Chris Ferguson - Do The Math

With three finals in four years, and now a first-place finish, Chris Ferguson is the undisputed king of the Heads-Up Championship. Read more

Phil Ivey and Phil Hellmuth - WPT Out Of The Woods

Phil Ivey & Phil Hellmuth both battled their WPT “curse” in L.A., but only one could win the title.

FOR YEARS, THE MEDIA HAS INSISTED UPON calling Phil Ivey “the Tiger Woods of Poker.” But a close examination of their respective careers diminishes the strength of this comparison. Woods is best known for the clutch work he does on Sundays—his record when he’s had at least a share of the lead entering the final day of a PGA Tour event is an amazing 42-3—while Ivey has been far less successful closing the deal.

Ivey’s final-day failures have been particularly evident in World Poker Tour events. At the start of 2008, he’d made seven WPT final tables in his career but failed to win a single one. The last time Ivey had the lead entering the final table of a WPT event—last year’s Mirage Poker Showdown—he got knocked out in fifth place. After five years without a victory on the World Poker Tour, Ivey has lately begun to acknowledge this black mark on his resume, calling it “the Curse of the WPT.”

It appeared Ivey would be getting another chance to rectify this situation after the money bubble popped on the third day of this year’s L.A. Poker Classic, for here is another interesting statistic that has helped define his career: Whenever he has cashed in a WPT event, he has gone on to make the final table.

His play at the start of Day Four only increased the likelihood that he would still be around on the final day of the tournament. After doubling up against Scott Montgomery, a 26-year-old former English teacher from Perth, Ontario, Ivey took sole possession of the chip lead, and just a few hands later he became the first player to amass $1-million in chips. At that point it became almost a foregone conclusion that he would be among the final six players, and the focus shifted to his competition: Who would be joining him at the final table?

As it turned out, the most likely candidate had experienced nearly the same amount of heartache on the World Poker Tour as Ivey—for all his success at the World Series of Poker, Phil Hellmuth has never won a WPT tournament.

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“It is enormously frustrating not to have won one,” he said, “because I’ve been down there so many times. When the WPT first started, in the first 13 tournaments, I made it down to the final 15 like six times.” (It was actually five times in the final 15, plus a sixth time in the top 20, but the point is well taken.)

The way Hellmuth was playing on the fourth day of the tournament, it appeared his dubious streak of WPT futility would be ending soon. He reached an even million in chips after busting Neil Ho in 31st place and would finish the day at $1,399,000, just $144,000 behind the chip leader, Ivey.

Hellmuth continued delivering knockout punches on Day Five—on just the second hand of the day he eliminated David Singer in 18th place—but with 15 players left, his chip stack suffered a major blow in a hand against Montgomery when the Canadian caught a two-outer on the river to double up, prompting Hellmuth to pull one of his famed hissy fits. He fled the table as if it were on fire, complaining about his opponent’s poor play and his own bad luck.

While he may have appeared to be tilting, Hellmuth remained composed enough to make one of the ballsiest calls you’re ever going to see. With 11 players left, he limped in from the small blind, and Blair Hinkle moved all in for his last $410,000 from the big blind. Most players would have folded Q-2 in this spot, but Hellmuth had just watched Hinkle put in a third raise pre-flop with J-9 of hearts against Ivey (who had called and won the hand with pocket kings) and suspected he had the best hand.

“I think I might have you beat,” he said. “I know I should fold, but my gut is telling me I’m right.”

Hellmuth went his gut, and his read was dead-on. Hinkle could only show 9-7 of hearts, and Hellmuth’s queen-high was good enough to take the pot and eliminate his opponent.

When the last 10 players in the tournament were moved to the same table, Hellmuth was the chip leader with $3,885,000 and Ivey was in second with $1,995,000, and it seemed only a matter of time before these two heavyweights would clash.

***
With seven players left on the so-called “TV bubble”—the next player eliminated wouldn’t be making it onto television—the two Phils proceeded to get into a series of confrontations that left one of them stunned and reeling.

In their first battle, Ivey raised under the gun to $190,000, and Hellmuth called from the big blind with two black nines—the very same hand he’d held when he won the World Championship in 1989.

The flop came Q-10-2 with two spades. Ivey bet $250,000, and Hellmuth called before checking in the dark.

The turn card was the ten of diamonds, and Ivey checked as well.

After the king of hearts fell on the river, Ivey bet $500,000, prompting Hellmuth to smack his hands together and cry, “Come on, man. What is this B.S.?”

Hellmuth eventually called, and Ivey casually flipped over his pocket aces, which won the hand and gave him the chip lead with $2.9-million.

Shrugging off the loss, Hellmuth continued to play aggressively. Three orbits later, he opened for $250,000 on the button with Q-10 of clubs, and Charles “Woody” Moore, a retired oil man from Dallas, Texas, moved all in for $590,000 more. Fishing for information, Hellmuth asked Moore what he had. Moore responded that he had a big pair, prompting the tournament director, Cheri Dokken, to intervene.

“You can’t say what you really have,” she warned him.
“Phil tried to trick me,” Moore complained.

“I didn’t try to trick you, Woody. C’mon, you know that.”

“If you’re telling the truth,” Dokken told Moore, “we’re going to have to give you a penalty.”

Moore got off with only a slap on the wrist, but Hellmuth believed he’d been telling the truth.

“I decided to lay my hand down, but I wish I would have called. If I’d made the call and hit a queen and won the hand, I would have had over $5-million in chips. Instead, the very next hand I picked up A-K of hearts and I’m like, This is sweet, man! I just overbet with the Q-10 clubs. I’m probably going to bust somebody.”

Hellmuth opened for $240,000, and Ivey re-raised him $400,000 more. Hellmuth hardly glanced at his opponent before moving all in.
“The problem was the timing of it,” he said. “I was like, Yeah, I get this free $640,000 from Ivey. He can’t call me unless he’s got aces or kings. But he insta-called and showed aces, and I was like, You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Ivey’s aces won him a monster pot and pushed his chip stack to$5.6-million. Hellmuth’s plummeted all the way down to $1.2-million, but he wouldn’t give up. He would go on to bust Wei Kai Chang in seventh place to earn some much needed chips heading into the final day.

“The fact is I ended the day with $2.3-million. I still could have easily won it. You just never give up in these things.”
***
At the start of the final table, Ivey held the chip lead with $4.1-million while Hellmuth was in third with $2.38-million. You would think having a player as dangerous as Hellmuth sitting at the table with him would have concerned Ivey, at least a little, but he didn’t see it that way. In fact, he actually thought Hellmuth’s presence worked to his advantage. In an interview with Kimberly Lansing on WorldPokerTour.com, Ivey called Hellmuth his “lucky charm” because whenever they’d made the same final table in the past—in the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event at the 2000 WSOP and the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event at the 2005 WSOP—Ivey had gone on to win the tournament.

When Hellmuth was asked about Ivey’s apparent command over him, he scoffed at the idea that those two performances proved Ivey was a better player than him. “He was very lucky in the Pot-Limit Omaha [event in 2000] when he won it because he put his money in in a really bad spot against the guy from Germany [Markus Golser of Salzburg, Austria] when we were four-handed. He got his money in there in a real bad spot all in, and he hit his ace or whatever it was on the flop.

“I don’t think he plays No-Limit Hold ’Em as good as I do,” Hellmuth went on to say. “He might be better at every other game, but not when it comes to No-Limit Hold ’Em tournaments.”

Hellmuth’s words hint at a rivalry between them, but Ivey dismissed that notion in his interview with Lansing. “We’re two different types of poker players. He’s a tournament poker player mostly, and I’m more of a cash poker player who plays tournaments.”

While the audience packed into a walled-off section of the Commerce Casino was hoping to see these two players go after each other, it would be Woody Moore who would tangle with Ivey on the very first hand of the day. After Ivey raised to $240,000 from the small blind, Moore responded by moving all in from the big blind for $1.5-million. Ivey spent nearly five minutes debating what to do before he called. It was a mistake. Moore had A-K, which had Ivey’s A-9 dominated.

“That was a bad call,” Hellmuth said afterward. “He called a million more, but he did have four million. Still, I hated that call. He should have laid that hand down.”

After losing the hand, Ivey dropped all the way down to $2.6-million while Moore took over the chip lead with more that $3-million. The door was now open for Hellmuth to make a charge, but he would suffer his own ill-timed misfortune 10 hands later.

In a battle of the blinds, Nam Le, the only player at the final table who owned a WPT title—he won the 2006 Bay 101 Shooting Stars tournament—bet $140,000 from the small blind after the flop came J-6-3. Hellmuth called, and a king fell on the turn. Le bet $350,000, and Hellmuth moved all in. Le called and exposed K-3 while Hellmuth could only show J-8. “I can’t believe you caught a king,” he groaned.

Down but not out, Hellmuth would hang on for several more rounds before he moved all in preflop with A-9. Moore called with A-Q, which had Hellmuth beat from start to finish. The $229,820 that Hellmuth earned for his sixth-place finish pushed him over the $10-million mark in career tournament winnings, making him only the third player in poker history to do so.

With “The Poker Brat” on the sidelines, Ivey’s presence at the table grew increasingly pronounced. Two hands after Le eliminated Montgomery in fifth place, Ivey raised under the gun to $300,000, and Le called from the big blind.

The flop came A-7-7. Le checked, Ivey bet $400,000, and Le called.
The turn card was the six of hearts, and both players checked.

The ten of clubs fell on the river. Le checked, Ivey bet $800,000, and Le called. Ivey flipped over 9-8, giving him a ten-high straight and a pot worth $3.14-million.

On the very next hand, Quinn Do, a 32-year-old restaurateur from Seattle best known for winning a gold bracelet in the $2,500 Limit Hold ’Em event at the 2005 WSOP, raised to $350,000 from the button, and Ivey called from the big blind.

The flop came K-9-4, and both players checked.

The turn card was the ace of clubs, and, once again, both players checked.

After the eight of hearts fell on the river, Ivey bet $500,000, and Do called. Ivey showed A-8, giving him two pair, a pot worth $1.84-million, and the chip lead.

With two big stacks (Ivey and Do) squared off against two short ones (Moore and Le), the table lapsed into a balanced state of equilibrium for more than two hours until Le suddenly shifted into a higher gear. Making two all-in moves before the flop in a row won him the much needed blinds and antes, and both times he showed his opponents his cards, the first time pocket fives, the second A-6.

On the very next hand, Le opened for $420,000 from the small blind. Sitting in the big blind, Ivey must have thought Le was making another move with mediocre cards and came over the top of him with pocket threes. This time, however, Le had a big hand, pocket aces, and he quickly called. Le’s boisterous cheering section celebrated wildly until the three of diamonds fell on the turn, silencing them. That card gave Ivey an improbable set and eliminated Le in fourth place.

Perhaps sensing that Ivey could not be stopped, Woody Moore tried to bluff him on the next hand by moving all in with an open-ended straight draw, but Ivey had made top two pair with 8-7, called, and won the hand.

Thanks to the chips he’d taken off Le and Moore, Ivey entered heads-up play against Quinn Do with a 4-to-1 advantage. Their matchup didn’t figure to last very long, and it didn’t.

On just the second hand between them, Ivey raised to $560,000 before the flop, and Do called.

The flop came A-8-6, all spades. Ivey bet $700,000, and Do called.

When the ace of clubs fell on the turn, Ivey moved all in.

After four minutes spent mulling his options, Do finally called with 9-8. He had two pair, but Ivey had made a full house with A-8.

Do was drawing dead. The four of clubs on the river meant nothing.

Ivey celebrated in his usual understated fashion with a simple smile, although no one would have begrudged him if he’d pumped his fist a la Tiger Woods. It was a historic win, one that makes the nickname the media tagged him with so long ago seem much more appropriate. The $1,596,100 he earned for coming in first pushed his career tournament winnings to $8,742,652. More importantly, he’d finally ended his drought on the WPT.

One of the players most vocal in his praise for Ivey’s play was the one who now bears the full weight of that Curse. “You have to give Ivey credit,” said Hellmuth. “He played great poker. I saw him make some mistakes, but so what? He made less mistakes than the other players down there. I thought he played beautifully.”

Storms Reback is a freelance writer from Austin, Texas, who co-wrote All In: The (Almost) Entirely True History Of The World Series Of Poker and collaborated with Sam Farha on Farha On Omaha.

Phil’s Follow-Up
The day after his historic win at the L.A. Poker Classic, Ivey took a seat across the table from Alisha Kunze, an online qualifier from Greensburg, Indiana, at the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship. He dispatched Kunze about as effortlessly as he had Quinn Do, then proceeded to defeat Johnny Chan, J.C. Tran, and Gus Hansen before falling to eventual champion Chris Ferguson in the semifinals. In just eight days, Ivey won $1,721,100 and earned nearly as much face time on national television as Barack Obama had during that same span.
Just another week in the life of a professional poker player …

LAPC Payouts
1. Phil Ivey $1,596,100
2. Quinn Do $909,400
3. Charles Moore $625,630
4. Nam Le $411,770
5. Scott Montgomery $296,860
6. Phil Hellmuth $229,480

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Serinda Swan - Pokers Hottest Babe

An up-close look at Serinda Swan, a knockout among poker spokesmodels.

WHEN SERINDA SWAN’S THEN-BOYFRIEND opened up an account with Absolute Poker in 2006, and Serinda started playing alongside him and getting hooked on Texas Hold ’Em, she had no idea how perfect her timing was. Just a couple of months later, Absolute began auditioning for a spokesmodel, and Serinda had a leg up on the competition because she actually knew a thing or two about online poker.

“At the audition, they were putting in some poker terminology to test people, like ‘You can satellite in for only two dollars’,” she recalled. “And I remember sitting out in the hallway and listening to a couple of girls being like, ‘I don’t get it, why do we need satellites?’ Honestly, that’s a very common thing to say; if you don’t know about poker, the first thing you’re going to think about is the satellites in the sky. But still, I knew I had a huge advantage. My knowledge of poker gave me confidence. Whenever you go into a room of people who all know a certain subject and you’re pretending that you do, your confidence level will never be as high as it should.”

Serinda nailed the audition and became “the Absolute Poker girl,” adding that to a resume that also includes appearances in movies such as Loch Ness and TV series such as Exes And Ohs. She’s also since gone on to become a Guess jeans model—and a respectable poker player who has her very own $1/$2 No-Limit table every Sunday from 2 p.m.-4 p.m. Eastern time at Absolute.

But before you try to take her money, maybe you should learn a little more about her …

How has your game advanced since getting the job with Absolute?
Well, on The Best Damn Poker Show, they showed all of my terrible hands. I was so upset, I got so many MySpace messages, saying, “At least you’re pretty, because you can’t play.” But in general, I’ve gotten my game up pretty well. There’s a difference between being able to play poker and being able to play poker very well. I can play poker. I’m learning the tricks. When I first started, my strategy was limited to “best hand wins,” and I’ve since learned about pot odds and continuation bets, things like that. So I’m starting to apply basic theory to my play.

Do you typically play cash games or tournaments?
I’m better at cash games. It’s instant gratification. When I win a pot, I win a pot, I can leave. I like that a little bit better. But I’m trying to work on my tournament game right now, but I’m not really aggressive with blinds, so I’ve had to learn how to not get blinded out and how to be more aggressive when the blinds go up. In cash games, you can take your time. You don’t have to play a bad hand just because the clock’s ticking.

Do you play live also?
I play online mostly, but I’m in Vegas a lot, so I do tend to play when I’m there. Also, there’s a good poker scene here in Vancouver. I get together with friends and have little home games. And there are a few good casinos near here too, so I take my stepmother, we take a couple hundred dollars down and just go play.

How long have you been modeling?
I started modeling when I was 14. I stayed on that route until I was 18, when I quit, I just kind of got out of the industry. I felt like it was a little too focused on looks and weight and all that fun stuff, so I just figured I should probably go through the next year or two of my life without a weight constraint on me. I decided I was just going to take some time off, and if in a year or so I still fit for modeling, after I found out how I’m naturally going to develop, then awesome. And if not, I’d go do something else. And during that time, I actually got into acting, and I’ve done a few movies and television shows. But lately, it’s taken a turn back to modeling, including signing on with Guess as one of their models. It’s an interesting dynamic right now; I’m trying to figure out what I want to do, whether it’s modeling or acting or hosting, or if I can combine all of those together.

You recently started blogging. How are you finding that to be?
It’s interesting. I’ve never blogged before, but Absolute Poker wanted me to. It’s fun, it’s a great way of just letting loose and talking about your life and letting people get an insight into what I’m doing and what’s going on. It’s just a way for people to get to know me a bit better.

Do you find blogging therapeutic?
Absolutely, you just can let go. A lot of the time, Absolute wants me to write about poker, but most people are coming on my blog just to read about my life and what’s going on; if you want a real poker blog, you’re going to go to Phil Hellmuth or Annie Duke or Mark Seif. You’re not going to go to someone who’s like, “So I was on a $1/$2 table last night, and my pot was $75 and I took it down.” Obviously it’s a little more exciting when it’s higher denominations. But I find it really therapeutic, I can get things off my chest.

What hobbies do you have outside of poker?
Well, I’m extremely active. I have a dog that I take hiking and on runs, and he’s got all his buddies that he goes and plays with. My life very much revolves around my dog, Buddha. But apart from that, I recently started pole dancing classes, which are unbelievable, it’s aerobic, I go to this great place here in Vancouver. You learn how to pole dance, it’s a great workout, but there’s no stripping involved. Guys are like, “Oh, really, how interesting,” thinking that I’m training to be a stripper. I’m like, “No, no, no, hold on.” It’s just a really fun, liberating way to work out, and sometimes I go for three hours, and you’re having so much fun you don’t even notice how hard you’re working out, and then you wake up the next morning and you can’t move!

What qualities do you look for in a man?
I love a funny guy, a guy who can make me laugh, who doesn’t take life too seriously, who is an intellectual—I’m all about the brains. And tall, dark, and handsome doesn’t hurt.

GET TO KNOW … SERINDA SWAN

Age: 23
Hometown: Vancouver, British Columbia
Height: 5’9”
Weight: 125
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Pets: Buddha, a French bulldog
Favorite Poker Pros: Phil Hellmuth (“I’ve been working closely with him lately, and he’s such a great guy all-around”), Daniel Negreanu (“Because he’s Canadian like I am”), Phil Ivey (“I just think he’s an awesome player”)

5 Questions with Paul Wasicka

All In asks Poker Star Paul Wasicka 5 questions about poker.

1. When’s the last time you went on tilt at the poker table?
When I go on tilt, it’s mainly online. I don’t go on tilt live very easily. I really can’t even remember the last time that I’ve blown up at the table. But online, it happens on a daily basis. I think it’s probably because you’re in the privacy of your own home and there’s really no repercussions for blowing up, whereas if you’re at the table, you don’t want to be that guy that throws his cards and embarrasses himself.

2. You’re obviously a very good heads-up player. All modesty aside, if you and Jamie Gold had come up into heads-up play even in chips at the 2006 WSOP, do you believe you would have beaten him?
Yes. (laughs) It’s funny, I thought going into the final table that he would either go out very early or he would be a commanding chip leader when it got to heads-up, and I said in my interview at the time, and I stand by it, that given the structure of the tournament and my reads on Jamie, I really did feel that even if he had a 10-to-1 chip lead on me, that it wouldn’t matter. You know, he and I are friends, so I don’t want to talk too much trash, but I do feel like if we were to repeat the match given an even number of chips, I’d feel really confident.

3. Of all the famous poker pros you’ve met since becoming famous yourself, who’s the most different in person from how you thought he or she was on TV?
I would probably say Phil Hellmuth. Sometimes he gets kind of a bad rap from his antics at the table, and his personality can come off as whiny and arrogant and all that—and he definitely is whiny and arrogant—but I think that he really is a good guy. He has a good heart, and he and I have become friends, and I definitely respect him not only as a player but as a person too.

4. Who would you say is the best player that the public hasn’t heard of yet?
That’s a good question. There’s a lot of good answers. And there are degrees of public knowledge, because someone like J.C. Alvarado or Jared Hamby, phenomenal players, a lot of the poker world know them, but I don’t know if Joe Schmoe at home knows them. There are a lot of guys like that. Then there are complete unknowns, like my friend Thomas Fuller. We basically learned the game together, and we bounce ideas off of each other, and we’re almost always on the same page, so I think I’d say he’s the best player out there that people have never heard of.

5. Which would you rather do: Finish second in the Main Event again for maybe $4-million or $5-million, or win your first bracelet in some other event for about $500,000?
Money talks. Look, winning a bracelet would be amazing, but … how about winning my first bracelet in the Main Event? Can that be my answer?

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