World Series of Poker Hands

Everyone in the poker world knows that the World Series of Poker (WSOP) is the place to win poker tournaments.  If you want history, prestige, and money, then win some WSOP tournaments.  If you want to reach poker greatness, go to the WSOP.

  If you want to play against the best, go the WSOP.  Statistics since 1971 are meticulously kept at the WSOP.  Stats like most money won, most wins, most cashes (times in the money), and most final tables.  Every beginning player aspires to win just one bracelet there.

Lately, the World Poker Tournament has been making a charge up the prestige-and-money scale (appearing on TV with huge prize pools  doesn’t hurt!).  I love WPT, and I want to win a bunch of WPT titles.  Soon, the WPT may even has the WSOP in stature, but right now give me the WSOP!

DING! CHAN VERSUS HELLMUTH, ROUND FOUR

In 1989, the amazing Johnny Chan and I played heads-up for the World Series of Poker’s world championships and its first prize of $756\5,000.  At the time, I was a young, up-and-coming professional poker player card game, pursuing my dream of winning the WSOP.  I beat Johnny to become the youngest World Champion, at the tender age of 24.

Johnny was also playing for history, because he had a chance to win the WSOP three years in a row.  What a feat that would have been! My hat’s  off to Johnny for winning it two years in a row and finishing second the third time around.  In fact, Johnny’s back-to-back firsts and second in 1987, 1988, and 1989, respectively, is one of the greatest feats in poker history.

            A few months later, in 1989, in a heads-up match-play event (think brackets, like the NCAA tournament) at the Bicycle Club, Johnny  and I each won our first three matches, which put us heads-up for  round four (our round two) in the semifinals.  That time, the game of cards was limit Hold’em, and we had quite a crowd watching us.  I remember that I had Johnny way down in chips, and that he came back and beat me anyway.

            Then, in 198, at the Rio’s Carnivale of Poker, Johnny and I beat the rest of the field (over 300 players) in a limit Hold’em even to face off heads-up for the third time.  This time we played for over an hour at 5:00 a.m. to a standoff, and agreed to split the prize money (we didn’t even play it out), so that we could get some sleep for the next day’s no-limit Hold’em poker game even.  (I was impressed when I walked by the final table the next day at 5:00 a.m. and saw Johnny there with a ton of chips, despite the fact that he hadn’t had much time to sleep.)

            In the 2002 WSOP’s Gold Bracelet Heads-up Match Play event, I won four matches to make the finals and squared off with… you guessed it, Johnny Chan.  That time around (round four), Johnny was the all-time career leader in money won at the WSOP with more that $3 million in earnings, and I was third on the list with about poker $2.8 million.  (T.J. Cloutier was about $60,000 ahead of me.  I had started the 2002 WSOP, one month earlier, first on the list.) I had a chance to win my eighth WSOP bracelet and tie Doyle Brunson and Johnny Moss for the all-time WSOP win lead. At the same time, Johnny had a chance to win number seven and tie me for second place in WSOP wins.

With a lot of history, but not too much money, at stake, we began the no-limit Hold’em match with $40,000 each in chips and the blinds at $100-$200.  With over 200 spectators present, with all the lights, and with TV cameras recording the match, Johnny came out swinging, as I knew he would.  I was content to let him dictate the pace, and to wait for him to overplay his hand when I was holding stronger hands.  That’s exactly what happened.  Johnny stole a ton of pots, but I kept nailing him in the bigger pots.

Finally, about 40 minutes into the match, we were even, and he changed strategies.  He started to play a lot less aggressively.

Up until this point, I had been playing my best game, but now I began to lose control.  I believe this happened because I had just been eliminated the day before (day three) in the WSOP main event, and I hadn’t slept much in the previous four days.  (no surprise.  No one sleeps well during the main event, if they sleep at all.)  I just didn’t play my A game, but be that as it may, Johnny was playing great and may have just crushed my A game anyway.  Johnny made four final tables at the 2002 WSOP, and he was definitely on his A game.

I hadn’t been doing any bluffing in my heads-up matches up to this point, but then  I changed strategies and tried to bluff Johnny in a big way.  About 40 minutes into our match, I called Johnny $500 raise with 10h-6h.  The flop came down Ad-Qd-7s, and I checked.  Then Johnny bet out $1,000.  I was reading pretty well after five weeks of playing poker, and I smelled some weakness.  I felt that Johnny didn’t have an ace, and that if he didn’t have an ace, I could take the pot away from him.  Bluffing after the flop really isn’t my style, but decided to try to take this pot away from Johnny.