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All In For The Premiership of Poker
When I was invited to London to compete in the Premiership of Poker, what impressed me the most was that the TV coverage was going to be broadcast in dozens of countries. So it was going to be a great chance for me to get some more international exposure. Poker is exploding abroad, especially in the United Kingdom, Eastern Europe and China, where ESPN is carrying the no-limit Hold ‘Em torch.
The Premiership works like this: 12 invited world-class players would each play six separate six-player “heats.” Points are awarded based on performance: eight points for first place, six for second place, three for third place, two for fourth place and one for fifth place (sixth place gets nothing). Each heat would be a random drawing, so that you could face the same opponent several times. For example, I drew Tony G (Shall we say that he is a famously “theatrical” player?) in five matches, and I knew that that could make for a highly combustible show. The players with the top four point totals would advance to the six-player finale, with their chip stacks to be 10,000 times their point totals. The players who finished in fifth through eighth place would then play heads-up matches, with two of them advancing to the six-player finale (making it a 16-week TV series).
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Shannon Kicks Behind!
A few weeks back, I went to pick up tennis star James Blake and two of his friends to take them over to the Bay 101 card club, in San Jose, for some poker action.
In my last column, I talked about how Blake had busted me twice, and then bluffed me in a poker session a few days earlier, sigh.
When I arrived to pick up Blake and friends, I was pleasantly surprised to see that actress Shannon Elizabeth was with him. Elizabeth knows her way around a poker table, and she has spent quite a bit of time on the poker tour. In fact, when we walked into the Bay 101, the first thing that we saw was a “Shooting Stars” World Poker Tour poster with Elizabeth’s picture on it. (On March 9, Elizabeth and other top poker pros and I will be playing in the World Poker Tour Shooting Stars at the Bay 101, with a $10,000 bounty on our heads. If you bust one of the shooting stars, then you collect $10,000 in cash.)
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Tennis, And Poker?
No limit Texas Hold ’em is big on the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Tour these days. Many of the top players, their coaches, trainers and staff have several weekly poker tournaments. They do not play high stakes or even moderate stakes, but rather relatively low stakes tournaments where a lot of pride is on the line. And these guys can play the game!
In February, the ATP rolled into San Jose (my neck of the woods) for the SAP Open, and with it came Andy Roddick and James Blake. Roddick and Blake are not only the top-ranked American tennis players; they’re also ranked fourth and sixth in the world in tennis, respectively.
Recently, Roddick, Blake, Stu (Roddick’s friend), and I walked into the Bay 101 to play some poker. At 7 p.m., Roddick was to be part of the featured match at the SAP Open, with Blake to follow at roughly 8:30 pm. They had a few hours to kill before they would hit around together at 5 p.m. or so.
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Tunica, Miss., part 2
My editors told me that I should have kept part 1 and part 2 in consecutive weeks, but I couldn’t resist having the column about tennis great Andy Roddick, and the way that he won his own charity poker tournament, in the middle. Two columns ago (at www.philhellmuth.com), I was talking about my last-minute arrival in Tunica, Miss., early Sunday morning for the annual World Poker Tour event held there. I talked about how I felt compelled to be in Tunica for this tournament — to the point at which I chartered a jet out of Los Angeles at midnight Saturday night — because I sensed that I was on top of my game. By Sunday night, I was one of the chip leaders, and we had lost 100 players in the 308-player field. The tournament had a great structure — one that was first instituted by legendary tournament director Jack McClelland — that featured five 90-minute levels of play a day for the first four days. We all knew in advance that we would play from noon until about 8:30 p.m. or so — 7.5 hours plus four 15 minute breaks. This is a nice change from the old days (now we can make dinner plans!), when we would play from noon until 2 a.m., or later.
In any case, the second day started off fairly well for me, and I fluctuated between $65,000 and $100,000 in chips. In two nearly full days of play, I had been all-in only one time. In part one I talked about how I was all-in with my three 10s vs. my opponent’s three nines. Now, I know that I’m playing my best when I’m never at risk of going broke in a single hand. It is hard for an amateur to understand how difficult it is to navigate your chips so that you’re never all-in. It takes patience, cunning, timing, or, to sum it up, it takes “the right moves at the right time.” If you know whether your opponents are weak or strong, then you can make the right moves at the right time. (Check out my new poker course at www.blackbeltphil.com for more on this.) I do not usually play at that level, but I always strive to.
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Andy Roddick Wins!
One Friday night in December, I answered my cell phone and heard an excited Andy Roddick say, “Phil, I made it all the way to the final table!” With almost 250 players signed up for this charity poker tournament, the Andy Roddick Foundation kicked off its annual fundraiser in a big way. The buy-in was a modest $500, with all the money going to abused and disadvantaged children (for more, go to andyroddick.com). Roddick had asked me to come to the tournament, in Hollywood, Fla., at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino to play and emcee. Unfortunately, I had a scheduling conflict, but the star power there was right out of Hollywood. Tennis greats Venus and Serena Williams, and Andre Agassi, baseball great Alex Rodriguez, Nicky Hilton, Mandy Moore, and 2006 World Champion of Poker Jamie Gold were among the celebrities in attendance. If you were eliminated early, then no problem: there were musical acts, a fundraiser auction, and an after party.
I feel bad for Roddick as he has had to face Roger Federer seven times in the semi-finals or finals of a major. I mean, in any other era Roddick would have had at least four or five grand slam titles. I’m not wishing anything bad on Federer, but doesn’t he ever get injured, or lose his motivation? I guess not!
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Tunica Again
The World Poker Tour (WPT) recently visited to Tunica, Miss., and so did Phil Ivey and I. There was a $10,000 buy-in poker tournament being held at the Gold Strike Hotel and Casino, so Ivey and I charted a jet out of Los Angeles. The night before the buy-in, I was at Barona Casino in San Diego playing an Ultimate Blackjack Tour tournament. At 6 p.m., whilst debating whether to fly home, I felt compelled to go to Tunica. I’m not sure why I was pulled toward Tunica, but once the tournament began, I knew why I needed to be there. I was on top of my game, finally! I hadn’t been on top of my poker game since the World Series of Poker (WSOP) ended in mid-August.
Day 1 started a bit rough for me, as I was tired and sloppy with my chips. (I was playing too many hands.) The blinds were $100 to $200, and I was sitting at around $18,000 — we started with $20,000 — when the following hand came up. One player limped in under the gun, Player A limped in with 9-9, Player B — immediately to my right — made it $800 to go with Ad-As, and I looked down at 10-10. I called, and took a flop with three other players. The flop was Kd-10d-9c, and Player A bet out $2,000. Player B made it $7,000 to go, and I moved all-in for $17,400 or so. I told Ivey and Daniel Negreanu, who were sitting at the table next to me, “This could be the end of me.” I wasn’t kidding. I could not beat a straight (Q-J), or three kings, or I could have been at risk of losing to a flush draw. Player A called me quickly; Player B studied a moment, and then folded while showing the table his Ad-As. I now told Negreanu and Ivey, “Never mind, my opponent has only one win in the deck.” When the next two cards were 6d-4s, I became one of the early chip leaders with almost $45,000 in chips.
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