It's a very long flight from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to Los Angeles. It's even longer when you have a two hour layover in Minneapolis. We were all prepared for the flight - cards and scrabble board ready to for action. Unfortunately, the airline only had seats tens rows apart, quite difficult to play scrabble at that distance. And no one was willing to trade. The businessman seated across the aisle from Phil said, "I have a very important business meeting that I can't be late for. I don't want to be ten rows back and have to wait to get off the plane." Wow, now that is a tight connection. Phil's mind reeled for a solution.
"Hey, how about trading for the duration of the flight, and then trade back right before we land... and I'll throw in 10% of my almost assured winnings," Phil proposed. Shortly after takeoff, the businessman was replaced by Rafe, ready for action. By the end of the flight, Phil owed the businessman $17, most of which came from his all time best scoring game of 475 in a single game - three "bingos", a double-double, and a DL-TWS Q! Nice!
We drive down to the Commerce Casino at around 1pm. The reception area is crawling with celebrities and poker stars from across the country. We reunite with friends we haven't seen since the tour began, meet some of the celebs, and give a few interviews to the press that are hungry for a story. A few minutes after three, we're ushered into the playing room.
Phil draws for a seat and is seated at table 3, seat 4. He doesn't particularly like the seat selection because it is very difficult to see (and hopefully read) the opponents in seat 3, 5, 6, and 7 from seat 4. But, that's the luck of the draw. He arrives as the table and is immediately cheered up - on his left is one of our best friends (and a HUGE fish) Paul Phillips. We're excited to see more good draws: Dom DeLuise in seat 1, Tony Lo Bianco on Phil's right in seat 3, Meat Loaf rocking in seat 8, and none other than Dick "Eight is Enough" Van Patten in seat 9. Poker celeb Robert Varkonyi, the current world champion and winner of $2,000,000 at the 2002 World Series of Poker, is in seat 2, and professional Dan Harrington is in seat 6. Juicy!
Before you know it, we're given $10,000 in chips and the cards are in the air. Phil is put to a tough decision on the very first hand. Ace - Queen, from early position, is a notoriously difficult hand to play. But, wanting to start off the show, Phil brings it in for a modest raise. All fold to Meat Loaf, who decides he has a great hand and pops it to $1,000. Dom DeLuise calls and it's up to Phil. God only knows how these guys play, and it could be very right to go all in here. Then again, he thinks, maybe let's just see what happens and see what kind of cards these guys are playing. He folds. At the end of the hand, both Dom and Meatty show Ten-Ten, and Phil would have won the pot with a pair of Queens. Ah well.
Now, let it be known that the celebs at the table are not poker players. They were selected for the tournament because they have a relationship with the producers. For most of them, this is their first and probably only poker tournament of their lives. No-Limit Holdem, one of the most difficult games to play, takes literally years to have any kind of clue. These guys were just no match, with many taking a short lesson on tournament strategy and holdem just before the tournament began. Phil's strategy should be crystal clear: win as much money from the celebs as possible, while waiting patiently for one of the pros at the table to make a big mistake.
During the first few rounds, he observed and noted the mistakes the players were making, looking for a way to take advantage. Easily the "least skillful" player at the table was Dom DeLuise. Whenever he was raised or bet into, he'd utter, "Your mother's ass!" and throw away his hand, except when he was in with Meat Loaf - then it became a battle of will power (probably the only will power ever displayed by Dom when it comes to Meat Loaf). Van Patten would bet, but almost always throw away a hand that wasn't a lock if raised. Strategy pretty clear there.
And, so strategy in place, Phil got involved in pots, in good late position, with Meatty and Dom as often as possible. "Meat Loaf calls, Dom calls, Phil calls" was a very common theme. Meat Loaf would bluff, Dom would call, and Phil would raise no matter what he really had. His status as a "poker professional" clearly worried Meat Loaf who would fold 9/10 times, and then Dom ("Your mother's ass!") would fold and Phil would take the pot. This strategy was very successful.
Paul Phillips was down with that plan as well, and he and Phil took turns stealing all of their money. A very big hand came up an hour into the tournament. Phil had A-J of spades and was in with Van Patten. After the last card, the river, Phil has the best hand possible, a spade flush. Van Patten made a straight and bet into Phil. Phil raised it $3000, a number that Dick could call easily. But, Dick overlooked the flush and raised Phil $7,000 more. Of course, that put a serious dent in Dick and doubled Phil up to about $22,000.
At this point Tony was almost completely broke. He had about $400 left, and raised all-in. Phil looked down and saw his cards, Ace-Ace, the best possible starting hand! While trying to figure out how much to raise, Phil noticed Paul looking down at his chips, which is a classic "tell" that he has a good hand and really wants to bet or raise. So, Phil now decides it is imperative to try to make it look like he (Phil) is trying to get it "heads-up" with Tony so that Paul would raise him in a classic "re-steal" move. Thus, Phil went to his stack, picked up $1100, and moved it towards the pot. At the last second, he went back to the stack and added $200 more. That's the key move - a hesitant bigger raise really looks like an attempt to get Paul to fold. Paul bit like a huge whale by moving all-in for $25,000, a very serious error. Phil called in a heartbeat and was rewarded with a $44,000 pot making him the early chip leader in the tournament and almost busting Paul.
But, Paul made a great comeback and eventually made it back to around $20,000. In just a few hours, we've managed to bust all the celebs except Van Patten, who, incidentally, was playing quite well. Paul, with a great move on Meat Loaf, busted him. Planning on that eventuality, he came out with a great line: "Hey Meat Loaf, nice playing. Don't get out of here like a Bat Out of Hell." We died laughing.
With most of the celebs out, it was down to mostly pros. And the pros were out in full force. Here are some of the notables:
Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, world champion
Phil Hellmuth, Jr., former world champion
Scotty Nguyen, world champion
Phil Ivey, the hottest tournament player on tour right now
Paul Phillips, big poker fish but excellent scrabble player
Men "The Master" Nguyen
Chris Bigler, European super star
Amarillo "Slim" Preston, world champion, poker and gambling legend
Gus Hansen, two time winner on the World Poker Tour
Andy Bloch, MIT Poker master (and underground blackjack legend, but shhh!!!)
Daniel Negreanu, "Kid Poker"
Russ Hamilton, world champion
Annie Duke, super-high-limit star and one of the best female players in the world
Jennifer Harman, one of the best players in the world, period.
Carlos Mortenson, world champion and the guy that busted Phil at the 2001 WSOP
T.J. Cloutier, the most major titles of any player in history
Kathy Liebert, first woman to win $1,000,000 in a poker tournament
Layne "Back to Back" Flack, possibly the best no-limit player in the world right now
David Chiu, considered by many to be the best overall player in the world
For the professional players, this field is one of the toughest ever assembled. To be invited to the tournament, you have to be a world champion, a poker hall of fame member, have won an event on the World Poker Tour (like Phil) or be a special invited guest. Now that is tough! Needless to say, it was quite a thrill to be invited.
And about 30 others, all great players and very, very tough. Phil had his work cut out for him. After dinner, the blinds were growing very big very quickly. Sensing that he'd need to double up, Phil made a bold (stupid?) move from early position with a marginal hand, 6-6. Unfortunately, Jerry Buss, the owner of the Lakers, woke up and found the best hand, A-A, in the small blind. Of course, he called Phil's $35,000 bet, and that quickly, it was all over. Perhaps, just perhaps, they'll be some Lakers tickets for us somewhere down the road.
The next day, we went back for the finals. In the hallway are about 100 "props", actors hired to fill what would otherwise be empty seats. Poker as a spectator sport just hasn't quite caught on yet. Because it's being filmed in LA, there are about 80 hot girls, and 20 guys to fill the void.
Unfortunately, it looks as if the finals are going to be quite boring. Layne "Back-to-Back" Flack is in a clearly dominant position with over $780,000 of the $1 million in chips in play. The rest of the players are tough, with the exception of Jerry Buss, the owner of the Lakers. Each has somewhere near $70,000.
So, we're outside the room discussing Layne's dominant position when our friend Andy Bloch says he just bet on Layne and gave 4.5-1 odds. Phil put the odds around 5-1 and was arrogant enough to announce it. Hint: never announce a proposition bet with more than 50 degenerate gamblers in the room. Very quickly, Phil had WAY too much action, with people running across the room to throw hundred dollar bills at him in order to get bets down. Luckily, Andy Bloch did a "dollar-cost-average-up" and took some of the action. Rafe, taking advantage of an arbitrage opportunity offered Phil 4-1 so that he could lay off some of the balloon sized bets. At least now the tournament would be interesting!
We all take our seats in the gallery. John Vorhaus, a poker player and poker (and comedy!) writer, takes 3-4 minutes to educate the audience about the game - primarily, when to clap, when to sign, when to make a roaring round of applause, and what would constitute a good enough play to make you want to jump out of your seat, shake your head, and scream at the top of your lungs. Fully educated about our responsibilities as a TV audience, we sat and awaited the action. Announcing the final table is Linda Johnson, poker player, tournament coordinator and former editor of Card Player Magazine.
The final table started kind of slow, with Layne basically chipping away at the small puny stacks and avoiding any major confrontations. It was then that we realized the problem: Layne plays better when he's totally hammered. So, we convince Andy that it is in our best interest to order Layne a few gin and tonics. We do this by yelling, in unison, "Cocktails, seat 2," during a break in the action, at which point Layne had his first GT of the day.
An hour later Layne is loosened up. With a monster suckout, he busts David Chiu, arguably the world's best all-round player, with AQ versus Chui's AK by spiking a Queen on the river. "Cocktails, Seat 2," we yell. And then he proceeds to bust the excellent poker writer Andy Glazer. "Cocktails, Seat 2!"
Not too much longer and Layne finds himself heads up, with none other than Laker owner Jerry Buss. Jerry has basically won the war of attrition - the other guys got snapped off before Jerry could get his chips in. Layne is a huge 10-1 chip leader and our bet is looking great.
Jerry plays way too tight, and almost blinds off his entire stack before getting a bit lucky and doubling through a few times to get back to 10-1. He's clearly no match for Layne, who consistently shows Jerry 3-5 offsuit, 8-6 suited ("it's getting better," Layne taunts) and 2-3 off. These are all hands that Layne has raised on. Now Jerry should get the idea to just push in a few times, but he really doesn't. Layne just keeps firing and showing his bluffs. Jerry's 26 year old hotty girlfriend is behind us and keeps telling her friends how wonderful Mr. Buss is... she looks like a Laker girl.
Soon enough, despite some heroic "suckouts" (i.e. catching a miracle card on the end), Layne finally busts Jerry and wins the tournament, $100,000 for first place, and the standing, no roaring, ovation of an exhausted audience excited about picking up their own check for $25.14 for attending the days event. Yippee!
During the post tournament wrap up, Layne, who is very clearly and visibly drunk, makes TV announcer, Mike Sexton's, interview very difficult. We do not expect much of the post tournament commentary to make it past the editing process.
And, so, we're off, dragging Andy Bloch with us to Hermosa Beach to meet up with a few friends. Kind enough to change their plans for an impromptu get together, Dorian, Nicole, Reagan and Tim kept us company before getting on a 2am plane back to Ft. Lauderdale. We'd like to thank Phil Hellmuth, Jr. and Men "The Master" Nguyen for bankrolling our little jaunt to the World Poker Tour by losing the sucker bet to on Layne winning the tourney.
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