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Aruba’s ‘Bubble Boy’ Smiled
Here in Aruba, at the UltimateBet.com World Poker Tour event, 125 players got paid. (By the way, to finish in position 126, and thus receive no money, is to finish on the “bubble.”) With 135 players remaining, I went down to the tournament area to root for my good friend Greg Pierson. Greg is the founder and CEO of Iovation, an Internet security company (whose products are by America Online and UltimateBet). I knew from the day I met him that Pierson would be a billionaire someday, but can he play poker?
A few minutes later, with 126 players remaining, the blinds at $1,000-$2,000 with a $200 ante, Mister 6 (the player in the sixth seat) opened for $6,000 on the button. Pierson, in the big blind, moved all-in for roughly $30,000 with his Ad-3s. Mister 6 immediately flipped up pocket aces, and declared, “I call.” What a nightmare scenario for Pierson! He was now roughly a 12-to-1 underdog for his tournament life (Mister 6 had more chips than he did), and he was about to finish in 126th place when only 125 players would be paid!
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Poker on the Beach
OK, Phil, no more sour grapes! You’re in the penthouse suite at the Radisson in beautiful Aruba. All your media, including your books tips calendar, are flying off the shelves. You have nine World Series of Poker (WSOP) titles.
Why, then, do you have to act like a jerk after taking a bad beat? Why leap out of your chair, with your arms flailing, and utter, “What the (expletive) is going on here?” And then ask your opponent, “How could you have played this hand so poorly?”
Once more, I’m embarrassed by my own conduct, the more so as this is the UltimateBet.com World Poker Tour (UB-WPT) event in Aruba, and I’m a UB ambassador. I should have said, “Nice hand, sir,” and calmly walk away from the table. I should have shown the class that a WSOP champion ought to show. But I am, after all, the poker brat (though not necessarily proud of it).
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The Big One at the Bike
This year the $5,000 buy-in World Poker Tour (WPT) tournament at the Bicycle Club in Los Angeles brought out more than 800 entrants (with a first place of $1.1 million). This championship finale, capping a one-month-long series of tournaments in August, has some serious history and prestige, and has been on all the top poker players’ schedules for 17 years running. And that prize pool has changed over those years! Way back when, in 1988, I won this event and a whopping $145,000, out of a prize pool of $365,000. In 1989, I finished in third place, and the prize pool had already risen to $800,000. But about 1996, that upward trend reversed course, and by 2001 a mere 32 players entered, fighting for a prize pool of just $160,000.
Of course, in 2005, with 816 players, the prize pool was $4,07 million! With that many players, we had to have a split two-day start, and I drew day one. I made it through Saturday (day 1), and came back to face the other 301 players on Monday. Things didn’t go well for me in the first couple of hours of play, and my starting chip stack of $24,000 was now down to $8,200.
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Hitting a ‘Gutshot’ in London
Before I get into it, you should know that, from here on in, all the words and phrases in this column surrounded by quotes are the — much beloved by me — local London lingo. For those of you who’ve already guessed it, “bloody right,” this piece is about a little UK poker!
While in London last weekend shooting three parts of a reality show (the “UltimatePoker.com Showdown” on Channel 5), I thought it would be a treat to make an appearance at a poker club, out of respect and “honour” for the United Kingdom’s poker scene and its players. So at 3 a.m. on Sunday night, after filming the reality show’s finale, I strolled into the Gutshot Club in London’s west end to say hello. By the way, a “gutshot” is an inside-straight draw, or more precisely, a one-card straight draw. (You may remember when your granddaddy told you, “Never draw to an inside-straight,” and wondered what he meant.)
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Phil’s Charity Tournament
I guess everyone who’s been watching the Katrina TV coverage is as shaken up as I am. To do something about it, I decided to host a charity poker tournament at UltimateBet.com (UB) for the Red Cross Hurricane Relief Fund last weekend. With a $300 buy-in, $150 of that going to charity, and UB matching all donations, and with 1994 World Champion Russ Hamilton and I matching up to $10,000 each in donations, I asked a few of my celebrity friends to give us some special prize packages.
So there were tennis great Andy Roddick and me giving back-to-back hour-long lessons (he in tennis and me in poker) in Austin — a nice first prize. Then we had “Hollywood Home Poker Game” with “That 70s Show” stars Laura Preppon and Danny Masterson, “Malcolm in the Middle” star Chris Masterson, and poker legend Johnny Chan giving lessons to the stars and to our contest winner during the game; “Lunch with Troy Aikman” in Dallas; lunch with actress Jennifer Tilly, and with poker stars Phil “The Unabomber” Laak and Antonio Esfandiari in Los Angeles; two press-box passes with ESPN color commentator and UCLA Rose Bowl quarterback David Norrie; a golf lesson with golf great Corey Pavin in San Diego; lunch with poker great Annie Duke in Los Angeles; a one-hour poker lesson with poker great T.J. Cloutier in Dallas; and another one-hour poker lesson with Esfandiari. To all of you “Stars,” your donations are deeply appreciated — they really made the event special!
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Phil Gordon’s ‘Thirty Miles’
“Celebrity Poker Showdown”‘s co-host, Phil Gordon, can really hustle. He has books coming out, business interests to watch out for, and his TV show to shoot. He’ll be making so many personal appearances during the rest of 2005 that he’ll only have time to play a few poker tournaments. But Gordon misses playing big-time poker tournaments! I know the feeling. It’s hard to be a businessman, promoter and writer, and still maintain your poker schedule, which, is, after all, how we made our names.
Gordon and I, along with all of the other top poker players in the world, share a love for the World Series of Poker (WSOP). All of the great players, in fact, keep that six-week stretch open each year, so as to focus on winning gold bracelets and making additional poker history. During that six-week stretch, you can play in a meaningful event almost every day. The rest of the year, you have to fly to Reno, Paris, Atlantic City, Connecticut, Mississippi or somewhere else far away just to play in one meaningful tournament; and no matter how good you are, you’re a long shot to win it, because the tournament will be fielding 800 players.
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