He was referring to my description of the newbie poker player, Enzo, defeating me, and knocking me out of a tournament a few weeks ago. He was 18, and it was his first tournament in a real casino. He had only played poker for nickles, dimes, and quarters in home games with friends and coworkers. He was thrilled with his victory and called his dad in Utah to celebrate his victory.
Let me tell you why I would write about a fledgling poker player defeating a guy like me who has been playing poker in casinos for 30 years, 30 years removed from his first tournament victory, which was a 1 table tournament at the Luxor Casino in Las Vegas in the Fall of 1996. I won the tournament after being down to one chip. I had mostly played home games. On occasion, I’d be asked to join a poker game as I was walking by a poker room at a casino in Vegas when I was seeking out a craps table. By 1999, I realized craps and black jack were games designed to cost me money. Thus, I realized that if I wanted to spend time in casinos, I needed to choose a game where the odds weren’t skewed in favor of the house, so I focused on poker, playing limit games.
Every poker room offered free magazines. I read these magazines and learned everything I could about who’s who in poker. I read articles by the big names in poker. I discovered these big names traveled the country to multiple venues around the country. After I moved to the Mid-south I decided I wanted to play these big names in Tunica, Mississippi. On my blog I posted my article about my first major tournament in 2001. I was star struck, because in my first tournament I actually defeated a World Champion, Scotty Nguyen, and knocked him out of a tournament. I sat at a table with big names like Danny Negreanu , John Bonetti, and I was almost run over by Doyle Brunson when he lost control of his scooter in the tournament area in the Gold Strike
The great thing about poker is most of these tournaments are open to anyone who has the money to enter the event. If money is tight, you have an opportunity to win a seat in the event. I like to go bowling, but there is no way I can just enter a tournament and bowl against a World Champion, let alone hope to defeat him, but anybody has a shot to win the World Series of Poker. I used to play baseball up until I was 35. I never could have hoped to get an at bat and hit a home-run against Nolan Ryan or Roger Clemens . However I have eliminated some of the biggest names in poker from tournaments. These names include Johnny Chan, Huck Seed, Mike Sexton, TJ Cloutier, and Danny Negreanu. They are way better players than me, but in one hand of poker, I was able to defeat them. Sometimes, I played bad and still won, and sometimes I got on TV.
I faced Johnny Chan in 2003 at the World Series of Poker in the $2000 Pot-limit Hold’em event. Early in the tournament, I had 3 Kings flopped. I check-raised him all-in. I was so scared I screwed up the hand, but I prevailed. Huck Seed was also at my table. He had won the 1996 World Series of Poker main event. He raised, and I assumed he was trying to bully me in the blind, so I raised all-in with an 8-9. He quickly called with pocket Queens. “Oops!” Nonetheless, I flopped 2 pair, and eliminated him. I had a few more “Oops” plays that day, and somehow made my first final table at The World Series of Poker. At that final table was Danny Negreanu. He finished 6th, and I finished 5th to a win of $17,920. I was writing about poker consistently on www.pokerpages.com . So Danny knew who I was, and he was always friendly toward me. When I won my first major tournament in October of 2002 at the Costa Rica Classic, Danny finished 8th. I knocked him out with my Ace-10 against his pair of 9’s when I hit one of my over cards. Earlier in that same tournament, I knocked Mike Sexton out of the tournament with a crazy raise when I had 7-8 to his pocket Jacks when I flopped 2 pairs, “Oops!” I got down to a chip and a chair in that tournament. No question I got lucky that day, but I had terrible luck in ring games the rest of the week. I used up all of my luck in the tournament.
A few years later, I would have a rematch with Danny Negreanu in Tunica, Mississippi. We spent most of the day at the same table in a limit Hold’em. I learned just how good of a player he was that day, as we battled. He was very familiar with me from my writing and the times we played together. As we got down to the stretch before we were in the money, he moved all in on me when I was in the blind. I had pocket 3’s. So I called thinking he had Ace-Face-card . He had Ace-Queen. When he didn’t hit his over cards, I knocked him out of the tournament. When I ran into him later, he scolded me for taking my 3’s up against his over-cards. It’s ironic, because I have been defeated by pocket 3’s in some pivotal hands of poker recently in tournaments at the Pensacola Dogtrack.
They say you can’t win your wife in a poker game, but they also say,”What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” However, that’s not true if you get married in Vegas. I was in San Jose, California for the Shooting Star Tournament in 2004. In that tournament, they put a $5,000 bounty on the big stars in poker. I had TJ Cloutier on my left for the whole day. I had read all of his books, read all his articles, and made a final table with him in Tunica. I had even loaned him $100 so he could play craps that he never paid me back. We were heads up in the blinds, and I had Ace-7. With no other callers, it was just him and me. I just limped in and he checked. An Ace hit the uncoordinated flop. I made a pot-sized bet, and he moved all-in without hesitation. He had been bullying me all day, so I had made a habit of folding to his raises. This time, I decided that the former Canadian professional football player was just being a bully yet again, so I called. He had an Ace-6 to my Ace-7. My hand held up, and I eliminated a star with a bounty. It was a World Poker Tour Event, so it was televised on the Travel Channel. The tournament director came to my table with cameras rolling and counted out 50 $100 bills. I was dating my favorite ex missus from Mississippi at the time. Her dad loved to play poker. Her parents actually recorded to video of the tournament, so, in away, I think that’s how I won a missus in a poker game. We got married in Vegas later that year, and she rejected the claim that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. I used that $5,000 to pay for her engagement ring. So, I told TJ he could keep the 100 bucks.