Two of the Greatest Final Table Performances Ever and the Deal Premiere
WPT Championship Part II
Where in the World? Bellagio, Las Vegas
Two of the Greatest Final Table Performances Ever
Near the end of every poker tournament you start to keep tabs on the "stories" remaining. Usually that includes the top-flight poker professionals remaining, the outgoing personalities, and the under-dog amateurs. What's good for television is good for poker, and so on and so forth…When the final 18 began play on day 5 at the World Poker Tour Championship there was a plethora of "stories" remaining in the tournament, and none of them were larger than Gus Hansen making a run at his seventh WPT final table with the chip lead. Hansen held up his end of the bargain at Bellagio and stormed into the final table with that chip lead intact. He was joined by Cory Carroll, David Chiu, Tommy Le (Nam's brother), Jeff King, and Jeff Roveto - Amir Vahedi just missed in 7th place. A solid lineup for sure, but this tournament was so stacked that even the players who finished in places 13-8 would have made for an impressive final table in their own right: Robert Mizrachi, Bryan Devonshire, Michael Gracz, Kenny Tran, Tom Dwan, and Karga Holt. No complaints though, while all these players would have made for an interesting story, Hansen was THE story.
All eyes fell on Hansen at the start of the final table, and he did not let down a crowd that was expecting the hyper-aggressive play that he is known for, which created a buzz amongst the crowd that is without equal (at times the audience didn't know whether to cheer, laugh, gasp, or try and go for all three at the same time). The Great Dane did not disappoint in the least; in fact, he probably surprised even himself by what he accomplished during the first hour of play at the final table. In the course of 22 hands Hansen had decimated all but one of his opponents. Although he received a lot of help during this stretch, he was eliminating one opponent every 5.5 hands! That doesn't even look right, that stat looks like something from baseball's steroids era. No matter how much help you get from the deck, that stat looks impressive, and Hansen had the balls to play that many hands in a spot where only a handful of players in the world could pull it off - it was vintage Gus Hansen poker, and he was on the brink of the biggest win in his career.
The main ballroom at Bellagio reached a fever pitch when Hansen delivered a knockout punch on the river to Carroll, and they almost went delirious when he did the same thing to eliminate Roveto a few hands later. Twenty-two hands in there were only two players left and a number of records were about to fall. To look at the crowd it felt like they already had been broken, and with Hansen holding 84 percent of the chips in play at that point, who could blame them.
The win would give Hansen $5,726,122 in career WPT winnings, the most ever…
The win was bound to happen in under 53 hands, the shortest WPT final table ever…
The win would give Hansen four WPT titles, which would break his own record for the most ever…
Everyone had forgotten about one thing though - David Chiu, who has been posting consistent tournament poker results at the highest level of competition since he won his first gold bracelet (he now has four) over 20 years ago. A lot of players would have rolled over against Hansen in this spot, facing more than a five-to-one chip advantage and all the momentum in the world stacked against them, but Chiu did not fold to the pressure, he won! I think what was lost in the excitement over how impressive a show Hansen put on during the first hour at the final table, was just how equally impressive a comeback Chiu pulled off against Hansen. He was content sitting on the side stage while the Gus Hansen show played to the delight of the crowd, but when it came time to face him, he was ready. There was disappointment on my part that Hansen didn't close the deal initially (not one of the aforementioned records was broken), but looking back on the event a little removed from it now, I can begin to appreciate the impressive nature of both feats.
Deal Premiere at the Palms
Another thing that went down in Vegas during the week of the WPT Championship was the premiere of the movie Deal, at the Palms. As you might have heard, the movie features Burt Reynolds and Shannon Elizabeth in Hollywood's increasingly futile attempt to cash in on the poker boom (if you don't believe me, you can always head down to your local video store and check out the B-movie blunders section for All In and Dead Man's Hand: Casino of the Damned). The group of us that headed over from the tournament didn't make it in time to catch the movie (J.C. Alvarado and Adam Levy gave me a quick synopsis and told me all I needed to know about the film to know I probably don't want rush down to the theater and watch it), but we did make it to the Palms in time to make it to the premiere party at Moon.
Apparently, Burt Reynolds was not in the building, but Shannon Elizabeth was, although she was nowhere to be seen - hiding was one conspiracy theory kicked around. Still, there were a lot of poker pros on hand and an open bar to keep everyone interested, so another Vegas evening played out with the usual level of unpredictability. That probably won't interest all of you, but what probably will is a conversation I had with Rick Fuller. Call me crazy, but I have seen an Absolute Poker commercial that features Fuller with Serinda by a pool in a tropical setting (Please email me if you have seen it and confirm that I'm not losing my mind). I congratulated Rick on the new deal he must have with Absolute and he gave me a very quizzical stare. He then said he did not have a deal with Absolute, nor had he shot a commercial, but also, that I wasn't the first person to tell him that they had seen said commercial. The night continued in a series of misadventures after that and I left the Palms very confused about the Rick Fuller/Absolute commercial situation. I also left questioning whether or a not a poker movie will ever be made that can even touch Rounders.
