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$10,000 No-Limit Hold'em Championship, Day Five:"A Rout Turns Into a Close Shave"By Andrew N.S. Glazer Forget Thunderdome, where "two men enter, one man leaves." Today we finished off the 33rd Annual World Series of Poker at Binion's Horseshoe in downtown Las Vegas, and while 631 had started four days earlier, today, it was going to be "Nine men enter, one man leaves," although the consolation prizes (like $1,100,000 for second and even $85,000 for ninth) were considerably better than they were in Mad Max's playpen, where the reason only "one man leaves" is because the other dies. Still, the difference between first and ninth was a whopping $1,915,000, and as actor/comedian Gabe Kaplan told the huge assembled throng while the television cameras were getting into position, "This is Survivor played with cards. It's Who Wants to be Two Millionaires, except that you can't phone a friend, and you definitely can't ask the audience. You're on your own." IT WAS REALITY TV, BUT JUST WHERE ON TV IT WOULD LAND, WE WEREN'T SURE By the way, for those of you have been asking about broadcasts, I've held off on publishing answers because the answers have been changing almost daily. The final last word is that if you want to see the final table in full length form, you can go to PokerPages.com or Binions.com and buy it for $9.95, a fee that lets you watch it as many times as you like during the coming month. There wasn't any live Internet audio, and the television show on which it APPEARS, cross your fingers (OK, I'll just cross mine) that your Pundit will appear (I was in the booth with Kaplan when the final hand went down), is going to be either on ESPN, the Discovery Channel, or the Travel Channel. Negotiations about which of these networks will run the program are still in progress. SOME PRELIMINARY HELP FOR ANDY I know we did this yesterday, but some of you cheated by voting more than once, and a bunch more of you probably put the 15 second task aside, planning on getting back to it later. Please do me a favor and take the 15 seconds now, and play by the rules and vote in only one category. Normally, after the World Series ends, Wednesday Nite Poker reverts to being an instructional, bi-weekly newsletter. A number of people requested varying kinds of World Series information aside from type and variety I usually include about final tables. In the week or two following the WSOP, I plan to put one or more special pieces together about some of the other atmosphere and flavor of the WSOP, and I'd like my readers to tell me what they want. If you'd like to see a piece describing the high stakes side action, click on pokerpundit@aol.com, and just write "high stakes action" in the subject line. If you'd like to see a piece describing all of the side action as well as the constant flow of satellites and supersatellites, click AndrewNSGlazer@aol.com and just write "all side action" in the subject line. If you'd like to see a special interview with the Champion, click andyglazer@aol.com, and just write "interview champ" in the subject line. You can, if you want, include other information in the body of the email explaining what else you want to see in WNP over the next few months, I'll do my best to follow as many of your suggestions as possible. The final nine players, with their seats and chip positions, were:
Yesterday I made some predictions, and some of them came out looking great, while others came out looking weak. For a quick review, I said yesterday that although Gardner showed a chink or two in his youthful armor towards the end of the day, I think he's one of the two best players left. The problem was that Gardner and the other best player left, D, owned two of the three shortest stacks. SOME PICKS WOUND UP BETTER THAN OTHERS I also noted that 1) Shipley is a talented player, even though many observers were shocked by his call with the pocket eights, and that when you combined his skills with his chips, Shipley is the pick. 2) Rosenblum caught a break in that he got position on Shipley, but you just can't make mistakes like failing to notice you've only been raised 30k in a 200k pot (see yesterday's report for the full story on this blunder: it wound up playing a major role in the tournament's outcome) and expect to win the WSOP. I decided that while he seemed like a nice young man, I figured him for fifth or sixth place. 3) If D could double up early, he could win, and that the same could be said of Gardner, Gray, Perry, and Ly. Hall had a lot of game, I thought, but I didn't think he was going to cut it loose and he will have to pick up a lot of hands to get into it. Off of a relatively brief time watching him play, I didn't see Varkonyi having what it takes, and even though Rosenblum had all those chips, I thought he'd have to get awfully lucky to win. THAT WOULD PROBABLY BE BETTER THAN THE MODERN PROMETHEUS So much for the prognostications. Whether I'd prove to be a latter day Nostradamus, or something more akin to a latter day Nosferatu, we'd soon find out, and I meant SOON. With blinds of $8,000-$16,000, and $3,000 antes, it was going to cost $51,000 just to sit out one round, and even the medium stacks couldn't afford much of that. D held the button, and on hand #1, Varkonyi immediately made it 50k to go. Manchester, England's Julian Gardner, the 23 year-old prodigy who has been playing professionally in Europe for five years and playing seriously for eleven, put almost half his stack into play by immediately raising to $220,000. Varkonyi flat called, and when the flop came 10-6-2, Varkonyi immediately moved all-in, with more than enough to cover Gardner. Gardner called quicker than you can say "pocket aces," and turned that hand over while Varkonyi turned over his pocket nines. The board missed everyone, and in one hand, the game's complexion had changed. The dangerous Gardner now had more than 800k, more than the average stack of 711k, while Varkonyi, the one fellow I'd thought who lacked that certain something necessary to win, had instantly been ground into a short stack of 240k. Nostradamus, look out. CRANK UP THE JUICE The electric atmosphere's amperage increased on hand #2, when Gardner made it 41k to go, and Perry moved all-in. His opponents couldn't afford to have Gardner going on some kind of rampage, and Perry knew it. Gardner laid down pocket nines. Perry didn't show, but I wondered if he'd had pocket aces. If so, Gardner had proven he could get away from nines while Varkonyi had shown he couldn't. We were all having so much fun that there wasn't any need to slow down on hand #3. Shipley, who'd told us he'd wanted to be listed as coming from Holihull, England, rather than Birmingham (Holihull is a suburb), made it 42k to go, Gardner popped it for 150k more, and Shipley in effect said "Don't even think about it" when he re-raised for 300k more. Gardner let it go, and Shipley's lead had grown. "We're off to a slow start," Co-Tournament Director Matt Savage apologized, tongue firmly in cheek, but it was Savage who proved to be the Accidental Tourist Nostradamus, as the action did then slow a bit. We finished the first round uneventfully, except that Hall had yet to play a hand, which meant his starting 161k had shrunken to 110k. Hall's stack continued to shrink, while Ireland's Scott Gray pulled a modified Alice in Wonderland by running as quickly as possible to remain in the same place. He had to lay down his initial raises to 50k on hands #12 and #14 to reraises, he kept firing and took uncontested pots on hands 15, and 22. His stack size had hardly changed, but he'd had a lot of fun playing. HALL GETS INTO THE ACTION Hall finally played on hand #17, re-raising Shipley's 42k bet with his last few chips. Given Shipley's huge stack and predilection to call raises, this was tantamount to calling all-in, but Hall wound up splitting the pot when each player turned over A-10 and Hall's diamond draw on the flop didn't get there. Hall finally gained some ground on hand #23 when he raised his last 74k from middle position and got no callers. Back to 122k for the man I call "Cuz" (he calls me the same thing), because some misguided soul decided to insult Hall a year or so back by telling him we looked a lot alike. Four hands later Perry, whose aggressive play had moved him over the million mark, opened a pot for 50k, only to see himself raised 90k more by Ly. Perry shrugged off the challenge and moved all-in, and after debating the 400k+ raise for about four seconds, Ly called. A-K for Perry, 8-8 for Ly, the first card off the deck was a king, and we were eight-handed, with Perry's stack now approaching Shipley's for the lead. I'm not exactly the world's greatest expert on how to play two eights (see, e.g., Day One of the 2002 WSOP; man, I can beat myself up with the best of them), but this was a bad call even though it turned out Ly was a slight favorite. On the majority of the hands Perry is going to risk making the third raise with, Ly will be a big underdog. He later explained that the pot had already grown large and that if he was just up against overcards he saw a chance to really get into the game with a million dollar stack, but calling with small pairs is deadly and calling with medium pairs only slightly less so. Three hands later, Shipley opened for his standard 42k (just about everyone else was raising initial raises to 50k, but Shipley preferred this number), only to see Varkonyi call. The flop came Q-8-4, Shipley bet 120k, Varkonyi moved all-in, and the still heavily stacked Shipley called. Both bet and call were a bit strange, as Varkonyi turned over those pocket jacks that have played such a heavy roll in this tournament, and Shipley turned over an A-K that had already missed the flop. The board finished 9-3, Varkonyi had gotten his starting chips back and then some, and Shipley was starting to taken on water. "MAN THE PUMPS, AND BAIL LIKE MAD!" Shipley got the bilge pumps working (Britannia rules the waves, after all), by the time we'd hit the first break, the new chip counts were: D, Tony, $237,000 Gardner, Julian, $563,000 Gray, Scott, $389,000 Perry, Ralph, $1,522,000 Varkonyi, Robert, $1,088,000 Shipley, John, $1,620,000 Rosenblum, Russell, $805,000 Hall, Harley, $86,000 Although Shipley had surprised me by playing a few too many hands and by betting a bit too predictably, allowing re-raises he couldn't call, it was D's passivity that had really been the surprising story the first two hours. D is usually one of poker's most aggressive players, and he'd been guarding his chips like they contained gold-plated latinum or keys to various safety deposit boxes. Varkonyi's move up had surprised me a little, but virtually all of it had come one big coin flip hand, so the jury was still out. We gotta tell the judges to stop sequestering those juries in hotels that have HBO. AT 68K A ROUND, NO ONE COULD SIT BACK We moved up to 4k antes and $12,000-$24,000 blinds, meaning that eight-handed, it would cost 68k (32+36) to sit out a round. Hall had kept a tight image through the first couple of hours, rarely participating but usually doubling through with the goods or going unchallenged when he did choose to raise. Nonetheless, the high antes and blinds had kept him from making any headway. On the first hand of the new round, #45 overall, "cuz" moved all-in from middle position, and Perry decided to play sheriff. Cuz Hall didn't hold a monster, A-9, but Perry had been a bit loose in his efforts to bust Hall, turning over Q-7. The board missed everyone until Hall hit an ace on the turn, leaving Perry no outs, and now Hall was very close to D with 216k. Four hands later, we got another reminder that to err is human and to forgive divine. Varkonyi opened a pot for 80k, and Shipley called. The dealer, unfortunately, failed to notice that Shipley had called, and dropped the deck, thinking the hand was over and belonged to Varkonyi. The cards mixed together with some discards, and the flustered dealer added one mistake to another when he picked up the deck showing all the cards' backs to the players. Savage was called in to make the best of a bad situation, and he ordered the cards completely reshuffled, discards included, but the two hands and 80k bets to stand. The flop came A-J-4 with two spades (my vantage point on TV day wasn't as good as is usually is: just as surely as rock beats scissors, scissors cut paper, and paper covers rock, TV beats print and Internet media for just about anyone's undivided attention, and often found myself wishing I had x-ray vision for all the cameramen I had to look through or around (come to think of it, x-ray vision would come in handy AT the poker tables, too...). Varkonyi bet 50k, a bet neighbor Mike Sexton immediately claimed was a "Post Oak Bluff" (a small bet into a large pot), and apparently Shipley agreed, because he raised 100k more. Varkonyi let the hand go, and didn't glare at the dealer, whose actions probably hadn't helped his cause. CANCEL THE MISSING PERSON REPORT, WE'VE LOCATED TONY D D had continued to remain on the sidelines, a style so dramatically different from his usual active pace that we were starting to wonder who had put the valium in his morning coffee, when he decided to take advantage of position and re-raise Shipley's initial 80k bet on hand #52 with an all-in 110k more. An important trend started here, but it wasn't a D awakening. Shipley called the 110k with 8-9, your basic underdog to D's pocket kings, and he'd rather loosely lost almost 200k on the hand. Rarely can historians point to a specific point in time and say THIS is when the Such and So Empire began to crumble, but for John Shipley, we had that point: hand #52. Gray made the next move, making unchallenged raises or re-raises on five of the next ten hands, adding more than 300k to his stack in the process. Each time, Irish star Padraig Parkinson's fine brogue could be heard yelling "Go Ireland" in locales as far from the Horseshoe as the Luxor. Apparently Padraig and the lads had been pulling a few pints rather early in the day. Hall continued his erode and double pattern through hand #68, when Perry opened for 60k and Hall moved in for 70k more. Perry called with 10-10, Hall turned over A-J, and just when it looked like Hall might be out of all-in survivals, a jack spiked on the river, and Hall had 328k. HARLEY HALL STARTS PLAYING BALL Hall moved all-in unchallenged on the very next hand, and suddenly had nearly 400k. Now D clearly owned the short stack, and he wasn't that far behind Gardner, either, as I estimated the chips at D, Tony, $250,000 Gardner, Julian, $450,000 Gray, Scott, $600,000 Perry, Ralph, $1,500,000 Varkonyi, Robert, $1,000,000 Shipley, John, $1,500,000 Rosenblum, Russell, $620,000 Hall, Harley, $390,000 Varkonyi had regained some ground, but immediately fell back again when on a limp in blind vs. blind pot on hand #72, the flop came 10s-3s-2s, Shipley checked, Rosenblum bet 60k, Shipley made it 200k, Rosenblum moved all-in, and Shipley let it go. The brief comeback notwithstanding, Shipley's pattern was becoming all too clear. You could check and let him bet, and then raise him out, or bet and have him raise you, and then finish him by playing back at him. Perhaps the cards dictated this said state of affairs, but Shipley had come in as the big chip leader and despite still hanging near the lead looked very vulnerable. I also reminded myself just how difficult it is to play perfect poker five days into a grueling event. While Shipley was leaking chips faster than the Exxon Valdez leaked oil, Phil Hellmuth, who had had a couple of rough days, first getting (effectively: he had a few chips left) bounced from the Big One by Varkonyi when Varkonyi moved in with Qc-10c and Hellmuth called with As-Ks, and then losing his heads-up match in the Bracelet Winners tournament, made a remark that he was so sure Varkonyi wouldn't win the tournament, he would shave his head if Varkonyi won. HELLMUTH REMARKS NOT ALL THAT DIFFERENT, UNLESS YOU COUNT THE MICROPHONE USAGE Quite frankly, the remark wasn't all that different from various remarks that were being made by the various pros sitting around me. For example, Mike Matusow had said that only three players had a chance to win the event, and Varkonyi's name wasn't on his list. I wasn't innocent myself, even though I'd softened my own printed remarks yesterday by saying they were based on a rather limited time watching Varkonyi, who had garnered most of his chips in three big pots. But there was one difference. Hellmuth didn't soften his remarks or whisper them. He told Varkonyi and then had Savage announce the "threat" on the public address system. It seemed a safe enough remark at the time, although Shipley's chances of saving Hellmuth weren't good, as he suffered two more similar beats (one of the re-raise and one of the three-bet variety) when we hit hand #80, and the tournament's tone changed permanently. Varkonyi opened for 60k, and Shipley made it 150k from the small blind. Varkonyi decided to raise all-in, a mighty 759k increase, and Shipley sat and thought for about a minute. He had to be getting tired of raising and getting played back at, and even more tired of re-raising and getting three-bet. He'd entered Day Five of this event with the burden not merely of sleepless nights but also of expectations, because he'd held more than twice as many chips as his nearest competitor. I was trying to think of every reason John Shipley then did what he did, because he did the unthinkable. He called $759,000 with one of the worst calling hands in no-limit poker, A-J offsuit. Why is it so bad? It's a monster underdog to the only aces you expect to see in action in big pots, A-K and A-Q. It's an underdog to every pair. It's only a small favorite over any hand that could conceivably (though wrongly) be in action on a three-bet hand, something like K-Q. MAYBE M.I.T. GRADS CAN'T FIGURE THINGS OUT In other words, unless M.I.T. grad Robert Varkonyi was a lot dumber than dual graduates of his university tend to run, or unless he'd played very little poker, it seemed a dead solid certainty that Shipley had called a gigantic number of chips when he was losing, and that turned out to be the case. It didn't seem possible, but one more time pocket jacks were playing a big role in this tournament. The board came 3-3-7-J-A, and even though Shipley had made two pair, he'd been crushed by Varkonyi's full house, and the former chip leader had not only turned Varkonyi into the chip leader, he now had only about 370k left himself, still leading the still-passive D, but impossible as it seemed was now trailing Harley Hall. Shipley stared into space, as if he been beaten about the head by a series of speedy, youthful Muhammad Ali blows, and had to be as emotionally crushed as someone can be in a poker tournament. Even T.J. Cloutier, who was three outs away from a World Championship in 2000, was able to claim a $900,000 cash consolation prize. Shipley had been staring two million bucks squarely in the face, and it was now possible he could finish as low as eighth and its $100,000 consolation prize. I wished at that moment I could tell John Shipley that he'd just gone with his read and been wrong, but this opinion was about as close to a fact as you could get: it had been a horrible call. Shipley had, though did not offer, plenty of excuses, like the exhaustion and the constant assaults from his opponents, but about the call itself, there can't be much doubt. AN OLDIE BUT A GOODIE FROM SLIM "The only way I'd a called him would have been on the phone," said a nearby Amarillo Slim Preston. "I thought he had Q-Q at least when he called that much." Meanwhile, members of the crowd started muttering about getting the clippers ready, and nineteen hands later, we hit the break, still eight-handed but with the limits about to increase a situation that would surely change in a hurry, with the chip counts now D, Tony, $155,000 Gardner, Julian, $665,000 Gray, Scott, $440,000 Perry, Ralph, $1,110,000 Varkonyi, Robert, $2,420,000 Shipley, John, $260,000 Rosenblum, Russell, $645,000 Hall, Harley, $455,000 The antes moved up to 5k, and the blinds to $15,000-$30,000. Eight-handed, that meant sitting out a round would cost $85,000. Shipley seemed to have recovered some resolve during the break, because he moved all-in unchallenged on each of the first two hands after it, and he was $160,000 richer, back over the 400k mark. Tony D saw Shipley's move and his own Incredible Shrinking Stack, and moved all-in himself on the next two hands. No one challenged the first one, but on the second, Varkonyi called with A-K, D showed Q-J, and when nothing higher than an eight ever hit the board, Tony D was out eighth, in a performance that had resembled in no way shape or form the way D had played in the 2001 Big One, or indeed the way he plays virtually every day. As John Shipley had found out, pressure does strange things to people. ANDY'S TASTE IN MOVIES NEEDS WORK If D had been the Incredible Shrinking Stack, Varkonyi was turning into the Attack of the 50 Foot Stack, because he took the next two hands, sat out two, and then, on #108, bet 100k, only to see Shipley move all-in for another 250k more. Varkonyi did actually think about it, rush and all, but decided to call with A-10, while Shipley turned over 7-7. The flop was innocent enough, K-8-2, but an ace hit the turn, and this was not the kind of day that Shipley was going to hit a 7-7-7 jackpot in Las Vegas, unless you count his seventh place finish. Harley Hall's tiny stack had outlasted John Shipley's huge one, this week's sign that the apocalypse was upon us, and a victory everywhere for men who claim that it isn't the size of the prize, but the skill with the drill. This is a hollow claim, of course, but those with small prizes need some kind of consolation. As the stunned Shipley left, Rosenblum, a lawyer whose error (detailed yesterday) was far worse than anything Shipley did today, really started playing to the crowd, making lots of remarks, demanding TV time, cracking jokes, and in general trying to make himself the center of attention. DID ROSENBLUM LOSE FOCUS? A certain amount of this kind of behavior tends to prove coolness under fire, but for a guy who didn't have any big wins on his resume, suddenly turning into Devilfish Ulliott seemed dangerous. I whispered to Diego Cordovez that it looked like Rosenblum was enjoying himself (who wouldn't?) but that he seemed to have lost focus on the task at hand. Nonetheless, Rosenblum was focused enough to know what to do when he found two aces in his hand on #118. He just moved straight in from the button, knowing that the overbet would look like an attempt to steal the blinds, and Gardner went for it, calling with Jd-6d. Gardner was in bad shape, but got about as big a flop as anyone could hope for short of a full house or quads: Js-8d-4d, and had gone from roughly a 4.5-1 underdog before the flop to about a 2% favorite on it. Although the Qc didn't help Gardner's cause, he made his flush on the end, and Gardner, a tall, thin, pasty-looking Brit (a lack of sunshine and British food will do that to a lad, and no, please no emails about my hating England, because I'm an Anglophile to the core), pumped his fist to the sky in triumph. Gardner had swung from the brink of elimination in sixth place to nearly a million in chips and a real shot at the title. DO THEY MAKE THAT INSTANT KARMA WITH LATTE? To make Rosenblum's exit even more painful, as well as ironic, if you read yesterday's report, you recall that a Rosenblum mistake (not realizing that Gardner's all-in raise after Rosenblum's 100k bet at the 10-10-5 flop was only a 30k raise, and folding J-J to Gardner's 6-6) is what kept Gardner in the tournament, and now it was Gardner whose lucky break with Jd-6d had crippled Rosenblum's chances. Whomsoever is running the world has this odd way of delivering cups of instant karma. I started wondering what Hellmuth was rooting for. If Gardner won, Hellmuth would lose his title as the youngest guy ever to win the WSOP, but a Gardner win would also mean he wouldn't be shorn like a sheep. I was sure he was rooting for a victory by one of the other four players, but if push came to shove, I had a feeling a record he could never recapture (he's 37 now) was going to mean more than hair that would grow back in two months. Meanwhile, the "distracted" Rosenblum (I was glad I had a witness on that one, although you could hardly say he played his aces badly) immediately shoved his remaining 95k into the next pot with A-8. Gray ("Go Ireland!") had an easy call with A-K, and when the first four cards off the deck were A-K-4-K, we were five handed, with the chips now roughly Gardner, Julian, $990,000 Gray, Scott, $550,000 Perry, Ralph, $1,060,000 Varkonyi, Robert, $3,575,000 Hall, Harley, $135,000 Hall had started Day Four in 40th place of the 45 remaining players, and while it looked like he needed a miracle to win, Gray, for all of his good play this day, was at least within reach, especially when Hall shoved it all in on the next hand with A-8 and got called by Perry, who held Q-10. The board missed everyone, and Hall was now very much in reach of, if not Gray's Anatomy, at least his fourth place payoff. He'd certainly been lucky on his all-in hands (Rosenblum had played the very same A-8 with a short stack and had run into A-K), but he had also impressed everyone with his coolness under fire. SLIM ADMIRES HALL'S COOL "That boy in the nine seat," said Amarillo Slim of Hall, "hasn't changed his expression once today. He's been all-in eleven times (five, actually, but if poets are allowed poetic license, Slim is allowed a drawling license) and he's 11-0, and I haven't seen his face change one time. That's one good focused boy." That good focused boy moved back up to 235k, and with no one but the big blind left to contend with, shoved it all-in with As-2s. Gardner decided to call with Kc-7s, a play I didn't like because Gardner needed every chip available to go after Varkonyi, and he had to figure Hall for an ace. Once again the flop looked harmless, Js-8c-5h, but sevens hit on both the turn and river, and Julian Gardner WAS the kind of guy who could hit 7-7-7 in Las Vegas today. "I'm happy considering where I started," Hall said, "but once I got that money in against Julian and made it past the flop, I started thinking that with half a million I might actually have a chance, so I'm disappointed now. I'll get over it: I've always wanted to get to a WSOP final table and this is certainly the one you want to make, but for right now, it's disappointing." The chips were now roughly Gardner, Julian, $1,150,000 Gray, Scott, $600,000 Perry, Ralph, $1,000,000 Varkonyi, Robert, $3,560,000 I wandered over to Hellmuth as the hubbub surrounding Hall's exit concluded. HELLMUTH ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY "I brought this on myself," Hellmuth said. "I opened my mouth and then had him announce it to the room so I couldn't back out. I haven't put my foot this far into my mouth in a long time." A few hands later, on #140, Varkonyi opened for 100k, and Gray moved all-in, a raise of 255k from the big blind. "I usually wouldn't," Varkonyi said, "but since this is Phil's favorite hand, I guess I should play it, I call." Varkonyi flipped over Q-10, the hand that he had gutted Hellmuth with the day before (and Varkonyi might not have remembered it, but Q-10 was also the hand Hellmuth went out on while holding it himself in the 2001 Big One, and for good measure it was the hand I went out on while closing in on half a million at the Tunica event). Gray turned over "a Ferguson," A-9, but "a Ferguson must be the underdog hand to use its true powers, and the board came a rather incredible Q-Q-8-9, leaving Gray no outs. We were three handed, with the chips now Gardner, Julian, $1,315,000 Perry, Ralph, $970,000 Varkonyi, Robert, $4,025,000 The players stopped briefly to consider a deal, but couldn't reach an agreement and went to play on. NICE HAND RIGHT AFTER A BREAK On the very first hand after they resumed, Gardner made it 90k from the button, Perry re-raised to 290k from the small blind, and Varkonyi went ahead and moved all-in from the big blind. Gardner shook his head, as if he could not quite believe what he was seeing, but announced he was folding, turning his cards over but keeping them out of the muck, no doubt with a plan to show them to everyone if it turned out he'd made a good laydown. The option to shove them into the muck would always be there. Perry took very little time to call, and for what seemed the umpteenth time this tournament, someone turned over pocket jacks in a key situation. Varkonyi turned his hand over in what I think was meant more to be dramatic style than slowroll style: he turned the cards so only the top ace was visible, and then after about a two second pause, he split the two cards so everyone could see the bottom card was also an ace. Gardner leapt with joy, and turned over the pocket tens he had mucked. The aces held up, and the tournament that had stayed eight-handed for what seemed forever was now a heads-up match. VARKONYI FOOLS QUITE A FEW, INCLUDING ME Gardner had the skill and experience, despite his tender age, but Varkonyi had played very well at the final table, certainly getting lucky when Shipley decided to call 759k with A-J, but all-in all having played very well, far better than what I'd seen in my limited time yesterday, and he was starting the heads-up match leading $5,090,000 to $1,220,000. There's always a bit of a delay when the WSOP Big One reaches the last two players, because they bring the money (which this year had been sitting out in sight for a nice TV shot throughout the day) over to the final table, as well as a special Championship Event bracelet that was silver studded with diamonds, and whose band consisted of double horseshoes linked all the way around. I like tradition in many things, but I liked this new and different bracelet for the World Championship event. During the delay, Gabe Kaplan entertained the crowd a bit. FORGET RGP, NOW HELLMUTH HAD TO WITHSTAND KAPLAN "Just in case you weren't here earlier," Kaplan began, "A very modest man, Phil Hellmuth, is sitting on the other side of the room. I can't believe a man like Phil would have made a statement like this, but if Robert wins the tournament, Phil has told Robert that he can shave Phil's head." The crowd had ALL been there for the earlier announcement, but roared anyway, and Kaplan knew he had a good thing going, so he motioned Hellmuth over to the microphone. "This is tough," Phil said with an energetic smile. "I lose no matter what happens! If Julian wins, I lose my record for being the youngest Champion, and if Robert wins, he gets to shave my head!" "Just like Phil Hellmuth," Kaplan replied, "never thinking of himself." The heads-up battle began on what was my hand #142, and I wondered if Gardner would be able to chop his way back into the match the way T.J. Cloutier had chopped his way back against Chris Ferguson in 2000. After about eight hands, it didn't look that way. Varkonyi remained aggressive, while not going crazy and letting Gardner double up easily. It was what appeared to be a relatively evenly balanced match of 30, 40, and 50k bets, eight hands deep, when Kaplan, who'd been at my starting table in the Big One, motioned me over to the TV table. "A TV CAMERA! OUT OF MY WAY!" I don't get quite as many television opportunities as Phil Hellmuth, and as Ferguson had been recording all the hands anyway, I figured we could compare notes later, while I got to analyze the match a bit, and offer Kaplan my take on the Hellmuth situation. "I don't know what Phil has told you up here," I said (Hellmuth had been announcing with Kaplan for much of the match, and would soon join us, but for the moment "Gabe and I" were doing our thing), "but I promise you, Phil is one of my best friends and I know that as much as he would dislike shaving his head, he'd rather keep his record." Hellmuth joined the fray then, and admitted that while he had appeared ambivalent before, he couldn't turn 22 again, but he could grow new hair. Soon after I joined Kaplan, the clock went off (no, it wasn't the Glazer ejector seat, it was time to move up to higher blinds, $20,000-$40,000), and the two players continued sparring until hand #157, when Varkonyi made it 80k from the small blind on the button (in heads-up poker, the small blind goes on the button <SBB>, and acts first before the flop but second after the flop, and in case you think this bit of information beneath you, on the third hand of heads up play, Varkonyi had the big blind and after the flop asked if the action was on him; it was probably nervousness, rather than ignorance of the rule, but you never know). A POTENTIALLY DECISIVE POT Gardner called, looked at a flop of Kd-3d-2h, and called an 80k Varkonyi bet. On the turn, the 3s hit, and Varkonyi bet 80k again, only to be raised another 150k by Gardner. Varkonyi called, and a huge pot was building, possibly decisive: if Varkonyi won, Gardner would be short, and if Gardner won, he'd be back in the match. The Qh hit the river, both players checked, and Gardner announced "nine high." He'd been pushing the 8d-9d, and could neither push Varkonyi off his (guess what) J-J, nor make his flush. Gardner had fallen to about 900k. Gardner lost another 140k on the next hand, when the only hand other than J-J that possibly could have settled this match settled it. Got it figured out? Varkonyi bet 90k from the SBB, and Gardner called. The flop came Qc-4c-4s, Gardner checked, Varkonyi bet 50k, and Gardner moved all-in. A win could still bring him back to 1,5 million and only a 3-1 deficit. "ATTACK OF THE KILLER Q-10" The crowd ohhed and ahhed as Varkonyi said "call," and they turned the hands over. Gardner had another flush draw, Jc-8c, and Varkonyi had...Q-10. Just to add emphasis, the 10d hit the turn, giving Varkonyi two pair, useful because Gardner hit his flush on the end...with the 10c, giving Varkonyi a full house and the World Championship. As the crowd chanted "shave his head, shave his head," Hellmuth and I made our way over to the table, and Hellmuth said, "I'll be glad to let you shave it, Robert, you earned it, but take 15 minutes now and enjoy the moment and the photos and all the credit you deserve, I'll stick around." Kaplan asked Varkonyi what was better, the $2,000,000, the bracelet, or shaving Hellmuth's head, and the 40 year old semi-retired investment banker, playing with the moment, shouted, "Shaving Phil Hellmuth's head!" Varkonyi finished taking pictures and enjoyed the moment, as Hellmuth had suggested, and then both Hellmuth and the battery powered shears were brought in. Varkonyi approached Hellmuth's hair very gingerly, like a barber who'd been told to "trim a little off the back, and NOT TOO MUCH." He hadn't been told anything of the sort, but his heart really wasn't in it, and after shaving just a little hair from the back, announced to the crowd that he didn't want to finish. YEAH, AND MONKEYS MIGHT FLY OUT OF... "I think Phil has learned his lesson and won't ever say anything like that again and will be a good guy from now on," said Varkonyi, who didn't realize he was taking his life in his hands by trying to take the high road. Some crowds scream for blood. This crowd was screaming for hair. Varkonyi didn't want the shears. Several members of the Binion-Behnen crowd took turns finishing the job, a certain Poker Pundit eagerly awaited and got his turn, receiving a friendly glare that indicated friendly revenge would be awaiting me, and meanwhile I gathered the hair in a bag, because another friend of Phil's and I had simultaneously suggested that we save the hair and auction it off, with the money going to charity. Nonetheless, I did grab a lock that had fallen to the floor, just in case the bids were higher than expected. As for Julian Gardner, he lived up to expectations and then some, even though he'd been lucky on Day Four and had had a few narrow escapes of his own on the final day. The Big One has grown so big that probably no human being is a favorite to win it in his lifetime, not even a young Julian Gardner or a reasonably young Phil Hellmuth (or Ivey), but $1,100,000 isn't a horrible consolation prize. What of our new World Champion? He has no illusions about becoming a professional poker player, although once again at this WSOP someone whose professional skills translate well into poker success had proven to young college kids owning poker talent that they needn't go straight into poker: they can take those skills into the much more reliable, and usually more lucrative business world, and can always return to poker later. For the foreseeable future, Varkonyi has no future as a barber, but showed a lot of cool and class, and now has $2,000,000 more to use in his semi-retirement career as an independent tech investor and consultant. Bankers and stock traders are winning poker tournaments, Phil Hellmuth is accepting tough defeats with grace...the apocalypse may indeed be upon us...but I sure hope it waits until after that TV show airs! SOME THANKS TO THE MANY WHO DESERVE IT Thanks from me to many readers who sent notes of thanks and encouragement, as well as those who "voted" (you can still do so and can still send notes saying what you'd like to see in WNP) in the polls I've employed the last few days. Thanks to Henry, Binion's Chief of Security, who always made me feel safe with his "gun fu" skills at the ready, to Matt Savage and Steve Morrow, who always made my job easier, to Phil Ivey, Layne Flack, and Johnny Chan, who showed me poker at its best, to Lee Munzer, Max Shapiro, and Nolan Dalla, who spelled me enough so that I could finish out the WSOP without exhaustion, to Mike Paulle, who helped with missed hands, to the people at casino.com who inserted last minute changes without complaint, to Phil Hellmuth, who showed the world I'm not crazy for seeing the good side of him, to my Mom, who made it through hip replacement surgery two days ago, and to my sister and brother-in-law, who minded the store during that difficult time while I was covering my favorite poker tournament. I'll look forward to seeing you all here on the Internet again next year... and I'll look forward to seeing the readers here again in just a few days, when I finally tell the tale of that Hellmuth-Chan match. Andrew N.S. Glazer, Editor Wednesday Nite Poker Final Official Results $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em Championship Event Total Entrants: 631 Total Prize Pool: $5,931,400
10th-12th, $70,000 each: Don Barton, Amir Nasseri, Owen Mullin. 13th-15th, $60,000 each: Martin Deknijff, Yosh Nakano, James Neely. 16th-18th, $50,000 each: Bernard Ko, Sigi Stockinger, David Rubin. 19th-27th, $40,000 each: Michael Fetter, Stephen Wilsdon, Jack Fox, Dave Crunkleton, Phil Ivey, Minh Nguyen, Lamar Wilkinson, Kurt Paseka, Dennis January. 28th-36th, $30,000 each: Luan Phu, Samuel Whitt, Rameen Sai, Scott Amos, Steve Melton, Eric Holum, Ross Boatman, Randy Holland, Tom Scheider. 37th-45th, $20,000 each: Hertzel Zalewski, Doug Booth, Jason Lane, Brian Haveson, Greg Alston, David Sklansky, Dan Heimiller, Tristan McDonald, Peter Giordino. THE HELLMUTH-CHAN MATCH I know I promised a story earlier, but it's now 7:25 a.m., there's a long day ahead of me, and I want to do justice to the winner of this event. If you want to wait for the story to learn the winner, stop reading right here. If you want to know the winner now, and will settle for the story tomorrow, scroll down a ways past the "Unpaid political announcement."
Comments & ContactI love getting reader feedback and questions. Don't be shy about disagreeing with anything you read in Wednesday Nite Poker. If I decide you're right, readers will hear about it (with attribution or without, as you prefer); if you're wrong, you'll probably learn something important when you hear why you're wrong. 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
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