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World Series Of Poker
2005 Editor's Reports |
LAS VEGAS
June 2, 2005 – July 15, 2005  |
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T minus 6 - the crowd cheers for the Grand Daddy of
Poker
The day began
without finishing off the last one. It was well past four in the morning when
the last of the three finals being played last night came to an end. First,
Lawrence Gosney, all the way from Leeds, took the well attended
No-Limit Holdem (2 grand buy-in) title from a
final table with three Englishmen and two Scandanavians. Next, a torturous
grind brought the $1500 Razz to an eventual end
with O'Neil Longson outlasting Bruno Fitoussi.
Notable in fourth spot
in the Razz tournament was Archie Karas who ten years ago was seen by me
playing craps in Binion's Horseshoe during the WSOP of 1994 (or was it 93?). He
had a small crowd of wide-eyed nickel slot players as he played $400,000 on the
front line with numbers and hard-ways each covered by
stacks of $5000 chips. He was in fact using every large denomination chip in
Binion's casino. He was the sensation of the moment back then as he had moved
from pool hustler to gambler on a streak winning twenty million dollars in the
space of a few months. This feat included taking money from top pros like Chip
Reese during the World Series playing $5,000-$10,000 limit poker. He was
fearless.
Nobody knows whether he blew the lot as he admits to doing on
so many occasions but its nice to see he is still active, though not at the
giddy heights he reached back in the nineties.
Lastly, and by no means
least, the short handed (6 per table) Holdem event concluded just after four.
The last 3 tables had been the toughest ever seen and the final held Doyle
Brunson, Minh Ly, Scotty Nguyen, Layne Flack, Ayaz Mahmood and Jason Lester.
The crowd stayed all the way and showed their allegiance every time a pot was
contested by Brunson, even booing if he lost a hand.
The fairytale
ending was one the hand announcer had been goading onlookers to root for
and they got everything they wanted on this one. A transition into folk hero
seems to have taken place and now poker players are now polite, soft and
cuddly.
Today's tournament, that
is the one starting today, is event #33, the $3000 No Limit Holdem, with
another thousand or so players. The general advice for spectators and media
people (as they call press people now) is to steer well clear of events of this
size during break times. This is due to the fact that all 1000 players try to
make it to the rest rooms and back within the ten minutes allowed.
This
would be possible on planet earth but right here, right now, people are handing
over dollar bills to jump the queue extending out of the men's rest room (of
which there are three for 2000 people when the big one starts). There are no
takers. A sight never before seen in the history of the pasty faces is
one where poker players actually run along the corridor to make it back to
their seat in time to hear the sound of an alarm buzzer (very similar to the
one telling airline pilots they are about to stall) which lets them now they
have to sit down. Strangely, they do!
Looks like an early night tonight
as they can't get rid of the Omaha hi-low split players fast
enough.
Back to the Championship event and if you want a bet you can
have best price Phil Hellmuth at
66 - 1
with Blus Sq. to make the final table or
Kirill Gerasimov at
150-1.
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Move on to tomorrows report
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