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Jesse May in
Las Vegas |
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T minus 7
Ted Forrest fans take note. If the
battle is within, then it’s already been won. It was bubble time at the
$1500 No Limit Hold’em event, and there was a whole load of players who
wanted nothing more than to make the money. 81 places getting paid, but
considering that the 100 who were left had already played ten hours and seen
the decimation of over seven hundred more, there wasn’t many between them
who weren’t going to welcome the sight of getting cash back. An LA newbie
with a goatee, an I-Pod, and 6500 came over to the rail to inform his buddies
that the plan was to fold everything until the money. “I’m only
playing two hands,” he chortled, “Jacks are definitely in the been
and queens, almost for sure…” Thirty minutes later they were down to
84, he had 725 left, and his 600 dollar big blind looming large. The cry of
pain that went up when he went out in 83rd place had the walls bending at their
roots.
Meanwhile, Ted Forrest was at a table with a whole load of
chips. He wasn’t chip leader at his table but he wasn’t very far off,
and he was ruling the bubble with an iron hand, raising five out of six pots
and pounding the flop. The rest of his table had their heads bent in
submission, with the possible exception of young Chip Jett, hunkered down with
a woolen Poker Stars ski cap rolled down to his eyebrows, and understandably
complaining that the room was a bit warm. When a lady sat down on
Forrest’s left, he paid her no note. She had almost as many chips as he
did and had been racking them up all day, torturing her previous table for
eight long hours while accumulating over sixty thousand in chips and not
showing many hands. Forrest didn’t pay her any mind until her second hand
at the table, when after Forrest raised the pot up she stuck in a chunky
reraise, over the top. Forrest looked at her briefly and then folded his hand.
No big deal. The very next hand Forrest opened again with a raise. She reraised
him again. This time his eyes widened a bit and he looked in surprise. He
folded again. When it happened the third time, everybody took notice. And Ted
folded. At this point you’d have to be absolutely convinced she was toying
with Ted, and I don’t think there were many people in the room who
didn’t expect Ted to take a stand if it happened again. It happened twice
more. In the space of two rounds of the table. She came over the top of Ted
Forrest no less than five times. And five times Ted sat and thought, and laid
his hand down. And to boot, the very next hand after she had come over the top
of Ted Forrest the fifth time, Ted opened the pot for a raise. Everyone
folded.
Ted never lost his cool. There were two explanations. Either the
woman was making five incredible plays on Ted with not much at all, or she had
found an incredible run of starting hands in the space of a very short time.
The odds for either event came in at slightly under one million to one. I
don’t know what she had. But not only was Forrest a believer, but he never
changed his game plan, just kept on raising five of six pots before the flop.
And eventually, even she gave up. On the break twenty minutes later I’m
standing and talking to a Vegas regular outside of the gift shop when Ted comes
out on his way back to the table. “Who is that woman?” he asks.
“What’s her name?” And he’s laughing his ass off. Not
upset, not mad, just laughing his head off, like a religious zealot who
believes in the system. Sooner or later, they’ll have to give up. Because
he never will. A whole lot of players would have lost their tank during those
five hands, tried to make a remove, gotten their bristles up, their manhood in
a bind. Ted just laughed. And when I came in the next day for the final table,
there were six players left and they were all playing for second. Ted already
had over half the chips. The nice thing about the World Series of Poker is that
in the middle of all the craziness, the sign of a champion stands out proud. I
confess to being a little worried about Forrest’s freshness for the main
event, him playing nearly every tournament already this month. But if you talk
about mental attitude, talk about form, Ted Forrest is on top of the mountain.
If the battle is within, then Ted Forrest has already won.
That this
is a unique World Series of Poker cannot be disputed. When else could you stick
834 poker players into a tournament, have four hundred of them get knocked out
by the second hour, and still not have any good cash games going on in the
casino? The demise of the cash games at the WSOP is a discussion that has been
long and lamented at Binion’s Horseshoe this year. Explainers point to two
reasons. First, players are more spread out then ever before, with games
between the Bellagio and the new Golden Nugget poker room in addition to the
Horseshoe. More importantly, however, is the TV factor. All the star struck
growth that has come in the poker world is directed at new players who want
nothing more than to get in the TV events, and those thirteen minor events at
the WSOP have seen a phenomenal rise in entries. And when a player gets knocked
out of one of these events, what does he do? He goes straight into another
satellite. In the old days, one player said, you could count on the
“steamers” coming out of WSOP tournaments, especially rebuy events,
and going straight into the cash games and the welcoming arms of tough minded
pros. These days, many of those players don’t even know how to play cash
games, they’re only interested in tournaments. Well then, you might think,
why don’t the professionals just switch to satellites, become professional
one tablers? Ten years ago you would have had a whole flock of people making
their living through their one table satellite results and no doubt there are
still some people trying to do just that. Sadly, though, the structure for
these one table satellites is both ultra fast and vig heavy, blinds raised
every fifteen minutes. In the words of some, a total crapshoot. Next year
Harrah’s might well decide to prohibit direct buy-ins to the WSOP events,
and let people in only through the satellite options. It would certainly make
for good rake.
Speaking of cash games, of course the talk is about the
big game, the big game at the Golden Nugget, and facts are hard to come by.
Security guards and tight lips surround the action, so flying rumors is most of
what there is to go on. Here’s the latest flying rumor. The buy-in for
this big game, first of all, is a half million dollar sit down. $500,000 is the
minimum you need to take a seat. And for the first time in the history of a
game this big, I think, the other night there was a waiting list to get in the
game. Full table of players, and Doyle Brunson and Chip Reese pacing around
trying to get in the game. Amazing. The second rumor concerns the stakes. One
player, it was reported, was stuck $7,000,000 in the game, perhaps a record in
itself. But what was even more incredible, is that he got even. In one hour.
There seems to be a lot of money in the poker world these days. A whole lot of
cash.
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