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A is for ANTE-GATE
Last year’s Player of the Year Jeffrey Lisandro was involved in a classic dust-up in the 2006 WSOP Main Event when Prahlad Friedman called him a thief for forgetting to post his $5,000 ante. The misplaced accusation sent Lisandro on tilt and after Friedman threw out a casual, “I just don’t trust you, Sir,” he threatened to remove Friedman’s head from his body. Friedman tried to apologize afterwards but Lisandro was not in the mood for reconciliation. tinyurl.com/kvwj5a
B is for BINION’S HORSESHOE
Casino operator Benny Binion, operator of Binion’s Horseshoe, launched the WSOP proper there in 1971. The first “winner”, Johnny Moss, was decided by nomination from his 5 fellow peers, with the series itself no more than a host of mixed cash games. Moss would go on to win again the following year, this time taking down the 8-man field in a $5,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament. Binion’s would go on to host every WSOP until 2006 when it moved wholesale to the cavernous Rio All-Suites Hotel.
C is for CHIP AND A CHAIR
The term attributed to Jack “Treetop” Straus (so-called because of his 6’6” height), the infamous episode took place in the 1982 Main Event when, after moving all his chips in and losing, he discovered a single $500 chip on the floor beneath his chair. The rest is part of poker legend, as Straus managed to spin up his solitary chip into victory and $520,000 in prize money.
D is for DOYLE BRUNSON
Long before legendary road gambler Texas Dolly single-handedly invented internet poker [you sure about this? – Ed] he participated in the very first Main Event back in 1970 but wouldn’t win his first Main Event bracelet till 1976, when he defeated Jesse Alto at the final table for what seems like a now-paltry sum of $220,000. Brunson became the first of an elite bunch of players to win back-to-back Main Event titles the following year, when he defeated Gary Berland to the bracelet.
E is for ENTRANTS
Here are a couple of number crunchers for you. The first “proper” WSOP event in 1971 boasted just six invited contestants. By the time Stu Ungar was winning his second title in 1981, the number had swelled to 75 and with the introduction of satellites in 1983, 106 would compete for the Main Event. 839 would contest the 2003 Main Event, but after Chris Moneymaker won, the internet boom and the “Moneymaker Effect” opened the floodgates, and the Main Event drew in 2,576 the following year, a 200% jump. The pinnacle of the post-internet boom came in 2006 when Jamie Gold outlasted 8,772 runners at the Rio to win (sort of) a $12 million prize. If the American lawmakers ever enter the 21st Century and lift the bans on internet poker, expect that record to be broken.
F is for FIRST HAND
So you’ve stumped up $10,000 of your hard-earned for a Main Event entry, taken the long trip to Vegas, sat down at your table, and then run into the coolest man with an ice-cold hand. Before you know it you’re making a swift beeline for the door. In the 2005 Main Event, Oliver Hudson, actor and son of Goldie Hawn, held that dubious honour when he hit what he assumed was the winning hand on an A-A-10 flop holding A-10. Little did he know that Farha held pocket tens for a better full house. All the money was in by the time the queen fell on the turn and the writing was on the wall for the young starlet. “First hand? That’s so sick!” You said it, mate. tinyurl.com/bhhmdk
G is for GIRLS
With 2010’s WSOP already being dubbed “The Year of the Woman”, WSOP Communications Director, Seth Palansky, has stated that he expects at least three women to win bracelets in open events. After some stunning results by Sandra Naujoks, Liv Boeree, Vanessa Selbst, and Kathy Liebert in recent months, don’t bet against it. This year will also be Annette Obrestad’s first foray into WSOP territory. She holds a WSOPE bracelet, of course, winning the Main Event in London back in 2007 when she was just 18 but now that’s she’s turned 21, she’ll be launching a full-scale assault on Sin City.
H is for HELLMUTH
Where do you begin with the Brat? Phil became the youngest winner of the Main Event back in 1989 at the age of 24 when he denied Johnny Chan what would have been an historic third straight Main Event win. Hellmuth would go on to win another 10 gold bracelets (all in Hold’em events), putting him in the no.1 spot that he still holds to this day.
But aside from his prowess in the WSOP, it’s his legendary outbursts and blow-ups that have defined the man. There are so many to choose from (his tirades against “idiots from Northern Europe” primarily), but how about this outburst against amateur Jim Pitman at the 2005 Main Event? Confident about calling Pitman’s K-J all-in with A-K, Hellmuth is soon seeing red when the fateful jack falls on the river. “This guy can’t even spell poker,” duly became a byline for dodgy plays the world over. tinyurl.com/37r2fd5
J is for JOHNNY CHAN
The Chinese-born pro, nicknamed “The Orient Express” won back-to-back Main Events in 1987 and 1988. Eight more bracelets followed and the legend sits just one win behind Hellmuth in the all-time list. His 1988 heads-up triumph against Erik Seidel was immortalised on film in Rounders. All together now: “Johnny F**kin’ Chan…”
K is for THE KID
Was there ever a more complicated and troubled poker genius than Stu “The Kid” Ungar? A gin rummy player who was so good he couldn’t get a game in his native New York, the youthful looking gambler moved to Vegas and took to poker. Soon he was destroying all-comers and entered the 1980 Main Event, supposedly his first ever Texas Hold’em event. He duly won, beating a bewildered Doyle Brunson heads-up. Stuey came back a year later, and won that too, joining the select band of players to win back-to-back titles. Years in the wilderness and battles with drugs followed, but Ungar returned in 1997 for one last hurrah. He had to beg, borrow and steal his buy-in for that year’s Main Event and eventually found a backer in close friend Billy Baxter. In the only outdoors final table in the series’ history, Stuey, battling drug addiction and exhaustion, fought on to win and take down the $1 million first prize. A year later he was found dead in a motel room, with just $800 on him. Still one of the most talented players to
play the game, it’ll never be known whether he would be able to handle the fields of today, but the legend of Stu Ungar will never be in doubt.
L is for LEGENDS
Doyle Brunson or Stu Ungar could have taken this spot in our A-Z, of course, but we’ve reserved a special place in our list for David “Chip” Reese. Once described by Brunson as “one of the best young poker players in the world”, Chip was tearing up the very biggest cash games in Vegas having barely graduated out of law school. And before his death from pneumonia in 2007, he was generally considered to be one of the most accomplished cash game players in the world.
Despite avoiding tournaments on the whole (he didn’t want to give away “free lessons”) he was an accomplished all-rounder, even writing a chapter on Stud for Brunson’s Super/System, and in 2006 took part in the inaugural $50,000 HORSE event at the WSOP. His status as the best all-round poker player in the world was confirmed when Reese took down the title, beating Andy Bloch in an epic heads-up battle to win over $1.7 million in prize money and a 3rd WSOP bracelet. After Reese’s death, the "David 'Chip' Reese Memorial Trophy" was inaugurated as an additional prize for the winner of the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event and this summer the trophy will be awarded to the winner of the Poker Player's Championship, the replacement of the HORSE event.
M is for MONEYMAKER EFFECT
Never has a poker player become synonymous with the modern evolution of poker more than Chris Moneymaker. The amateur was the first player to win his $10,000 Main Event entry by qualifying via an online satellite. Moneymaker spun up $40 on the then virgin PokerStars site and took his seat at his very first live event in the summer of 2003. The rest, as they, is history. The aptly named Moneymaker defeated a field of 839 to reach heads-up against old-school legend Sammy Farha, even finding time along the way to pull off at least one audacious bluff (see below).
Chris, looking back and seeing how much your win influenced the development of poker, does it fill you with a certain amount of pride?
Pride is not the word I would use. For about a year I didn’t even notice the difference in poker because I wasn’t heavily immersed in it before the 2003 WSOP. It wasn’t until the following year’s WSOP that I noticed when people were blaming me for not being able to get on a table to play during the Series. It was insanely packed and waiting time was about 4 hours for a Sit ‘n’ Go. I’m more honoured to be thought of in this light.
If you knew then what you know now about how much you influenced the game do you think that would have affected your game?
Yes and no. I was playing under so much financial pressure at the time that there couldn’t have been much more stress than that. The money alone was driving me. However, it was easier to pull off the big bluff with Sammy [Farha] knowing that I had $1.3 million locked up. If I had known what was to follow I don’t know if I would be able to follow through with it. Knowing what I know now I may have given up on the river and played it out, although I’m a much stronger player these days with more confidence.
Are you still motivated by actually playing the game or do you see poker as a business?
I love the game of poker; I will play it for the rest of my life. That being said, I do treat it as a job. I think any successful player needs to do this. You need to keep good records and monitor your play to keep your edge and be profitable.
Are you still happy to be the poster boy for an entire poker generation?
Yes, it’s a great feeling. Many people say I look unhappy playing on TV, but I think that’s just how I come across. I am having a blast, I just don’t smile a lot when I’m at work.
Are you hungry to win more WSOP bracelets, or is it not in your list of priorities now?
WSOP bracelets aren’t on my list as, say, an EPT or NAPT championship. Any win is nice, but I play more of those tourneys and it would be nice to knock one of them off.
Have you ever tried to qualify for the WSOP via cheap satellite since your win, just for fun?
I’ve won the $200 rebuy mega-satellite or a single-table satellite every year since I won the WSOP. I’m a big fan of satellites.
N is for NATIONAL ANTHEMS
For a country as fiercely patriotic as America, the WSOP’s host nation sure does make some monumental gaffes when it comes to national anthem ceremonies. Perhaps the most infamous of these musical debacles came at last year’s Series, when British pro John Kabbaj captured a bracelet in the $10,000 Pot Limit Hold’em Championship event only to have the Sex Pistols’ rendition of “God Save the Queen” played at his ceremony. Despite originally going along with it, Kabbaj later confessed that he’d been disgusted by the slur and was simply too shocked to react at the time. Jeffrey Pollack later tried to rectify the situation with an apology: tinyurl.com/392qe3f
O is for OUTFITS
When the WSOP rolls into town, something of a carnival atmosphere descends on the Rio and all kinds of colourful costumes come out of the closet. Far and away the most memorable World Series outfit was showcased when Phil Laak paid several thousand dollars to disguise himself as an old man. So convincing was the outfit that even Phil’s closest friends and bloggers at the event were unable to recognise him. Special mention also goes to forum legend “ch3ckraise” who once entered a Limit Hold’em tournament sporting an Optimus Prime mask with built in voice-changer. Execution didn’t quite match the idea, however, and after accepting the challenge of a few disapproving Decepticons at the table, he was threatened with expulsion from the tournament. Autobots, roll out!
P is for PROP BETS
From must-wins to mobility scooters and cross-booking to cross-dressing, the WSOP has always been the place to be for all the sickest prop-betting action. One man who is certainly no stranger to placing a few side bets at the Series is seven-time bracelet winner Phil Ivey, who is rumoured to have made more placing wagers with his peers than he did for his double title haul last year. Although not so much driven by profit as simply driven, another famous WSOP prop bet featured poker legends Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim Preston going head-to-head in a no-holds-barred mobility scooter race. Ever the king of the prop bet, Amarillo Slim emerged victorious from the break-neck time trial to ensure that he was the talk of care homes the country over.
Q is for QUEUES
Poker players are known for their predilection for gambling, but when several hundred of them ran the risk of waiting until the last minute to register for the 2009 WSOP Main Event, things degenerated into total chaos. Having witnessed uncharacteristically low turn-outs for the three days previous, WSOP organisers were not expecting the glut of players that swarmed to the Rio to play in Day 1D and the cardroom promptly reached full capacity, leaving many hopefuls stuck watching from the rail. WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack was forced to call an emergency meeting, but despite player speculation that they might somehow be snuck into the Main Event schedule later during the day, an announcement was made to inform them that the tournament was officially a shut-out.
R is for “RAINKHAN”
They say that everyone in life gets their fifteen minutes of fame, but if you’re talking about WSOP camera-time, you’ll have to search far and wide for a player who has accumulated more exposure than Hevad “RainKhan” Khan. The former videogames enthusiast was impossible to miss at the 2007 WSOP where he jumped, yelped and bulldozed his way to a sixth-place finish in the Main Event, attracting both the ire and admiration of spectators and tablemates in almost equal measure. Fuelled by an apparently unquenchable thirst for Red Bull, Khan’s madcap antics ensured that he became an instant WSOP legend, and his all-in clash with Costa Rican pro Humberto Brenes certainly raised the tournament decibel level to previously unheralded levels. tinyurl.com/3f57d6
S is for SUCKOUTS
When you take several thousand poker players, divide them onto tables of nine, give each group a deck of 52 cards and leave them playing poker for days on end, you can bet your bottom dollar there’s going to be some pretty sick variance. With that in mind, why on earth would you look anywhere else than the World Series of Poker for stomach-churning suckouts and brutal bad beats? From Chris Ferguson binking a miracle nine on the river to outdraw T.J. Cloutier’s A-Q to last year’s champion Joe Cada practically securing his passage to the title through getting it in bad with under-pairs, there have certainly been some memorable moments of misfortune at the WSOP over the years.
T is for TRASH TALK
While it would be very easy to file this one in the big WSOP bin marked “Hellmuth”, we though we’d take a slightly different approach and pay homage to one of the unheralded trash-talkers of the game, Ellix Powers. Having lived rough on the streets for 30 years, Ellix became one of the stories of the WSOP when he made a Limit Hold’em final table in 2004. There, he proceeded to use his unpredictable style of play and razor-sharp range of rubdowns to put more-or-less the whole table on tilt, even inducing a frustrated call from poker author James McManus with queen-high at one point. Though his unusual showmanship clearly rankled with McManus, fellow table-mate John Hennigan clearly thought more of Powers, admitting: “I’m having fun – and I never have fun!” tinyurl.com/39jxteu
U is for UK WINNERS
For a small island nation, the UK certainly holds its own in the WSOP bracelet stakes. In total, 13 UK players have triumphed on the other side of the Atlantic, with British icons Roland de Wolfe (above) and Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott among the country’s elite list of names. As recently as last year, however, J.P. Kelly separated himself from the rest of the pack by becoming the first Englishman to win two World Series of Poker bracelets, taking down both the $1,500 PLO event in Vegas and the $1,000 NLHE on home soil at the WSOPE a few months later. An honourable mention must also go to last year’s November Niner James Akenhead who, despite failing to capture a bracelet, does have two Main Event final tables and a runner-up spot to his credit. Further success surely beckons.
V is for VINNIE VINH
From Hal Fowler to Jerry Yang, some remarkable disappearing acts have followed a WSOP triumph over the years. Arguably the most memorable of them all, however, came during a tournament itself as professional Vietnamese poker player Vinne Vinh went missing in action during the 2007 $1,000 NLHE event. Finishing Day 1 as overall chipleader, Vinh failed to return the following day to pick up where he left off and was ultimately blinded out of the competition without playing another hand. Fortunately for Vinh, his stack had grown to such epic proportions that even with the blinds and antes eroding it each hand, he still managed to finish in the money, finally ‘exiting’ the tournament in 20th place despite not having set foot in the casino.
W is for WORLD RECORD
With the vast number of players who flock to Vegas to play in the World Series every year, it’s hardly surprising that the Main Event has been responsible for giving away some of the biggest prizes in poker. The tournament’s high water-mark, however, came during the 2006 Main Event, where a record 8,773 runners all ponied up the $10,000 entry fee to build the biggest prize pool ever collected at a poker event. In total, a truly astonishing $82,512,162 prize pool was generated, meaning that the eventual winner Jamie Gold ultimately walked away with a cool $12 million first prize. The number of entrants and the prize pool may not have been matched since, but Gold’s subsequent redistribution of his winnings did at least ensure that the money stayed within poker.
X is for X-RATED
When you’re playing for the biggest prize in poker, nerves can often get jangled and tempers are often frayed. If you’re Phil Hellmuth, however, this is pretty much your regular demeanour, so imagine what results the additional pressure of a WSOP Main Event might have on a man constantly living on the edge. Certainly, there have been some unforgettable outbursts from the Poker Brat in World Series gone by, but one particular X-rated rant had the bleep-box boys working overtime. Having paid off the river bet of Bob Lillquist, whose K-8 had comfortably outflopped his J-J, Hellmuth took the bad news in his usual composed manner and dropped the F-bomb seven times in the ten seconds that followed. tinyurl.com/323uatr
Z is for ZEIDMAN
Take one professional poker player, one talkative amateur, add two monster hands and a ton of chips then toss in a slowroll for good measure. Leave to simmer for a few minutes and what do you have? It can only be one of the worst bad beats in the history of the WSOP. Coming in the 2005 Main Event, Corey Zeidman faced off against Jennifer Harman in one of the most incredible pots of the tournament. On the turn, Harman’s set of queens had filled up against Zeidman’s flopped straight, but the 10d also gifted the amateur an open-ended straight flush draw. Incredibly, the miracle 7d arrived on the river to give Zeidman the stone cold nuts and, after being put all-in by Harman, he sat back in his chair and agonised over the decision, saying: “I guess I can do a lot of sight seeing if I lose this hand,” before making the call. Ouch. tinyurl.com/dnenxs
Y is for YOUNGSTERS
When Phil Hellmuth set the record for becoming the youngest ever World Series of Poker Main Event champion at 24 back in 1989, many players at the time thought it would be a record that would never be broken. How wrong they were. Internet poker emerged to irreversibly speed up the learning process for poker’s new breed and Denmark’s Peter Eastgate duly emerged to shatter the record in 2008 at the age of 22. The precedent had now been set, however, and Eastgate would only get to enjoy his record for a year before it was broken again by 21-year-old Joe Cada, who WPT Poker caught up with ahead of this year’s Series…
Joe, having been backed into the Main Event you won last year, is there any part of you that wishes you’d have taken the risk yourself?
It’s easy to look back and say you wish you could have had more, but in all honesty, my bankroll had taken some serious hits right before the WSOP, and I wouldn’t have been in the Main Event otherwise. We had a business arrangement that allowed me to play and I have no regrets at all.
How much pressure did it relieve knowing that you weren’t putting the entire $10K of your own money at risk?
I don’t worry much when I play with my own money, so there wasn’t a ton of pressure to relieve. Any poker player will tell you that you can’t play your best if you’re worried about the money. Money is just the means to get in - its just about winning after that.
Would you still take backing now and do you see it as one of the only sensible/ viable ways for a player to last on the tournament trail?
At this point, no. I always had the confidence in my own game to play with my own money – I just needed some help. It might be a good way to start, but anyone who believes themselves to be a winning player shouldn’t want to share the profits if it’s not absolutely necessary.
Your play at the final table was certainly reminiscent of an aggro internet player (re-stealing without premium hands etc). Were you consciously trying to play a similar style to the way you’d play online or did you make some adjustments for the live game?
Yes and no. I did make a conscious effort to play my own game, but I didn’t really consciously make it an “online” style. I was only 21 years old, so my live play was limited. I did change my style based on the other styles and chipstacks at the table. It happened that the most interesting hands were the ones where I played like a maniac.
How did you find the three month break? As someone who’s experienced it firsthand do you think it’s a positive thing for poker?
The break can definitely take you out of your groove, but I think since I won I don’t really have a right to complain about that. From an outside perspective though, I think it’s great. The lights, the stage, and the media attention will all help bring poker even more into the mainstream.
Having achieved the pinnacle in poker at such a young age what’s your motivation to continue playing the game?
Just because you’ve won one thing doesn’t mean you’re the best. Winning and being the best isn’t always the same thing. There are always more titles to be won. I want to continue to excel until I’m considered to be among the best.
What tips can you give to aspiring players on how to tackle an event like the WSOP M.E? Is the endurance factor something that many new players don’t account for?
Endurance plays a part, sure. When you get tired, you make mistakes. The problem is not making any mistakes isn’t enough. There are still hundreds of opportunities to get unlucky. So, my advice on winning the main event: play perfect poker, then figure out a way to get the stars to align! |
