Lucky Chances Casino … and More

I spent a few days in the Bay Area recently, as Matt Savage convinced me to visit Lucky Chances Casino for the first few events of the Battle of the Bay tournament. Matt, better known as "Sunshine" to his close friends, runs a great tournament. More importantly, Lucky Chances is a nice casino that is run by an incredibly fun staff. Located less than 10 minutes from the San Francisco airport, it is perfect for any Bay Area traveler.

In the tournaments, I lasted 40 minutes in the first event and a little more than an hour in the second event. Luckily for me, I outlasted my chauffeur Diego Cordovez in both events. After my poor showings, I had plenty of time to kill, so Diego invited me to his penthouse apartment in Mountain View to watch some old World Series of Poker tapes.

As I have mentioned in earlier columns, I love seeing superstars back when they were young. In 1983, Tom McEvoy won the WSOP. Now, Tom is a very calm and mild-mannered person, but that was not the case in 1983. After he defeated Rod Peate to win the championship, he jumped up and down and told the world that there are other good poker players besides Texans. Was this the same Tom McEvoy that I know? Seeing the joy in his eyes made my day.

Another must-see WSOP video is that of 1990. Mansour Matloubi won the most dramatic poker hand I have ever witnessed. He was playing heads up against Hans "Tuna" Lund when the following hand came down. The flop came 9 high with two spades. Mansour bet a stack of chips and Tuna raised him two additional stacks. Mansour thought for a few minutes and moved the remainder of his chips in. Tuna had overcommitted himself and was forced to call. The hands were then flipped faceup; Tuna had A-9 and Mansour had 10-10. Mansour was a big favorite at this point, because Tuna needed a 9 or an ace to become the world champion. The turn card was an ace, and the crowd went crazy. Chip Reese, who was commentating, yelled with excitement that Tuna was a 22-to-1 favorite, and would be world champion unless one of the two tens fell on the river. Of course, a 10 came, and Mansour was later crowned the champ.

The World Poker Players Conference (WPPC) is coming on July 5 at The Orleans. I recommend that you go if you are in Las Vegas at that time. Speaking at this year's conference are: Roy Cooke, Daniel Negreanu, Barry Shulman, Mark Gregorich, Mark Tenner, Phil Hellmuth, Russ Hamilton, Greg Dinken, Jack Fox, Warren Karp, Kathy Liebert, Linda Johnson, Tom McEvoy, and Mike Sexton. All of these people are great players/teachers, with the exception of Daniel. I was informed that Daniel is one of the guest speakers so that Canada will be represented.

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Finally, I would like to congratulate Phil Ivey and Luciaetta Ivey for finally tying the knot. I tried to convince the lovely Luciaetta that she could do better, but she insisted that she has spent the past half a decade waiting for Phil to produce some poker results. According to Luciaetta, she taught Phil everything he knows. She was going to play at the WSOP this year, but didn't want to overshadow Phil's accomplishments. She will be tearing up the tournament poker scene in 2003.