize Pool: $268,840
|
Finish |
Name |
Prize Money |
|
1 |
Phil Ivey |
$107,540 |
|
2 |
Diego Cordovez |
$53,760 |
|
3 |
Vince Burgio |
$26,880 |
|
4 |
Perry Friedman |
$16,140 |
|
5 |
Chris Grigorian |
$13,440 |
|
6 |
Chris "Jesus" Ferguson |
$10,760 |
|
7 |
Brian Nadell |
$8,060 |
|
8 |
Christina Hung |
$5,380 |
9th-12th, $4,040 each: Ian Murphy, Mallory Smith, Dan Heimiller, Rich Korbin
13th-16th, $2,680 each: Bernard McNelis, Mike O'Malley, Steve Kaufman, Vince Calvino
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