High-Low Split: Dueling Perspectives on 40 Days at the WSOP - Part III: What the Flack?"

JOE: The first real World Series of Poker event I covered was event No. 4, the $1,500 pot-limit hold'em event. I was scheduled to work the "night shift" that night, from 3 p.m. until the end of the tournament. The shifts followed a bit of a luck-of-the-draw kind of format. Sometimes your night would end with fighting the chicks from Poker Wire to get the final chip counts of the six bazillion remaining players. Sometimes it would end with a late-night rendezvous with one of the official WSOP Massage Girls. And sometimes it would end with a phenomenally entertaining final table, like the one you're about to read about.

SCOTT: As interns, we generally weren't allowed within 50 yards of a final table if it was interesting. The ESPN stage that housed the highly entertaining TV final tables was the domain of our mutant super-tournament reporter BJ Nemeth, but if there was a limit hold'em event or a 17-hour razz finale that needed covering, you can bet your ass we'd be there. I actually tried to bet my ass during my stay in Vegas on a five-game baseball parlay. The guy at the sportsbook just looked at me and said, "But how would we pay you?" I winked at him and said, "You'll think of something." (Lay off me. I hadn't seen my girl in five weeks.) Anyway, the pot-limit hold'em final table was an exception, and Joe and I made the most of it.

Upon our arrival, 36 players were still battling it out for pot-limit supremacy. The competition had been banished to the corner of quadrant one (the Amazon Room was broken down into quadrants), and the final table was not being taped, because its big brother, no-limit hold'em, gets a bigger allowance, gets to be on TV, and drives a cherry-red Camaro - like Joe did in high school. Among the survivors were Gavin Smith, Layne Flack, Tony Ma, Young Cho, David "Gunslinger" Bach, Nick Frangos, Al Krux, Edward Moncada, and Hoyt Corkins. Also represented were the guy who is obligated to name his first son Frank, Shannon Frankfather, and the winner of most original nickname at the World Series, Gerald "Mr. All-In" Cheatham.

Tony Ma seemed out of place not stroking a cat and aiming a nuclear bomb at the city of London before finally having his lair crumble around him at the hands of 007. Al Krux could have easily passed for an over-tanned tourist who won his seat by attending several hundred outdoor time-share presentations. Nick Frangos is strikingly similar to the guy we all went to high school with who walked the halls perpetually, never really appeared to have any classes, and somehow always had some sort of ridiculous Italian mixed sub at lunch every day even though there were no delis in sight. And I'm almost positive that Layne Flack once sold me a Gateway computer.

During this tournament, Layne Flack earned a spot in our list of the top three most fun players to watch, a pretty amazing feat considering he maintained the title throughout the rest of the 40 days of tournaments. What contributed to this?

A number of things:
1) He's a psycho - Borrowing my high school lacrosse team's Class of '99's T-shirt slogan of "If you're not going to go all the way, why go at all?" and adding the crazed lunacy of a monkey throwing his own feces, Layne Flack hurls chips and his tournament life at pots regardless of whether or not he has the best hand.

No one can intimidate this guy at the poker table. If you're an aggressive player, he'll play more aggressively. During a no-limit event late in the World Series Flack was moved to Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi's table. Everyone was prepared for fireworks with Mizrachi on Flack's left. Then the following hand: Flack raises, Mizrachi reraises, everyone folds, and the action gets back to Flack who comes back over the top with a huge bet. "The Grinder" thinks a while, and then folds.
Flack shows him A-3, and says, "If it was ace-deuce I would have mucked." If you're a passive player, forget it, pack your bags.

2) He's built for this shit. Physically, the man is all cartilage. He's like the world's greatest poker-playing jellyfish. In order to get comfortable Layne sits backwards on his chair, lets his knees touch the ground (and he wore a nice pair of chinos to the pot-limit final table), and pops his arm out of its socket. I think he may have even had a rib removed. After witnessing some of the positions Layne managed during the pot-limit final table, Cirque du Soleil creator Dragone stepped off of his throne made of human hair to offer him a role in Zumanity.

3) His girlfriend is smokin'. A slightly hotter version of Tina Fey (if there is such a thing), Flack's girlfriend sits by his side, immune to the tournament directors' requests that all spectators within a certain radius be wearing press badges. Her quiet babe-ocity somehow causes security guards to kick out wayward railbirds to her right and her left, while managing to leave her both unnoticed and most definitely noticed at the same time. Her jeans were [For the rest of Joe's prurient commentary, please check out Card Player's newest publication, Card Player Forum, due out in December - just kidding].

I am not allowed to comment on women, unless it is negative, or an affirmation of a comment by my girlfriend about a celebrity who is universally considered attractive by members of all genders, and even people with gender identity problems - see Angelina Jolie or Gisele Bundchen - not "that girl in line at Whole Foods in her gym clothes" or Christina Aguilera. So I will reserve comment. Not to mention that commenting on other guys' girls has resulted in my car being keyed five times, my eyebrows being shaved off while I was passed out, and a broken femur.

4) He drinks. Layne's focused play is deathly sobering for his opponents; however he does enjoy the occasional drink while rolling over his opponents.

But that's not what makes him go. He's fucking crazy at the table with or without a little prompting from Anheuser-Busch. On the night of the pot-limit final, he would occasionally knock back a brew on the break, but it seemed more a case of "It's my party and I'll drink if I want to" than "I need a beer." And although playing against Layne gave most of his opponents the I-need-a-beer look, they didn't join in, because if you don't have 100 percent of your faculties when facing off against Layne Flack, you're just a guy with no arms heading into the ring with vintage Tyson.

5) He shows you his holecards. Layne was very good to the Card Player staff over the course of a tournament, never failing to give lowly interns his chip count whenever he could sense their broken, spiritless presences over his shoulder. But even more than that, I had several experiences with the man, where he flat out showed me his holecards, and we got to share in his lunatic playing style together. As a result, I spent plenty of time by his shoulder, and luckily I got to see this hand:

Flack's in the big blind, and shows me K-3 offsuit. With two limpers in front, and a check from Flack, the flop comes 10-9-3. The small blind checks, Flack bets. Call. Call. The turn is an ace. Small blind checks. Flack bets. Call. Call. The river is a king, giving Flack two pair. Small blind bets. Flack raises. Fold. Fold. Flack announces "Nuts," and flips over just the 3. He turns the card facedown again, and tosses both holecards into the muck. Ironically, the two folders share a chuckle at how they were bluffed by Flack's "pair of threes."

After spending six weeks in Vegas, you certainly realize why being a railbird is so disdained. I realized it within five days, and was already ignoring unsolicited questions from them. So when a man's voice called out from behind me, "Hey, is that Layne Flack?" I just kept my back turned. The voice called again, "Can you get him for me?" Even my closest friends would not characterize me as a patient guy, and I'm not. So, I immediately started to turn, while spitting out the surly reply, "Um, he's playing for over $300,000." As I completed my spin, my nose met with a large security guard's chest. "Can you get Layne Flack for me please?" My friends will also tell you I'm afraid of authority figures. I mean I won't even talk back to a stern restaurant hostess. So, I went and got Layne. He went to the rail, and then as the players headed for a 15-minute break, he disappeared.

I saw a large security guard whispering into Layne Flack's ear at the rail. When he sat back down, he proceeded to lose a few hundred thousand in chips over the course of a few hands. At the next break, Layne didn't just get up and head for the door of the Amazon Room. Before the countdown clock had even reached zero, he had sprung to his feet, jumped the rail, and bolted out into the hallway.

When you have a history as checkered as Layne Flack's, getting called away from the final table by hotel security starts the rumor mill furiously in motion. Whispers of "kilo of cocaine" to "Smuggled diamonds … blah blah blah, deli meat, blah blah blah … 17 dead hookers," began almost immediately.

Now, I had only been a reporter for a few days, and had had no formal training on the subject, which is why I'm forced to believe that I possess some sort of innate, possibly even superhuman, reporting sense, because something just didn't seem right about that. The large security guard politely avoided my questions as to what the commotion was about - but I think he really felt connected with me once I offered him a "dap." He just stared back at me, and it was at this moment that I realized I had gained his trust. I asked him if it was about Chinese organ thieves. He rolled his eyes and walked away from me, but as he was leaving, he looked back at me, with a look that most assuredly said, "Yes. It is about Chinese organ thieves."

I wish and don't wish at the same time that there was more to the story. Flack came back, took his seat at the table, and came in second place. Whatever catastrophe the rubberneckers and ambulance chasers wanted never happened. Layne seemed to have his head on straight the whole Series, and he showed it with sharp play. When Layne Flack is on, his game is beauty in chaos, and sweating him was a thrill.

Layne didn't quite make it back to the table on time, but whatever the problem was didn't affect him for very long. Eventually, the table thinned itself out to just Flack and Werthmann, who had made fairly quick work of the rest of the table.

You could learn more about aggression and position from Layne Flack than you could from watching Ron Jeremy bang China. They say, "Give a man a fish, he'll have food for a day, teach a man how to fish, he'll have food for a lifetime." Well, Layne Flack taught me how to fish - with hand grenades. Fundamentals aren't the key to his game. I'm sure he has a knowledge of them, but it seems that his main strategy is "You can't call me," and most of the time he's right. In fact, he expects you to fold to him. And when you don't, he might get a little lippy. Although all in good fun, as he did when Thom Werthmann called him down with a pretty weak hand, A-5, and Flack was forced to show down the same hand. Flack looked shocked that Werthmann had the balls to do it, prompting him to ask, "You call me with that shit? Don't you know who the fuck I am?" At the time I was sure Werthmann did, but looking back at pictures of Werthmann, with his floral-pattern shirt and Spicoli-esque empty glare, I'm thinking maybe he didn't know "who the fuck" he was up against. Not to say he wasn't impressive. He didn't let Flack push him around, and that played no small part in his winning the tournament.

I can't really say whether or not Thom Werthmann's victory over Layne Flack can be described as pure genius or an absolute fluke. I would have to describe it most accurately as "pulling a Cuba Gooding Jr." Sure, Gooding may have won an Academy Award, but before that he was in Lightning Jack and since then he's been in Snow Dogs. This isn't to say that Jerry Maguire was any less great, but I don't think anyone could have predicted that his "Show Me the Money" was going to win anyone an Academy Award anymore than they could have predicted that Werthmann would win a gold WSOP bracelet by calling all-ins with inside straight draws and A-2 (the hand he won with). And just like the movie, the real star didn't win a thing. (As long as you don't count $185,000 as "a thing.") But more important, Layne Flack won the hearts of two Card Player interns that day - which worked out really well for him, considering word on the street says that two hearts is exactly what the Chinese organ thieves needed …