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Arrived Late, Left Early
Man, was I looking forward to playing in a World Poker Tour (WPT) event, any WPT event. I had not played in a history-making event with a huge prize pool since November, and the Commerce Casino’s $10,000 buy-in L.A. Poker Classic proved to have an especially huge prize pool, including $2.4 million for first place. After skipping five major events in January, and watching my contemporaries like Daniel Negreanu, Scotty Nguyen and Michael Mizrachi win, I was raring to go!
After all, I’m a proud guy, and seeing all of these other guys win had stirred me up a bit. Yes, I did win a $700,000 condo at the W Hotel, Casino and Residences, Las Vegas tournament held in January, but I doubt that anyone in the poker world respects that win — against a bunch of movie stars — very much. So off I went, for a 6:30 p.m. start, and I was actually on time for the first time in years. (In retrospect, I wish I’d come 70 minutes late.)
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A Happy Outcome at Camp Hellmuth
With three players left in the Camp Hellmuth finale — which played out onstage in front of 200 people, with the hands being shown on a big screen, and with me announcing the hands to the audience — Gordon Higgins, from Kansas City, was getting low on chips. But after what he’s been through this past year, it didn’t bother him at all.
You see, Higgins’ girlfriend had given him a Camp Hellmuth ticket as a present, and they planned to turn the two-day camp into a real Vegas vacation by adding two days for themselves after the camp ended.
Higgins, however, was being treated for thyroid cancer and was feeling low on energy.
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So You Want to Make a Deal?
With about six players left in the $5,000 buy-in “Big One” at Harrah’s “Carnavale of Poker” in 2000, 1999 Player of the Year Hieu “Tony” Ma whispered to me, “Phil, how sweet is it that this Frenchman keeps betting all of his chips pre-flop? You’re going to bust him for sure!” At the time, I agreed with Ma. I thought the Frenchman’s chips were mine to win. I love playing against a “slider” (someone who moves all of his chips into the middle regardless of how high the blinds have risen because once he slides it all-in, he can’t fold when you — eventually — pick up a big pair behind him. So when the tournament came down to Farzad “Freddy” Bonyadi, Angelo ”the Frenchman” Besnainou and me, they asked me to make a deal, I told the Frenchman, “No deal.”
So much for Tony Ma’s view of things! And my own! The Frenchman ended up busting me and winning the tournament! I ended up finishing in third for $100,000 (first was $400,000 and second was $200,000), whereas I would have taken home more than $250,000 had I made the deal. Did I make the right decision? What I really wanted was the title, and I knew I would stay focused if I played for all the money. What’s more, some players give away more information under the unrelenting pressure one feels when playing for so much money, and that tends to strengthen my already strong reads on short-handed opponents. Many players, in fact, tend to melt and make serious mistakes when they’re under so much pressure. So I believe, even in hindsight, that playing for it all was the right move for me in this situation.
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Losing, and Winning, in the ‘Big Game’
In October and November I began making forays into the “Big Game” at the Bellagio, a high-stakes affair seemingly always in progress. The first four of these occasions I won almost $500,000 without a single loss. Then, in December, I played three more times over a weekend and lost $176,000. After arriving in Vegas that Friday night, I should have gone straight to bed, but instead lost $80,000. Saturday, still tired and off my game, I lost another $43,000, and finally, on Sunday, I risked all the remaining cash I had in town, about $53,000 or so, and lost that. My thinking on risking the last $53,000 was that I didn’t want to have a losing trip in the Big Game! Tough weekend, but it was fun. And bad as it was, it didn’t wipe out the $500,000 I had won earlier.
Playing in a poker game where you can win or lose that much in one night is always exciting, but I especially enjoyed the camaraderie with some of the people I used to play high-limit poker with back in the 1990s. Great players like Johnny Chan, Jennifer Harmon Traniello, Doyle Brunson, David “Chip” Reese, Gus Hansen, Chau Giang, Eli Ezra, and Barry Greenstein. That weekend I did manage to win a few pots, one of them a big Hold ’em hand vs. Traniello.
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2006: What a Year, So Far
Last month, I was emcee of the W Las Vegas Hotel, Casino and Residences event held at the Sundance Film Festival. I had flown from the heat of Miami to the frigid mountains of Utah. At Sundance, where there were also stars galore, I joined the 50 players who opened the event. After all, first prize at Sundance was a $700,000 condo, and since I wasn’t getting paid to comment, I wanted a shot at winning it.
The event had attracted a huge audience, and the final table included Annie Duke, Chris Masterson, Shannon Elizabeth, Gina Gershon, W Las Vegas Hotel founder Reagan Silber and me. Through most of the tournament I had been paying scant attention to playing poker since I was teasing all the stars in the room and announced key pots at all five tables. For the first three hours of play, I looked at barely 40 percent of my own hands. I mean, I was in Sundance for the microphone, the mingling, the ambiance, and to watch a few films.
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Sundance Poker Festival
One night I played emcee at A-Rod’s star-studded charity event in Miami, teasing the likes of Jay-Z, Beyonce and Tom Brady (which I wrote about in my last column). The very next night, I was the emcee at the W Las Vegas Hotel, Casino and Residences poker event at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City. In Miami, I drank nothing and didn’t play in the tournament, but at Sundance I drank Dom Perignon and joined the 50-player event. After all, first prize at Sundance was a $700,000 Las Vegas condo, to be built in 2008, and since I wasn’t getting paid to comment, I wanted a shot at winning it.
The event at Park City had a great vibe, with a huge audience watching players like Laura Prepon, Shannon Elizabeth, Gina Gershon, Danny and Chris Masterson, Kevin Smith, Emile Hersch, Good Charlotte’s Benji and Joel Madden, Dave Navarro (with Carmen Electra sitting behind him), Lance Bass, DJ AM, Summer Altice, Anne Heche, and poker pros Annie Duke, Phil Gordon, Phil “the Unabomber” Laak, and Antonio “the Magician” Esfandiari, to name a few. The crowd was watching us play in a huge white tent, with a DJ and video monitors covering the action.
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