 |
Jesse May in
Las Vegas |
|
#1
The Warm-Up
Hey,
you don’t think I’m excited? I’m going to Las Vegas tomorrow.
I’m going to the World Series of Poker at Binion’s Horseshoe Casino,
and I’m gonna sweat it. It’s been a whole month of World Series
action so far, those two day events that divvy up money and provide a form
guide for the sweaters and bettors. You can talk about players’
performances in these preliminary events as dominating, you can see that
someone’s added to his bankroll, but most importantly, we’re looking
for guides to who is in form. Because come Monday morning, the last month has
no memory at all, and the only thing on anybody’s mind is who is gonna
take the $1.5 million first prize in the five day title event of no limit Texas
Hold’em, $10,000 buy in. Who is gonna be the next poker champion of the
world.
Although Carlos Mortensen was a bit of a darkhorse when he won
the championship last year, he was clearly in form, having won the Shooting
Stars tournament in California a month before, which is no slouch title. Now
there are some guys who have warmed up to the main event by playing every
preliminary tournament every day for the last month. And that is not always the
greatest preparation for the $10,000 event, because the championship event is
so draining, so mentally and physically consuming, that the best preparation
might just be a month on a deserted island in the Pacific. I’m not joking.
Because after a month of trudging up and down every day to that tournament room
and sitting at a table with those tournament chips and those tournament
players, people start looking like zombies. And behaving like them as well. And
that won’t do for the World Series of Poker.
Because to win the
World Series of Poker you have to be the most creative you’ve ever been,
you have to seize every single opportunity, and you cannot make even one
mistake. And then you have to get lucky to boot. And that is over more than
forty hours of poker, playing the most mind freezing game that’s ever been
invented, no limit Texas Hold’em, or as my from the closet pick Brit David
Colclough would say, one monster game of two card chicken.
The best
preparation for the Big One seems to be to play one or two preliminary events,
get your feet wet, get focused, and get in form. Don’t be drained come
next Friday. Now here are some players with form.
Ian Dobson. They’re down to four players in the pot
limit Hold’em and Dobson raises with pocket jacks and gets called on the
button. The flop comes four, five, seven, and ninety-nine out of one hundred
people would be thinking bet and win and on to the next hand. Dobson checks.
Ian Dobson is thinking trap. He’s thinking he’s gonna get a guy to go
for all his chips. He’s always trying to win the tournament. Now it’s
easy to try and trap a guy when you got the nuts, but Dobson will stick it in
there on a margin, and that takes a cool customer.
Tough? Tough as
nails. And the kicker is that everybody thinks Ian Dobson is Irish. He’s
not, but everybody thinks so. Jim McManus told me about the hand that put him
out of last year’s Poker Million. Ian Dobson had raised seven out of nine
hands, and on the tenth McManus called Dobson’s raise with ace-deuce of
diamonds. The flop came ace, jack, deuce, and McManus got trapped for all his
chips. Dobson had pocket jacks. He plays those pocket jacks pretty strong,
commonly known as the toughest hand to play in no limit Hold’em. French
champion Teddy Tuil just throws them away. I swear.
Phil Ivey.
The only worry is Phil might be a little tired after winning three bracelets
and being countless other times in the money during this lead-up month. Phil
Ivey is good, he is young, he is focused. And he is from Philadelphia. Ivey was
in the second wave of Atlantic City players, He learned in the shadow of
stalwarts like John Hennigan, Dave Rosenau, Cyndi Violette, and the esteemed
limit Hold’em specialist Joe Moon. But he may be the best poker player out
of Atlantic City yet. People say the deck has been hitting Phil Ivey in the
face lately, and that bodes well for the final event.
Don’t
forget the D-train. Stanford man Diego Cordovez has had a banner year
already, going from being the best young player about to burst out to being a
poker playing snowball. He won a half million dollars earlier in the year in
the biggest limit Hold’em tournament ever and has ripped up more turf
since then. Can he play no limit? You better believe it. Cordovez went out on
the bubble last year, around forty-sixth out of six hundred, and that
experience likely served him well for a real assault on the crown next
week.
Barny Boatman. This Hendon Mobster is really on fire, and
as the highest placed British finisher the last two years running in the Big
One, he is no pretender. His unorthodox game throws a lot of people off. I
still can’t figure it out, and I’ve seen it from under the table.
Barny brings changing gears to a new place entirely. Only the Hendon Mob could
live up to the level of hype they’ve created for themselves. And they
have.
Everybody’s talking about Layne Flack, that
tow-headed nuclear power plant from Montana, who has picked up two bracelets
already in that ramming jamming style of his. Is he the bad boy of poker? What
do you care? The guy is playing. He’s like Babe Ruth, he can be out all
night and still make a play come game time.
Could this be the year of
the first women’s WSOP champion? No reason why not. Jennifer Harmon is in
torrid form, and don’t forget about Cathy Liebert. Melissa Hayden or JJ
Bortner would be no surprise at the final table, and from there it’s
anybody’s ball game.
That’s why poker is great. A final table
of the best players in the world could easily see a fast lane wild man, a
studious boy from the burbs, a gorgeous blonde, and someone impersonating an
Irishman. That’s why we love the World Series of Poker. That, and trying
to borrow money off the winner. |
Main Menu
