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Jesse May in
Las Vegas |
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End of Day 4
I guess I got there at precisely
the right time. It was 4:30 am and the floor was weaving as I waded into
Binion’s tournament room just after the tenth place player busted out.
Precisely the right time, I say, because I managed to see the thing which for
me is the most definitive image of this entire tournament, and the fact that
anything could have burned indelibly into my brain from a night most of which I
can’t even remember, should speak volumes either for the magnitude of the
event or towards the potency of White Russians.
I watched Phil Ivey walk
slowly out of the tournament area and I followed him all the way to his car. I
followed him as he went down the Binion’s escalator at 4:30 am, trudged
across the casino floor, across Fremont street and through the glass doors of
the Golden Nugget on his way to the valet. Paul Darden walked beside him not
saying a word. No words of consolation, no crying spilt milk, and if I
didn’t know what had happened up in that tournament room then I never
would have guessed. Because both their faces were business as usual, rocks of
Gibraltar that give nothing up. They could have both been athletes on their way
to the big game, and not the two best poker players in the game who had
recently been denied the glory that’s their due.
By now
you’ve probably heard what happened to Phil Ivey, that he was robbed of
the bracelet on his last hand of the night, all in for 600,000 on the turn with
a house, called by your man who had only three queens, and spiked on the river
for two million bucks. But you wouldn’t have seen that on his walk to the
car, not like some wayward loonies who have to cry foul, those guys who will
talk for the next umpteen years about how the lord is against them and life is
too cruel. Phil wore a basketball jersey, some guy named Francis, and his high
topped sneakers were steady in their steps, Darden in a light blue track suit
with same easy paces, not two manic guys who were looking for a drink, but the
two greatest athletes who had just played their best and could hold their heads
high. Sure, this year is done, for them it’s all over, but tomorrow will
be the same old again, play perfect poker and let the chips fall.
It
was just like the Golden Nugget valet guy said to me a few days earlier, when I
told him that Ivey was leading the tourney. He said, yeah, Phil parks here
every day and you would never guess who he is, he’s so down to earth and
never gets hot, always has polite words and a tip for the boys.
It’ll take some time to piece together everything that happened on Day
4 of the World Series of Poker, when they whittled down forty-five players to
just the final nine, in a marathon session that went past 4am. Whether or not
Phil Hellmuth cracked up or was unlucky will be one for the pundits, hand
analyzers who followed the flops, and how Jeff Shulman bled off his chips when
he looked to be stronger than a fast bull in heat. I can tell you, however,
that both of these of these fellows had support staffs galore, half of the
gallery with comments and advice. Shulman had three guys in the rails wearing
press passes from Card Player magazine. And his father with the computer twenty
feet from Jeff’s table, eating bagel sandwiches and talking on his cell
phone. Somehow, I think to win the World Series of Poker, you need to be alone
with your thoughts. If anybody knew better than you than they’d be there
instead.
Picking the winner of the final has got me baffled. But
I’m ignoring all chip counts and thinking that the winner is going to be
the guy who’s still got enough stamina to play out of their skin at this
late stage of the experience. Jason Lester. Dan Harrington. These men are gods.
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