Poker Tournament Gallery

The First Annual World Poker Challenge

By Mark Napolitano

Well, it’s over and I am on my way home after spending the last 7 days at the Reno Hilton in Reno Nevada for the 1st World Poker Challenge.

Was it a success? You bet. Does it have a future? Absolutely. The dates are already set for 2002 and Mike Gainey, David Lamb, Billy V, Steve Morrow, Patty Pfeil and Linda Johnson , and I must apologize if I left anyone out , deserve a very big pat on the back.

As someone who has decided to devote the rest of their working life to the game I consider each and every one of the above mentioned people my allies as they all clearly display an intention to better the image of poker and not only believe in the future growth of the industry but are taking steps to make it happen. This tournament was a huge stride toward achieving that goal. I believe that the goal for the organizers was to create a total prize pool for the whole event of around $1,600,000 and in the end the number was more like $2,600,000. I am sure that the Casino saw the positive effects on it’s figures and this can only be good for poker. I also know that there was a player tracking card system in operation in order to track the poker players side action at the other casino tables. It will be interesting to see just how the Casino sees those figures. I do know that the tournament was given the green light for next year just half way through the event, so they must have seen something they liked early on.

When it came down to the business end of the final event (the final table) it was a truly wonderful day for poker. Two ex world champions, several WSOP bracelet winners, in fact perhaps the greatest line up in the last several years at a major tournament final table. We had Randy Holland in seat 1 starting with $91,500, in seat 2, Bill Eichel, a lesser well known player from Parker SD starting with $55,00, Mike Laing in seat 3 who had the chip lead with $175,000, the legendry Amarillo Slim Preston in seat 4 with $100,000, Hasan Habib in seat 5 with $55,000, Daniel Negreanu in seat 6 with $139,000, Dewey Weums in seat 7 with $74,500, Gary Lent in seat 8 with $75,000 and finally in seat 9, the very colorful Scotty Nguyen with $99,000.

The blinds began at $3,000 and $6,000 and there was a $1500 ante. A total of $22,500 in the pot before the cards were dealt. This put Hasan and Bill inn tough spots as they were never going to be able to overbet the pot enough, rather they were going to have to find hands very quickly and get their chips in there. The standard bet onn the first round became $24,000 to go and Bill and Hasan could not afford the luxury of simply calling a $24,000 bet. For them it had to be all in or fold.

In the first round (9 hands) we only saw one flop and at the end of the round Hasan found a hand to get all his chips in with only to lose out and be our 9th place finisher. A few hands later he was followed out by Gary Lent and Scotty Nguyen in 8th and 7th respectively. When we were down to the last 6 players it seemed that the play might start to go a little slower as we had already lost 3 players in around 30 minutes. It wasn’t to be Slim quickly busted out in 6th place and was soon followed in 5th by Dewey Weums.

When we got to 4 handed play we had a new chip leader in Randy Holland with well over $250,000. Ironically it was Randy who went out next to leave the final 3 players, Daniel Mike and Bill. At this point it was Bill , the least experienced of the three at this level of tournament poker, who held a commanding chip lead with over $500,000 out of the total of $850,000 in play. Mike and Daniel were about even with around $175,000 each. Daniel tried without cards to take some kind of control over the game but Bill just seemed to be running so good that it looked as if his name was already on the trophy.

In the end Daniel went out in 3rd to take home $82,935 which left Mike and Bill to contest the heads up for around $500,000 in total prize money. Bill had about a 3 to 1 chip lead when they started the heads up match. They were now playing $3000 antes and $7,000 and $15,000 blinds. Bills Standard bring in bet became $82,000 and Mikes became $60,000. A couple of times over the next hour or so Mike pulled the game back to being close and each time Bill would knock him back down to where he started. One particular hand that really surprised me went as follows: Mike on the small blind brought it in for $60,000 and Bill re-raised him another $100,000. Mike thought for a moment or two and moved all in with a re-re-raise of another $80,000. I almost could not believe that Bill put the hand down. I think Mike was a little shocked too to have taken the pot uncontested. There was $320,000 in the pot before Mikes final raise of $80,000 so the pot was laying Bill 4 to 1 to call the final bet. He must have had a very poor hand to have passed in that spot. We then had a period where Bill became the aggressor again and got himself back to a 3 to 1 chip lead. Mike Laing all this time was playing to the crowd and interacting with them in a way that I believe is actually good for the game. He made the audience feel that they were a part of this event, and in my opinion it should be that way. We have sports stars in other sports that interact with the crowd. I am thinking of people like Lee Trevino and Gary Player in golf and perhaps Mohammed Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard in the boxing world. These players realized that crowd interaction is an important part of sport. Anyway, once again Mike got the chips back to almost level when the decisive hand came about. Just a few minutes before this critical hand Bill had made it $60,000 to go and Mike had re-raised Bill $100,000. Bill thought for a few moments and threw his hand away. Mike announced that he had bruises all over him and tire marks along his back where Bill had been running over him and turned over a 9,4 off suit. He announced that he had to make a stand against bill’s continual aggression. The trap had been set. So back to this decisive hand. Bill on the small blind made it $60,000 to go and Mike took a good 3 minutes to decide on his move. He counted down his chips several times and looked like he would call. Then he stacked them back up and looked like he would fold. Eventually he raised Bill another $100,000 and Bill immediately said all in. Mike said call within one second and everyone knew he had a monster hand. He flipped over a pair of Aces and unluckily for Bill he turned over Ace, Jack. Not many outs for Bill and no help came on the board. They counted down the chips and it turned out that Bill had just $30,000 left and Mike had $825,000. The very next hand it was all over when Mikes K,4 made a pair of fours and we had our first World Poker Challenge Champion.

I have seen Mike Laing play in many tournaments in past years but I have never seen him play with the kind of control he showed in this event. He is a worthy champion and I think we will be seeing a lot more of him this year. On another note let’s not forget Bill Eichel. After the event Mike Laing said that Bill had played as well heads up as anyone else in the world and I would consider that a huge compliment. We should not forget that Bill came into the final table with the lowest stack and at one point had 75% of the chips in play. This tournament will be a huge help to the confidence of Bill and I expect to also see him involved in some more of this years final tables.

Well, that’s it from me for this event and I am looking forward to the next one. We are trying to standardize the way we report of major poker tournaments and this summary is just a piece of the jigsaw. I have learned many things from this event and will be working on improving in all areas. I am aware of the missing specific hands in this report and should point out that due to my doing the audio broadcast and taking photographs, I did not write down the actual hands that players were eliminated on. I need more hands on deck for all the major events and would welcome offers of help in order to perfect this service we are offering at PokerPages.com , until next time

Be Lucky

Mark Napolitano