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Jesse May in
Las Vegas |
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Day Three
He outlasted the crowd. He
outlasted his friends. He tired out the cameraman, the tournament director, the
dealers and the crew, and when it was finally all over he had also outlasted
one of the steadiest big limit 7-stud players in the game. Ted Forrest won a
bracelet his way. He did it without giving an inch, without playing big pots,
and without ever letting it come down to the luck of the draw.
I had run
into the Horseshoe with wet hair, hustling down as soon as I heard that
they’d got three handed. I’d expected it to whittle down to the big
guys, but not so soon. Five players had been run off the table without even a
whimper and now it was Ted Forrest, Men the Master Nguyen, and Chad Brown in a
fight for the $1500 seven stud title and the $111,000 first prize. Break time,
and Ted is in a black T-shirt pacing with a Pepsi. No deal discussions yet, or
that’s the report, and I can see Men’s got his work cut out for him
now. A half empty bottle of Corona is on a side table behind a single column of
chips, and the Master strides in unbuttoning his jacket and offers to a fan,
“I better kill them before they kill me!” Men is way out chipped and
wearing a final table worry bracelet of bright yellow beads strapped to his
right wrist.
ESPN has gone professional this year. Four cameras surround
the specially built TV table in the center of the room, each camera on a
trolley with a cameraman and an assistant. Plus a big swinging boom camera and
another fixed overhead. They’ve built a nice set as well, a black plastic
floor with a raised oval stage ringed by blue lights
And Ted
Forrest’s not the chip leader neither, it’s a black haired tall
fellow named Chad Brown that’s ruining their plans. He’s got most of
the chips on the table and big pink ears, and he sits down in the one seat as
tournament director Matt Savage races for the 500 chips, clearing them off the
table. All three players look loose and relaxed as they chatter among
themselves while waiting for the TV men to get the show online.
Limits
are four and eight thousand, ante one thousand, and Men gets knocked out about
four hands into the new level. All the chips are in on fifth street and
Men’s not looking too good with a pair of sixes against your man’s
one hundred over cards and a double belly buster to boot, worse when the
straight gets made on sixth. Men needs a six or seven to win and when the
dealer shoots him the last card his short little arms squeeze it extra slow,
Baccarat style, peeling up only the side. Thirty seconds later and the Master
is gone, smile and handshakes and plenty of camera time for his
Classicpoker.com gear. The other two are, brand less.
Ted’s out
chipped nearly 2-1, but the limits aren’t big. You don’t get much
opportunity to play heads up 7-stud, not unless you play in the biggest games
regularly and especially enjoy one on one. Ted fits both these bills; he has
for quite some time, and after about ten hands the lines have gone tight around
Chad Brown’s face. Ted is relaxed; he’s shuffling his chips seven by
seven, a perfect riffle every time, then leans in a little as the cards are
dealt.
Mike Laing is sipping coffee on the rail and you have to notice
him, every three minutes he shouts out in a Western accent, “Hey now! What
the hell is going on?” Ted makes a pair of eights on sixth street when
Chad makes open fives, and Chad raises it to sixteen thousand after Ted’s
bet. Ted leans his nose over the table like he’s trying to sniff out
Brown’s hand. Ted calls, the river comes down, and Ted shuffles, squeezes,
and then bets, called by your man after a puzzled indecision. Straight, says
Ted, flipping over three from his hand. “What the heck, I say, what the
heck is that?” shouts Mike Laing in his best Yosemite Sam. Chad shakes his
head, but doesn’t he know? It’s Ted Forrest, and he can rewrite the
rules.
Chad Brown is not a name many have heard of before, one guy says
to me, “You probably never heard of him unless you play big limit stud,
but they all know who he is.” Chad’s a long time and steady winner in
the California stud and stud eight or better games, and he plays in those
limits that are sky high without being sickly. Sky high, though, high enough so
that it’s where nearly only sharks will tread, and Brown has distinguished
himself by being there year in and year out for more than a decade, and never
losing control or getting out of line, your consummate professional in high
limit poker.
There’s some kind of invisible rhythm in Ted’s
head. Many times he folds the high card to the bring-in, his head rocking
perceptibly to some unknown beat. When he bets, he wins. Six fifty pm and Chad
puffs his cheeks and blows out hard. It’s not easy. A few hands later Ted
folds open aces on the river. Chad doesn’t even show a pair. Ye gads.
Okay. Seven Stud is not the most exciting game in the world head-up,
and ESPN’s taking a gamble by trotting it on TV. They’ll need some
strong narrative to get this one going, says Chad Brown’s man to me, and
Matt Savage turns around with a helpless smile about an hour in and says,
“Head up Stud. Bet a thousand. Raise. Fold!” Because 90% of the hands
go no further than fourth street and it is limit poker. If you want a place on
the rail step right up, without the cameras they’d be toiling in
anonymity. Lucky they’ve got two of the best players in the world.
Limit poker is like dancing, and head up limit poker is a series of
binary numbers where the cards fade in significance. At least in Hold’em.
In limit Stud, you’ve got the dance, you’ve got the binary
progressions, and you’ve got the relative strength of the players’
board cards thrown in to boot. It’s enough factors to just take a genius,
and just when you think it can’t end until the limits get high, it
doesn’t become that way at all. Separation gets achieved. Believe
me.
A bell rings and the room empties. It’s the dinner break in the
limit Hold’em tournament and the 250 left in the action file noisily out
with the loudspeaker admonishing, “Tournament players don’t forget to
use your pink slips for the buffet. Pink slips required for the tournament
players wishing to eat at the buffet.” There’s also been a lull in
the final table action. Chad has won a large number of small pots in the last
half hour and crept back to even. This one’s not over yet.
The
players take a dinner break of their own, and I start talking to dealer who
puts things in perspective. In Hold’em, he says, the most aggressive
player usually wins, or at least has an advantage that serves him well. But you
can’t do that in seven card stud. You try and run someone over and
they’ll trip you up.
Twenty-five minutes after they’re own
dinner break and the only noticeable change is that they’ve taken a lot of
the 1000 chips off the table. Micro raise to the limits. For and eight becomes
five and ten. They’re dead even in chips. Ted stacks his chips neatly to
his left, always carefully keeping one stack of yellows in front, for
shuffling. He’s incessant – shuffle, shuffle, shuffle. Chad’s
hands are clasped while he waits for his cards, a silent prayer.
Seven
stud requires you to pick up a pile of sand with a feather. Grain by grain and
don’t get frustrated. And that’s what Ted Forrest did. I don’t
know how they’re going to show it on TV, I don’t know how they can
televise what happened there without showing every hand, every hand for five
torturous hours. Ted beat Chad without trying to run him over, he beat the
steadiest player in the game by outsteadying him himself, and that is
something. Never underestimate the heart of a champion. Chad Brown did nothing
wrong. He’s a great player who played a great tournament. But he ran into
the Chinese water torture trick of one William Ted Forrest, and this should be
a signal to the poker world. Ted played fast at the Bellagio in Hold’em,
he played slow at Binion’s in stud, he’s in form and it’s scary.
And as the sun goddess said to me yesterday evening, she who never bets,
“What price is Ted Forrest for the main event? I think I might have me a
few bucks down.”
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