Championship Material

ALL IN tabs 10 players to watch in the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event Read more

November Reign

The World Series won’t crown a champ until the fall—what does this twist mean for poker?

BY ERIC RASKIN

WOULDN’T IT BE GREAT TO have a World Series of Poker Main Event where nine superstars reached the final table?

In the post-Moneymaker era, it’s been a struggle to get more than one or two big names to navigate through the amateur-drenched fields. In 2004, Dan Harrington made it, along with one-time bracelet winners Josh Arieh and Al Krux; otherwise, the final table was stocked with anonymity. In 2005, Mike Matusow was the lone superstar at the final table, with Andy Black the only other name poker insiders knew prior to the event. In 2006, it was Allen Cunningham vs. eight opponents nobody had ever heard of. And in 2007, Lee Watkinson was the most recognizable player among the final nine, with Alex Kravchenko his closest competitor in that regard.

In 2008, however, we can guarantee that each and every one of the last nine players standing in the WSOP Main Event will be household names.

At least they will be by the time they actually sit down to play the final table.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (and, no, we don’t mean living under a tight, conservative player), you know by now that the 2008 Main Event begins in July and ends in November. A field of somewhere between about 5,000 and 10,000 will be whittled down to a final table of nine on July 14, at which point play will be suspended for almost four months. During that time, the ESPN crew will get to editing the shows, they’ll begin airing on September 2, and on October 28, the episode trimming the field down to nine will debut. On November 4, ESPN will air a special one-hour final table preview show. And on November 9, with the nine survivors back at the Rio, final table play will begin. It will be halted when two competitors remain, and they’ll come back on the evening of November 10 to determine a champion. The two-hour final table broadcast will air in prime time on November 11, less than 24 hours after the competition ends.

It’s not exactly live. But it’s a lot closer than what we’ve grown accustomed to.

***

In the days following the blockbuster announcement (and the days preceding, since this was, frankly, one of the all-time worst-kept secrets), opinions pro and con filled up the blogosphere. The most obvious argument in favor of what the WSOP is doing can be summed up by asking a series of questions: Do you remember who finished fifth in 2006? Does the name Mike McClain mean anything to you? How about Yong Pak? Or Brad Kondracki? Do you remember who finished fourth the year Moneymaker won it all?

The last few years, the winner has become a superstar, the runner-up tends to hang around also, and everyone else fades back into the ether. This year, the potential is there for all nine players at the final table to become major stars in the poker world and beyond.

“The nine players who make our Main Event final table will have an unprecedented opportunity,” WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack insisted. “Instead of there being just one star who will emerge from our Main Event, there will be nine stars. I think this same-day telecast is going to be a cliffhanger, must-see television. What we’re doing is shifting the paradigm; poker fans will be asking who will win.”

That’s a very different, and infinitely more interesting, question than the one fans have asked prior to the broadcasts in recent years: How did he win? In the past, ESPN’s WSOP coverage was pure documentary. This year, it will at least blur the line a bit between documentary and sports event.

For those who hate having their endings spoiled, you need only avoid the Internet for one day to keep from finding out who won, a marked improvement over the cocoon you needed to climb into to remain blissfully unaware in years past.

By the same token, those who actually attend the final table live at the Rio will be attending a true event, where the participants are known quantities and the excitement is palpable.

“We think this will be poker’s biggest night ever,” said Pollack. “There will be ample seating for the public. We expect poker’s biggest names to come out, whether or not they’re playing at the final table. We expect a very healthy contingent of stars from film and television and music, just as you see courtside at an NBA game with celebrities and fans and family members.”

Whether watching live or on TV, this World Series will have a unique buzz about it, and the fans stand to benefit. But nobody will benefit quite like those lucky nine players (some have called them the “November Nine,” poker’s answer apparently to the “Oceanic Six”). Never mind that their prize money will increase slightly because after they each go home in July with ninth-place payouts, the rest of the cash will accrue interest; that’s small potatoes compared to the money these poker players will make selling advertising space on their hats and lapels to the highest bidder. The notion of some of these players bringing in more dough to wear a logo than they’ll make in pure prize money is a perfectly realistic one.

But if they want to win the most prize money possible, they’d be foolish not to enlist the coaching of some of the game’s best teachers. Say you’re an amateur player who reached the final table and have already been paid out about a half-million dollars; wouldn’t you gladly take $20,000 or $30,000 of that to get intense one-on-one tutoring from some of the best in the game (especially if you suspected all of your opponents were doing so)? The players will benefit because they’ll be all but forced to receive lessons and improve their games. And the fans will theoretically benefit because the play at the final table will be better.

Also benefiting from all of this will be the sports books, which will have an opportunity to post lines on the players and receive action because sports bettors actually have familiarity with the players for a change. That just adds an extra level of fun, having the opportunity to, say, place $5,000 at 6-to-1 on the guy who’s third in chips and watching the final table play out with a financial rooting interest.

The ultimate benefit will be enjoyed by ESPN, as ratings should increase (particularly for the final table), which means more ad dollars, which means networks are again lining up to televise poker, which means an all-around healthier poker industry.

Some pundits have recently suggested that poker’s bubble has burst. This innovation, which rates to increase interest in the WSOP, fuel a higher number of entries, and lead ratings to spike, has the potential to quiet those doubters by showing just how big the bubble can get.

***

With every innovation, unfortunately, there comes a backlash. It seems ridiculous now, but when Henry Orenstein invented the hole-card cam, a lot of old-schoolers and traditionalists were vehemently opposed. In truth, a lot of them were just being lazy; they didn’t want to have to adjust their games on account of potential opponents studying how they played. Regardless, the great majority of them are making a lot more money now than they were in 2002. The hole-card cam brought poker to mainstream prominence and popularity, and it’s scary to think how much worse off the game would be now without it.

And as Daniel Negreanu pointed out in a recent blog at fullcontactpoker.com, the hole-card cam doesn’t even count as the most significant change in Hold ’Em history.

“[Hold ’Em] used to be played with just one blind,” he wrote, “but that changed and a two-blind system was created so there would be more action.”

Poker has to continue to evolve in order to remain relevant, and the final table delay appears to be the latest evolution.

But some view it as devolution. And they have some reasonable arguments to support that viewpoint.

The obvious one is that the WSOP Main Event has turned into a TV show first and a pure competition second, and the purity of the game is being compromised. The flow of play from the final 10 players to the final nine players isn’t just being interrupted; a one-week break might count as an “interruption,” but this is a full-on destruction of the flow.

Purists will also note that players are sacrificing their right to keep plays they make private. A series of bluffs made during the tournament can now be exposed on ESPN, giving your final table opponents information they didn’t “earn.” And there isn’t necessarily a level playing field here; if one player gets more TV time than another, that gives his opponents an unfair advantage in gleaning more information about him than he can glean about them.

Also, endurance is part of what has determined WSOP champions in the past. This year, the player with the greatest mental and physical endurance will be sacrificing some of his edge. (But it still will take enormous endurance just to reach the final nine, so that rates not to be an overly decisive factor.)

Then there’s the coaching issue. Some, such as 2004 champ Greg Raymer, have wondered if the opportunity for coaching is necessarily a good thing.

“I am very torn over this proposal,” Raymer said. “It might be huge for the continued growth of poker. However, the downside is this long gap allows the players to become completely different people between the time they make the final table and when they play it.”

As noted earlier, that could lead to better poker playing from everyone. But the integrity of the competition suffers slightly as a result. In the past, players were forced to make adjustments on the fly. Last year, Jerry Yang devised his relentlessly aggressive final table plan on his own, and had he had four months of coaching prior to the final table, he may have actually done a lot worse. Either way, he had to succeed or fail on his own, whereas this year, coaches will share in the blame or the credit, somewhat diminishing the players’ accomplishments.

Some pros are worried that the new format favors the amateurs, who will use coaching to close the skill gap on whichever pros may make the final table.

“For sure,” said pro Isabelle Mercier, “the delayed final would give some great exposure to the finalists and plenty of time to get in good shape for the final. But it would probably favor the amateurs who would have time to train with a pro in exchange for a percentage of the winnings. My opinion, they should play the final straight with the tournament and not months later.”

Those who agree with Mercier are also playing several “what if” cards in challenging whether this change is good for the game.

They’ve asked, what if something tragic happens to a player during those 117 days off? Isn’t it bad for poker to have an empty seat and a blinded-off chip stack at the final table? And even worse, what if one player causes something tragic to happen to another? It seems like a longshot, but isn’t it possible that someone might hire a hit man to bump off the chip leader? Or at least to hit him in the knee with a lead pipe?

Then there’s this somewhat rhetorical “what if”: What if, when play is three-handed, two players go broke on the same hand? Obviously, the champion will be crowned then and there, and the WSOP’s grand plan of having the winner determined less than 24 hours before the final table airs will not come to fruition.

The biggest “what if,” however, concerns the seamy side of poker: What if, in those 16 weeks, two players (or, hell, all nine players) strike a deal? Isn’t there an inordinate amount of time here in which collusion and dealmaking, which crush the integrity of the competition, will be possible?

Pollack acknowledges that potential problem, and seems to be relying on faith in humanity—and on the intense scrutiny these players will be under—to win out.

“We think that the biggest mistake any player can make here is to test our sincerity in making this fair, and we think this encourages our final nine players to approach this with grace, style, and good play,” Pollack said. “We will be releasing a new code of player conduct that will absolutely clarify with a new sense of firmness that any play that is illegal, unethical, or constitutes cheating or collusion in any form will be met with penalties.”

In other words, disgrace yourself and the game of poker at your own risk.

Will the honor system and some good old-fashioned scare tactics work? We’ll know in November.

***

Perhaps the final word should go to Negreanu, one of poker’s most outspoken pros, a man who has railed against past missteps by the WSOP, and a member of the Players’ Advisory Council that ultimately approved this dramatic alteration:

“All in all, I think this concept has the potential to be a really good thing for poker,” he said. “If not, well, then we go back to the traditional format next year.”

Nothing is etched in stone. Harrah’s hasn’t signed a 10-year contract with ESPN committing to a four-month delay before the final table thru 2017. This is an experiment. It’s an experiment with upside and downside. It’s an experiment intended to better serve poker, in both the short run and the long run. But until the experiment is conducted, nobody knows for sure whether it will be a success.

The guess here is that it will be—that the pros far outweigh the cons. But if that isn’t the case, the WSOP can always return to the tried-and-true approach.

For now, though, the only thing that’s true is that this new approach is being tried. So sit back and enjoy the suspense over who will win instead of the anticlimax of who already won.

Sidebar 1:

The 2008 Main Event: Schedule Of Play

July 3: Day 1A

July 4: Day 1B

July 5: Day 1C

July 6: Day 1D

July 7: Off Day

July 8: Day 2A

July 9: Day 2B

July 10: Day 3

July 11: Day 4

July 12: Day 5

July 13: Day 6

July 14: Day 7

Nov. 9: Final Table

Nov. 10: Heads-Up

Sidebar 2:

ESPN 2008 WSOP Schedule

(all times Eastern)

July 22, 8 p.m.: Bracelet events

July 29, 8 p.m.: Bracelet events

Aug. 5, 8 p.m.: Bracelet events

Aug. 12, 8 p.m.: Bracelet events

Aug. 19, 8 p.m.: Bracelet events

Aug. 26, 8 p.m.: Bracelet events

Sept. 2, 8 p.m.: Main Event

Sept. 9, 8 p.m.: Main Event

Sept. 16, 8 p.m.: Main Event

Sept. 23, 8 p.m.: Main Event

Sept. 30, 8 p.m. Main Event

Oct. 7, 9 p.m.: Main Event

Oct. 16, 9 p.m.: Main Event

Oct. 23, 9 p.m.: Main Event

Oct. 30, 9 p.m.: Main Event

Nov. 4, 9 p.m.: Final table preview

Nov. 11, 9 p.m.: Final table

Sidebar 3:

Early To Bed (Relatively Speaking)

Good news for those who dread the 15-hour days that have marked the early rounds of Main Event play in recent years: The WSOP plans to wrap up all of the Day Ones about two hours earlier than was the case in ’05, ’06, and ’07.

“In the past, we have tried to play additional levels at the beginning,” said Tournament Director Jack Effel. “This year, for the Main Event, you’re going to play five levels on all starting days, so that’s five two-hour levels, plus breaks, putting you out at about 12 or 12:30 at night instead of 2:30.”

Is it still a long day, especially for an East Coaster who hasn’t yet adjusted to Vegas time or, worse, a European player who isn’t even close to having made the adjustment? Absolutely. But those two hours should make a difference, and may help some of the older players go deeper in the tournament.

Yes indeed, it looks like this could be Jack Ury’s year.

Chiu Em Up, Spit Em Out

David slays Goliath (or at least a big-stacked Gus Hansen) in a historic heads-up rally at the WPT Championship

BY STORMS REBACK

THE MAIN EVENT OF THE WORLD SERIES OF POKER is still the undisputed world championship of poker. But the recent announcement that its final table will be delayed four months feels like a publicity stunt, and fuels the perception that the tournament is a TV show first and a genuine competition second. Meanwhile, the World Poker Tour Championship remains a distant second in prize pool and exposure. But by sticking with the same straight-forward formula that has worked for six years, the $25,000 buy-in tournament held every April at Bellagio may be surpassing the WSOP Main Event in terms of legitimacy and respect.

The number of entrants in the WPT Championship dipped slightly this year, from 639 in 2007 to 535 in 2008, but a staggering percentage of those players were well-known professionals, and a few of them had a very important announcement to make before the start of the tournament. Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch, Annie Duke, Phil Gordon, and Howard Lederer issued a statement that the lawsuit they’d brought against WPT Enterprises in July 2006 protesting the release form that all players who compete in WPT events are required to sign had finally been settled.

This wasn’t the only major pronouncement made at the tournament. At the start of Day Three, tournament director Jack McClelland took a straw poll, asking the players their opinion of the “show one card, show both” rule, and in a near landslide, the players voted to discontinue the rule. So it was discontinued, and again, the WPT Championship had taken a step toward earning the respect of the pros.

***

One of the few who wished to keep the “show one, show both” rule was Kenny Tran. But other than seeing a rule he liked get overturned, Tran didn’t have much to complain about at that stage in the tournament. He went on to finish the day in 32nd place with $362,000 in chips, while his wife, Jayde, sat in 50th place with $175,000; both eventually finished in the money, Kenny in 10th, Jayde in 45th.

Jayde would have undoubtedly finished much higher if it wasn’t for a couple of unfortunate encounters with David Chiu. In their first confrontation, Chiu moved all in from the big blind with A-3 after Tran raised from late position. “I was trying to make a play,” he later explained. It was the right move at the wrong time—Tran had aces and called immediately. Unfortunately for her, Chiu made a wheel on the river to knock her all the way down to $27,000.

Jayde fought her way back to almost $200,000, but her next encounter with Chiu proved even more devastating than the first. Once again she had pocket aces, but this time she opted to flat-call a raise before the flop. Holding Q-8 of hearts on the button, Chiu chose to do the same, and the flop came 7-5-4 with two hearts.

Tran bet, and Chiu called.

A queen on the turn gave Chiu top pair to go along with his gutshot straight draw and flush draw. He moved all in and caught a ten of hearts on the river to win the hand.

“I got most of my chips from her on those two hands,” he said. “In a tournament, you have to get lucky at some point.”

Thanks mostly to his luck against Tran, Chiu finished Day Three in third place with $1,231,000, roughly a million behind the chip leader, Gus Hansen, who had picked up nearly all of his chips in a big hand against Tim Phan. After Phan opened for a raise with A-Q, Hansen re-raised with A-K and Phan called. The flop came A-4-3 and Phan check-raised Hansen all in. “I don’t know how I can lay this down,” Hansen said, and he didn’t. His call gave him a $2.4-million pot. He would finish the day with $2,246,000.

***

This was Gus Hansen’s kind of tournament. Despite the big starting stacks ($50,000) and long levels (90 minutes), the action was fast and furious from the outset and stayed that way until the very end. With the field trimmed to 55 players on Day Four, the plan was to play five levels to further reduce it to 18, but five levels weren’t needed as the remaining players went right after each other.

During that frenetic day, Hansen seemed to play every hand dealt to him. He knocked out T.J. Cloutier in 34th place by flopping two pair with 6-3, then Men Nguyen in 26th place by calling an all-in raise with K-J. He later gave some of those chips away, doubling up both Jeff King and Michael Gracz, but still ended the day in second place with $2,929,000.

Hansen didn’t let up on Day Five, knocking out Nick Binger in 15th place, David Tran in 14th, Gracz in 11th, Karga Holt in eighth, and former chip leader Amir Vahedi in seventh. With $8,570,000 in chips, Hansen entered the televised final table with the lead and one objective: to win a record-setting fourth WPT title.

As aggressive as he’d been up to this point, he switched to an even higher gear at the final table. After sitting out the first three hands of the day, he played 16 out of the next 19, winning nearly all of them.

On the seventh hand of the day, King, winner of the 2006 WSOP Circuit event at Caesars in Atlantic City, moved all in for $960,000 with K-J and Hansen called with pocket deuces. King caught his namesake card and a jack on the flop to double up, but his joy was short-lived. Five hands later, he moved all in before the flop with A-Q of clubs after Hansen raised under the gun with 10-9 of spades. Hansen called and caught a ten on the river to knock King out in sixth place.

Three hands later, Hansen raised to $415,000 from the button and Nhan “Tommy Legend” Le, Nam Le’s brother, called from the big blind. The flop came Q-10-5 with two clubs, and both players checked. The turn was the four of spades, and Le moved all in for $615,000. Hansen quickly called and showed his set of tens. Remarkably, Le had also flopped a set, but it was only a set of fives and he was out in fifth place.

On the very next hand, Hansen raised from the cutoff to $480,000, and Cory Carroll, winner of the 2007 WSOP Circuit event at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, re-raised from the big blind to $1.65-million. When Hansen called, the crowd gasped because Carroll was the one player who could cripple Hansen. He was in second place at the time, just $3-million behind Hansen’s $11.75-million.

The flop came Q-J-6 with two diamonds. Carroll checked, and Hansen stood up to study Carroll’s chip stack. He then made his famous Gus Face, the expression on his mug both pained and contemplative, for nearly two minutes before moving all in. The crowd vocalized the look on Carroll’s face: shock.

Carroll rechecked his cards and gazed at his own chip stack. If he called and won, he would have a nearly insurmountable chip lead with $15-million. If he called and lost, he’d be out of the tournament. If he folded, he’d still have nearly $6-million. After several agonizing minutes, he called and flipped over A-J. His pair of jacks made him a 2-to-1 favorite to win the hand as Hansen could only show 7-5 of diamonds for a flush draw. But the three of diamonds fell on the river, giving Hansen the biggest pot of the tournament and eliminating Carroll in fourth place.

The crowd had barely recovered when, just six hands later, John Roveto moved all in for $1,985,000 with pocket kings. Hansen called from the small blind with A-10 of clubs, and the flop came J-9-8, giving Hansen an open-ended straight draw, which he made when a seven fell on the river. Unsure how to express what they were feeling, some members of the audience actually laughed. Hansen had just run over the table, winning 13 of the 16 hands he’d played and busting four players in a row. Considering the magnitude of the event, it was one of the most amazing runs in poker history.

Hansen was on fire, and it seemed highly doubtful that David Chiu, his last remaining opponent, would be putting out the flames, as he only had $4,360,000 compared to Hansen’s $22,905,000. However, Chiu did have the support of a slew of players sweating him from the rail, a list that included Daniel Negreanu, Erick Lindgren, and Gavin Smith. The WPT’s television crew also had to be rooting for him—if Chiu got eliminated in the first several hands of play, they wouldn’t have had enough footage for a two-hour show. Up to this point the final table had only lasted a mere 75 minutes.

***

Chiu’s play at the final table of the WPT Championship was nearly an identical reflection of his poker career. He had been eerily quiet, only playing two out of the first 22 hands, but here he was playing heads-up for the title.

After immigrating to the United States in 1978 when he was 18 years old, Chiu enjoyed almost instant success at poker, making four final tables at the WSOP between 1981 and 1986. He went on to win four WSOP bracelets as well as $2,465,642 in tournament winnings, and yet very few people have ever heard of him.

While many might view his play at the WPT Championship as being overly passive, Chiu was simply following a script he’d written himself. “Before the final table I told the television people that I had a game plan,” he said. “I told them straight out that I was going to let Gus do all the dirty work. When I got to heads-up with Gus, then I started playing poker. You will see on TV. I have the image of being as tight as a typewriter. I’m not. I have so many gears.”

On the sixth hand of heads-up play, Chiu showed one of those other gears. After Hansen limped in from the button, Chiu checked his option, and the flop came A-8-8. Chiu checked, Hansen bet $160,000, and Chiu called with the intention of stealing the pot on the turn. “Top players know how to call for a bluff,” he said. “I had a read on him and didn’t think he had a hand. That’s why I flat-called. In No-Limit, a flat-call is much scarier than a check-raise.”

When the four of spades fell on the turn, Chiu bet $430,000, and Hansen folded. It wasn’t a huge pot, but winning it affirmed Chiu’s belief that he could come back and beat Hansen.

“When we got heads up, I wanted him to play my game, not his game,” Chiu said. “He is extremely aggressive, so I wanted to slow him down. I limped in with big hands like pocket kings to send him a message that he didn’t know whether I had a good hand or a bad hand. I didn’t want to play big pots with him. I wanted to slowly wear him out. That was my strategy.”

It worked. Hansen tried to end the contest quickly by moving all in on several occasions, and Chiu simply got out of his way. On the 11th hand of heads-up play, Chiu finally found a hand he liked and called Hansen’s all-in re-raise before the flop. Chiu had pocket fives, Hansen deuces.

“I think he thought I had like A-Q or A-J or A-K,” said Chiu. “He wanted to get it over with. Even if he couldn’t knock me out, he would still have a tremendous lead on me [if I doubled up].”

The better hand held up, and suddenly Hansen’s lead—now $19,675,000 to $7,590,000—wasn’t quite so daunting. While Hansen was able to maintain this advantage over the course of the next two hours, Chiu had to be pleased that it didn’t get any bigger. He was waiting for his chance to strike, and it finally came on the 76^th hand of the day. From the button, Hansen raised to $775,000 before the flop, Chiu re-raised to $1.85-million, and Hansen called.

The flop came J-6-3 with three spades.

Chiu bet $1.6-million, and Hansen called, shoving his chips into the pot with both hands.

The six of clubs fell on the turn. Chiu moved all in for his last $5,175,000, and Hansen folded.

“I had two black queens,” Chiu said. “I’m not sure what he had to be honest with you. Obviously he didn’t have the ace of spades. Obviously he didn’t have the king of spades. Obviously he didn’t have A-J. I believe he was weaker than a jack there.”

Winning that pot brought Chiu to $12,125,000, just $3-million behind Hansen.

Two hands later, Hansen raised to $800,000 from the button, and Chiu called. Both players checked to the river with the board showing 5-5-4-A. When a nine fell on the river, Chiu checked, Hansen bet $900,000, and Chiu called with 9-7, believing Hansen didn’t have an ace.

“When people look at their cards and see a face card, they only open their cards a little bit,” he explained. “But when they have numbered cards they open them a lot more. I watched him look at his cards before I looked at mine. I didn’t put him on an ace. I believe he had either one or two face cards. When the nine fell on the river, I was checking for value to let him bet it.”

His read was dead on, and, suddenly, amazingly, he had taken over the chip lead, $14,175,000 to $13,100,000.

Full of confidence, Chiu shifted gears on the next hand. He raised to $675,000 from the button with 8-7 offsuit, and Hansen called. The flop came 10-6-3, and both players checked. The turn card was a four, giving Chiu a double-bellybuster straight draw. Hansen bet $850,000 and Chiu raised to $2.35-million, forcing Hansen to fold.

Hansen was reeling, but he stayed aggressive. On the next hand, he raised to $750,000 from the button with 10-8, and Chiu called with A-9 of spades.

The flop came A-10-8 with two clubs and a spade.

Chiu checked. “On the flop, I wasn’t sure where I was at,” he admitted later.

Hansen bet $900,000, and Chiu called.

The turn card was the five of spades. Chiu led out for $1.2-million, and Hansen moved all in for $8,675,000. After nearly two minutes debating his options, Chiu called.

“If it was a five of clubs or a five of diamonds, I wouldn’t have led out. I would have check-called to be safe. When he moved all in on me, I had a hunch I was a big underdog, but I figured if I lost the pot I would still have a little over $3-million. Well, what the hay? I’ll start all over again from the beginning. I also figured I had outs. I wasn’t drawing dead.”

Chiu needed an ace, a nine, a five, or any spade to win the tournament.

The river card was the ace of hearts.

Chiu jumped out of his chair and screamed in celebration. His reaction surprised even him. “It was amazing. We’re talking about one card for $1.6-million [approximately the difference between first place and second]. Even as low-key as I am, I still get very excited. That was the highest point of my poker career.”

Someone from the crowd pulled out a Chinese flag and handed it to Chiu. “I grabbed it without thinking. I wish I’d had both the American flag and the Chinese flag. I would have waved them together. I’ve lived here for 30 years and been an American citizen for almost 25. I consider this my home.”

The excitement in the room quickly died down, replaced by a stunned silence. No one was as dazed as Hansen. He staggered over to congratulate Chiu, but you could tell he couldn’t believe he’d actually lost.

“I am really disappointed right now,” he told Bob Pajich of CardPlayer magazine. “I know I am standing here with more than $1.7-million, but I can’t help feeling that I lost $1.7-million.”

When Mike Sexton introduced him to the crowd, Hansen said, “You’re kind of catching me at a bad time. I just lost a big hand.”

“Now you know how those other guys felt,” Sexton responded.

Chiu, on the other hand, looked as if he might never stop smiling. Not only had he just won $3,389,140, he had pulled off one of the most miraculous comebacks in modern poker history.

And he did it by staying true to himself and playing his game. Which is precisely what the organizers of the WPT Championship have done in trying to someday earn their tournament recognition as the true world championship of poker.

Storms Reback is a freelance writer from Austin, Texas, and the co-author of All In: The (Almost) Entirely True History Of The World Series Of Poker.

SIDEBAR 1:

Say What?

The fact that nearly every person in the audience was rooting for Gus Hansen to win hardly bothered David Chiu. He literally could not hear them. As a child in China, he lost 35 percent of his hearing in both ears in a swimming accident, a handicap he has turned into an advantage.

“When I play poker, I really don’t want to hear anything,” he said. “It’s so noisy inside casinos, it bothers me. It takes a lot of my concentration away. That’s why I don’t want to wear hearing aids. Without them, the cameras don’t bother me. The fans screaming don’t bother me. All the noise doesn’t bother me. All my concentration is on poker.”

SIDEBAR 2:

The Championship Table: Final Payouts

1. David Chiu $3,389,140

2. Gus Hansen $1,714,800

3. John Roveto $923,355

4. Cory Carroll $593,645

5. Tommy Le $395,725

6. Jeff King $263,815

Hone On The Range

Making great reads begins with understanding players’ patterns and preferences

BY DAVID WILLIAMS / BODOG NATION CONTRIBUTING WRITER

“I PUT HIM ON TWO RED JACKS.”

When poker first started getting popular, poker shows on TV tried to paint the picture that guys like Daniel Negreanu and Doyle Brunson could literally see through your soul and pull out your hole cards.

I have sat at a table with both, and I can tell you that, while both may do such a good job reading that you almost believe this, it is obviously not possible.

So when Daniel puts his opponent on a specific hand, while he is seemingly right most of the time, that deduction is gathered through what he determined was his opponent’s most likely “range” of holdings.

People often ask me, “How did you put him on that hand?” All hand reading is based heavily on your opponent’s betting patterns that lead you to the conclusion of his range, which then leads you to his most likely holdings.

The problem is that most poker strategy articles don’t break down specifically what it is they mean when they talk about “ranges” and “betting patterns.” I often follow these patterns in live tournaments by pure habit and have developed a poker instinct for when a bet or fold means “pattern.” But online, you have the benefit of taking notes on your opponents, so here are some of the things I look for to note down:

Early Position Raises

If I get to see a showdown, I am always very interested in seeing the types of hands a player will play in a certain position. In early position, in particular, you get to learn what hands a player deems strong enough to open with even with so many people following him, and this tells us usually how strong or weak he values a trouble hand like K-J, Q-10, K-10, etc.

If I see that an opponent has raised or, worse, limped and then called a bet, and he shows down one of those marginal hands, then I now can deduce that he overvalues those holdings in many situations, meaning I can get a better read on a situation where my top pair, top kicker is good or bad against my opponent.

Re-Steal-Happy Players

I like to pay attention to the players who basically feel like they have to defend their blind against every late-position raiser, since if they go to the well too many times in a row trying to be table officer, they will likely end up in trouble. I like to overbet my monster hands pre-flop against these players, maybe something like four to five times the big blind, just to make them think they are facing a pre-flop bluff. When they push over the top, they have committed enough of their chips that it forces them to call my re-push if they haven’t just gone all in outright.

Limp/Fold Short Stacks

A very important pattern to note in a multi-table tournament is when a player with less than 20 big blinds limps in or min-raises pre-flop, but then folds to a raise.

These players are important to note during the later stages of a tournament, right before you hit the money, because these are the types of short stacks that you can still attack when they are in the blinds. These players are trying to be active, but for the most part, they are admitting that they don’t really want any action. They are likely trying to make something happen but would just as easily try and hold out until the money bubble bursts. Punish them when they are in the blinds, and don’t be afraid to raise them light in late position, when you can view them as another blind to steal antes and dead money from.

Bet Sizes

Note what similar bet sizes mean from your opponents. Does he min-bet on the flop, only to get it in with a drawing hand? Then he likely min-bets because he believes that he’s betting to build a big pot. Does he bet huge with top pair, trying to protect, and then does he call a re-raise with only that one pair? Then you know you can play a lot of suited connectors in position against him to try and hit two pair, or play a medium pair to hit a set, knowing that this opponent will not give up on his top pairs or over-pairs, even when he is likely beat. It’s important to take notes on these crucial facts, and use them to your advantage later.

Push/Fold Mode

Which hands are the shorter stacks pushing their stack in with pre-flop? If you are lucky enough to get to see a showdown or two, you can learn how marginal a holding they are really willing to put their stack in with, so you know the range of hands you can safely call with in most spots. Some players love the suited ace-rag, so maybe your A-8 or A-9 is always a spot you call, or maybe they are waiting for the nuts and not afraid to bleed off chips, in which case you likely fold the weak aces and 2-2 against their all-in. All this is also dependent on just how short their stack really is, but for the purpose of learning betting patterns, this is a big key.

All and all, a key I used when I first started playing was to pick out one player at the table and focus on him for the entire first and second level live, or the first hour online. If you only have yourself and this one opponent to focus on, chances are, by the end of the first period, you will know a ton about this opponent. You should be able to note many of the things discussed above, and now, you can move on to the next guy at the table. After a few tournaments of doing this training exercise, you will be able to instinctively keep track of nearly everyone at the table. Now you can make your own predictions on his or her likely holdings, and it’s all thanks to nothing more than paying attention.

This article has been brought to you by Bodog Nation. Play with pros Josh Arieh, David Williams, and Evelyn Ng at BodogLife.com.

Reaction Adventure

Understanding behavioral tells and the difference between conscious and subconscious moves

BY ALEX OUTHRED / WSOP ACADEMY HEAD INSTRUCTOR

AS AN INSTRUCTOR WITH THE WORLD SERIES OF POKER ACADEMY, I have had the wonderful fortune of working alongside of one of the most revered behavioral analysis experts in the world, retired FBI agent Joe Navarro. If you have not had the pleasure of one of his courses, or at least the opportunity to pick up and read his book, Read ’Em And Reap, I would say that the value of either of the two to your live poker game is incalculable.

Without going overboard, and with clear credit granted to Mr. Navarro, one mere gist of said material is that many of our reactive behaviors are functions of our limbic brain system and thus are extremely telling of base human emotions and communicative aspects such as fear, confidence, honesty, and deception, to name just a few. The most important word in that sentence was “reactive.” The immediate reaction a person gives to stimuli will have their feelings, or at base, comfort about the subject embedded in the physical behavior that constitutes that reaction, like it or not. Be it as simple as which way our feet are facing, or as layered as how our hands and thumbs adjust to new information, these “tells” will be available for conscious analysis from the trained eye, and may even be subconsciously analyzed by the untrained observer.

The risk that the untrained observer runs is misinterpreting a behavior to be a reaction when it may simply be an “action,” intentionally performed by its host. Even the trained eye must be cautious of reading too much into a behavior that has had the benefit of even a few seconds to be consciously constructed, or adjusted, by its host. What this means is that our instincts—even honed, analytically based instincts—could be razor sharp, but the “material” we are reading may be layered with the intention of our opponent.

To be completely honest (at the risk of a potential detriment to my game), I will tell you that as a result of absorbing much of Mr. Navarro’s subject matter, I have extensively worked on feigning reaction to the best of my ability, with a desired endgame of “cheating” his science. I offer the slightest, nearly undetectable body slump the instant my set hits the board. I might ever so subtly display chip interest when an ace flops against my kings. And so on. My goal here is simple in these instances: to have intentional behaviors appear to be stimuli-induced reactions, and let my opponents intelligently read what I want them to, knowingly or unknowingly. While I will readily admit that when I do this, it is at worst cheesy, most likely a silly parlor trick, and at best, “crafty” against the right opponent, I believe that it can be said that the foremost talent we might want to develop is the ability to determine which behaviors are reactive, and which are simply active. In order for that to be accomplished, we must step back just a little bit farther and comprehend where stimuli for tell-worthy reactive behaviors exists at the table.

The amount of stimuli that might affect an opponent will vary from person to person depending on their experience with the game. A person who has never seen a dog won’t know that a wagging tail is a sign of excitement. Likewise, an extreme novice won’t know that when my hand reaches for chips from the moment they stated, “Raise,” that means that I’m not likely to fold. Use common sense when it comes to figuring out what aspects of the game might affect certain players.

Basic stimuli is just that, basic things that might induce a reaction: players peeking at their hole cards for the first time, seeing board cards hit, or soaking in simple betting actions such as when their opponents raise or call.

The next few levels of stimuli are aspects we can create, with the goal of inducing a reaction. By reaching for chips in or out of turn, asking provocative questions at the table, or perhaps even throwing out some false “reactions” ourselves, that might earn a read. Since it does vary from person to person, keep an eye out for what types of triggers someone is more likely to react to. Even when I seem to be up against the poker face of all poker faces, if I find myself backed up against the wall of a major tourney-altering decision, you can be sure I’ll exhaust every possible trigger before I make my decision or that final 10-second countdown reaches zero.

There is obviously a wealth of further information along these lines of study and how they relate directly to poker. As you become more versed in the material, the key will be to smoothly incorporate this knowledge into your ability to read players at the table. Can this player be triggered? Does he compensate for his reactive behaviors? (And in so doing, does he tell a more layered story?) Is he adept at “acting” and/or feigning reactions?

Having a full toolbox to pull from and becoming a skilled craftsman will take some time here, but focused energy and practice will be very effective. Take your time; poker isn’t going anywhere.

Alex Outhred, who reached the final table at the WPT Mandalay Bay Poker Championship in 2006, is the WSOP Academy’s head instructor. For information on upcoming camps, visit www.WSOPAcademy.com.

A Dreamer Living The Dream

A year after becoming a champion, Jerry Yang is still adjusting to fame and still giving back

BY JONATHAN GROTENSTEIN

THE SCENE FEELS MORE LIKE A POT-LUCK family reunion than a poker tournament. The entire room could fit neatly into the bubble tent the Rio used last year to handle the World Series’ overflow. People are mingling in small groups, laughing. A busy cocktail waitress shuttles another round of drinks—compliments of the house—to a guy who’s celebrating his birthday. There’s a kind of buzz in the air, like any minute now, the cousin who did it, the one who got drafted by the Lakers or bought out by Microsoft, is going to walk in through the front door.

And at around 5:30, he does. Jerry Yang glides onto the floor dressed in what’s become his signature uniform: dark sunglasses and a jet-black shirt and suit. He’s moving toward a microphone, where he’ll say a few words to kick off this night’s event in the Jerry Yang Tournament Series, but stops frequently to chat with the many people who greet him with warm familiarity.

Just one year ago, Jerry Yang was one of them. Then he became the world champion of poker. Tonight, he’s bringing some of that Las Vegas magic back to the Lake Elsinore Resort and Casino. It’s a $500 buy-in with a field that will barely top a hundred, but floor models hand out energy drinks, promotional junk, and cheap draft beer. The posters throughout the room—featuring the diminutive Yang flanked by two very large men—tout this five-tournament series as a chance to “Play with the Big Boys.” Men “The Master” Nguyen is here. So is WPT star J.J. Liu. At around 3 a.m., 2006 world champion Jamie Gold rolls into the room. It’s not exactly the Main Event, but tonight, it feels like the major leagues.

***

Lake Elsinore is, literally, a minor league town—the Storm, a Class A feeder to the San Diego Padres, play their home games just a few blocks from the casino. The lake itself has endured fluctuations to rival any chip stack, drying up in the 1930s, getting refilled in the ’60s, then flooding with near-biblical fury in 1980. About a 90-minute drive from L.A., the area once enjoyed a heyday among celebrities looking to escape Hollywood. Today, there’s little that’s glitzy about Lake Elsinore, save for the town motto: “Dream Extreme.”

The Lake Elsinore Resort and Casino has been around, in some form or another, since the late-’50s. In 2004, it was home to the inaugural event of the Southern California Poker Tour, a self-proclaimed “minor league” looking to televise events with buy-ins in the $200 range. The tour failed after just a few episodes because (a) not many people wanted to watch minor league tournaments, and (b) players rebelled over a proposed $25 increase in the entry-fee portion of the buy-in.

Aside from floods and the occasional shift in public sentiment, the cardroom’s greatest challenge has been the increasing competition from Indian casinos. Proposition 1A, passed by California voters in 2000, legalized Vegas-style gaming on Indian reservations, allowing neighbors like Pechanga and Rincon to use money-minters such as blackjack and slots to subsidize resort-like hotel suites and state-of-the-art poker rooms with dozens of tables.

It’s a disparity that’s helped to wipe out nearly two-thirds of the non-Indian card rooms in the state. Lake Elsinore subsists on what it can rake from its 20 or so tables. There is a pool, a restaurant, and a bar, but you’ll have to buy your sundries from a vending machine. If you want to use a gym, they have a deal with a place up the road. There are plenty of plans to improve the joint, but financial reality dictates gradual change. A long-awaited renovation of the hotel rooms on the second floor has just been completed. They’re hoping to get to the first floor later this year.

Twenty minutes south, Pechanga offers Jacuzzi suites, four-diamond amenities, eight restaurants, and a gallery of contemporary art.

Lake Elsinore has survived, in large part, by promoting itself as “California’s Friendliest Cardroom.” Which, as it turns out, is anything but a load of crap.

***

Jerry Yang’s journey to world champion could have started in this room. But it didn’t. Not exactly, anyway. A few weeks before the start of the 2007 WSOP Main Event, he entered Lake Elsinore’s $110 super-satellite and lost. He looked at his watch and realized that, if he hurried down Interstate 15, he could take one last shot at his dream, a $225 qualifier at Pechanga. “I was debating,” recalled Yang. “Do I really want to put up another $225? And having six kids, you kind of have to think twice.”

He thought or didn’t think his way into the second tournament, where he earned his seat into the Championship Event. A dream come true, save for one pesky detail: You have to vacate that seat at the end of the day and, ideally, have a bed into which you can collapse. Yang’s prize would cover the entry fee, but there was no allowance for a hotel and, as the father of six kids, little room in the family budget for any such extravagance. He pled his case to one of the higher-ups at Pechanga. “He was very generous and very kind,” remembered Yang. “Unfortunately, they couldn’t do it.”

About two weeks before the start of the Series, Yang found himself back at Lake Elsinore sharing his story with poker room manager Pat Wilmes. “Yeah!” said Wilmes. “We’ll pick up the room.” A grateful Yang promised to wear a hat and shirt to promote the casino for however long he managed to survive.

He survived, however, much longer than everyone expected, and the terrain began to shift. When Yang made the final table, Full Tilt made him an offer he knew he was going to have a tough time refusing. All he had to do was wear a hat. That, and, renege on his pact with Lake Elsinore at the moment of his peak visibility. He called Pat Wilmes.

“Pat said, ‘You know what, Jerry? You have a family … Go ahead and take the deal. I’m not going to hold anything against you. You’ve been wearing our cap and shirts throughout the tournament, we’ve seen it, and we’re very grateful to you. So go ahead and take the deal.’”

***

As unlikely as it might have seemed a year ago, Jerry Yang is kind of a rock star. “People always recognize you,” he said. “I was talking to a friend the other day. I said, ‘In order to disguise myself, I’m going to have to shave my head.’ I sign autographs almost every single day, wherever I go. To the supermarket, to the mall, or taking my kids to the park.”

And, of course, in the poker room. “Everywhere I go, I kind of feel like there’s a huge target on my back.” He laughed. “For them to even consider that is actually a great honor.”

If you’re waiting for him to start living like a rock star, well, keep waiting. He recently took his family to Napa Valley, where, out of necessity, they stayed in a $500-a-night hotel room. His kids quickly gravitated toward the video games on the flat-screen TV. Yang sat down on the bed with his wife and quietly took her hand. “This isn’t us,” he told her.

“I want to be remembered someday, many, many years from now,” Yang told ALL IN. “People will say, ‘Hey, you know what? Jerry Yang did not forget where he came from. He remembered the kindness that people gave him, have shown him.’”

There has never been a more generous world champion. In the months following his victory, he donated over $1-million of his prize money to charities. To his church. To his former employer. To his relatives in Laos. To his relatives in the States.

But there was one marker left to be paid.

“I had some other deals with other casinos who honestly offered much more money, but I decided to turn them down,” said Yang. “I wanted to support Lake Elsinore because of what they have done for me, particularly the hotel accommodation.” He spoke to Pat Wilmes. They sat down with Ted Kingston, the card room’s owner, and gave birth to the Jerry Yang No-Limit Hold ’Em Tournament Series.

The last few years have seen an explosion of big poker tournaments. There’s a $10,000 buy-in event every week or two, and a growing number of contests with $25,000 and $50,000 price tags. Yang and Lake Elsinore took a different tack. The biggest event in the Jerry Yang Series carried a $1,100 entry fee, made even more accessible by a month of satellites, and armed its players with a WSOP-esque $10,000 starting stack. The grand finale—in which a Shooting Stars-like bounty was placed on Yang’s proverbial head—cost its players only $120, with no re-buys. Despite the relatively low paydays (the biggest prize earned was under $15,000), winners were presented with trophies and engraved watches. This was big-time poker, delivered at wholesale prices.

Wilmes and his team handled the affair with Lake Elsinore’s signature pragmatism. Outdoor tents were erected to handle the overflow from the card room. When heavy rains threatened the tents, the tables were moved into the cafeteria. It was the kind of performance that would have seemed familiar to old Benny Binion, a lot more so than the current circus that we call the World Series of Poker.

Jerry Yang has reached the majors. On July 3, he’ll be one of thousands to pony up $10,000 to play in the biggest game on earth. But 200 miles away, just across the Mojave Desert, Lake Elsinore will still be playing host to the minor leagues.

Some will dream of being the next Jerry Yang. Others will be content to spend a few hours at California’s Friendliest Cardroom.

n

Jonathan Grotenstein is a writer living in Los Angeles. He is the co-author of All In: The (Almost) Entirely True History Of The World Series Of Poker, and has collaborated on books with Phil Gordon and Scott Fischman.

SIDEBAR 1:

The Champion’s Strategy

So how does the returning champion plan to defend his title?

“I plan to be aggressive at the beginning of the tournament, because I know that a lot of players will tend to wait for good cards to play,” he said. “Most players don’t want to get busted early in a tournament, therefore they will tend to be more conservative at the beginning. I will take advantage of that opportunity and attempt to accumulate chips early. Once I have accumulated a sufficient amount of chips for the day, I will tend to play tight-aggressive using my position.

“But the most important components for me are patience, discipline, courage, and faith.

“One must have the patience to play for long periods of time. One must have the discipline to fold hands when needed. One must have the courage to make tough calls when they arise. Finally, one must have faith in one’s own read on the opponents.”

SIDEBAR 2:

Defending The Title

The returning champion always comes back to the Main Event with a target on his back, which has proven a blessing for some and a curse for others. Here’s a look at the fates of the last five WSOP champs the year after they won their titles:

Robert Varkonyi Eliminated Day One

Chris Moneymaker Eliminated Day One

Greg Raymer 25th Place

Joe Hachem 238th Place

Jamie Gold Eliminated Day One