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Jesse May in
Las Vegas |
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#3 Jeez !!
T-minus twelve hours and
counting. Someone take a ratchet to the radiator, because it’s getting hot
in there. The temperature at Binion’s took about four sharp turns upward
today, with so many people trying so hard that you’re left wondering if
the goal has nothing to do with winning. A lot of guys are just trying to get
in. And that won’t do. Because a sleepy-eyed B game ain’t gonna take
you to first base in the World Series Of Poker. Those tanks need to be filled
up and topped off, which is why I told everybody I saw the exact same thing.
“For crying out loud, get to bed!”
The Irish are assaulting
the one table satellites, where you slog it out with nine others in a winner
takes the seat $1000 buy-in format. Scott Gray and Leslie McClean picked up
seats, young 21 year old future star Steven McClean picked up some cash, and
LNP veteran Dave Cleary was just picking up a lot of experience. The Irish may
have upwards of twenty runners in the big one, and as Padraig Parkinson said,
they’ll be ready to celebrate if they can just get one guy through to Day
2. The Irish don’t need much of an excuse to party, and the fact that you
can’t get them to take themselves seriously belies the fact that
they’ve shown up with an exceptionally strong contingent for the main
event. And there ain’t any of them that have ever gotten satisfied with
coming in second.
Speaking of second place, it may have a severely
reduced payout in the new WSOP prize structure. Now they only need 604 runners
to guarantee a $2,000,000 first prize instead of the trifling $1.5 million paid
out for the last several years. I’m talking about this development with
Diego Cordovez and Kathy Liebert, who have won the two biggest poker
tournaments so far this year respectively, and are my front runners as the
poker man and the poker woman of the year. A top heavy prize fund encourages
deal making, Kathy said, is there someone who’s not gonna be happy with
getting 1.5 million? Diego pointed out that most PGA golf tournament winners
only take down about 20% of the prize fund, while poker winners typically take
33-40%. I’ll never tell a poker player what they should do with their own
money, but I also can’t say I’m disappointed at the prospect that
I’ll be seeing poker’s first $2,000,000 winner come Friday
night.
I promised Paul Phillips I wouldn’t tell, so you should know
he was playing the triple draw Lowball event, and whooping it up at the final
table. The blonde was resplendent in evening thongs emblazoned with the words,
“I’m a rebel”. His T-shirt read, “A draw is forever”.
When I left they were down to five players and Paul’s eyes were locked on
that bracelet, but he still had John Juanda to contend with, who Diego Cordovez
calls “The most focused man in poker, and one of the all around worst
drivers I’ve ever seen.” How John Juanda was planning to win the
Lowball tournament, get some sleep, and still be bright-eyed come kick off time
is anybody’s guess, but I ain’t knocking success.
It’s
crucial to know who’s relaxing at the bar, and I found it was half of
Blackpool, England. They practically chartered a plane for this event, coolly
deciding to forego all the preliminaries in order to show up fresh on Friday
with their eyes on the prize. The young phenom Julian Gardner may finally be
ready to make his name a household word, and not just the pick and pride of
those in the know in European Poker. Julian had us rolling as he recounted the
horrible super satellite beat he took after getting it all in with a
jack-three. “How’d you get all your money in with jack-three in the
first place?” Someone asked.
“Aaahh,” said Julian,
“I knew he had nothing.” Padraig Parkinson was quick to point out
that while he had personally witnessed jack-three take a good many poker pots,
the vast majority of them were uncontested. Do you know there’s only one
man in the world who has won two WSOP seats on the Internet? He’s known as
Slimmouse from Blackpool, and he’s part of that Blackpool Internet poker
Mafia that shows up wherever there’s money for grabs online. Slimmouse
defeated 350 runners at the PokerStars site to get his seat, a feat he
duplicated last year at PokerPages. He’s a champion of online poker, and
if he has it his way, he’s gonna parlay that title into World Series
winner. Blackpool, England, is all business this week.
Binion’s
most famous dealer, Razzo, told me that he’d been promised a dealing down
for Friday’s final table. Razzo picked up his nickname breaking into the
Razz games at the old Stardust poker Room in the early eighties, so the man is
pretty handy with a deck and a chair. And he ain’t shy with a camera,
either, sticking up World Series cameos and interviews on his PokerWorld
website.
With twelve hours to go, 400 people are already registered for
the 2002 World Series of Poker. Though Razzo might be a bit optimistic with his
748 bid on the final entrant tally, 600 seems a foregone conclusion. Two
million dollars is not going to fall in anybody’s lap over the next five
days, but it is sure that somebody with the desire and the ability is gonna
walk into Binion’s Horseshoe Casino and flat out take it.
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