Losing the Lead at the Final Table is a Real Downer

When Bill Smith, Berry Johnston and I were playing three-handed at the 1985 final table of the World Series of Poker, I got very lucky again Berry in a key hand. Berry raised the pot with A-K offsuit and I called with the A-J of hearts. When the board came K-J-2, Berry bet and I called with second-best pair. Then on the turn, off came another jack! I finally got lucky against someone at the final table! And that’s how Berry went out in third place.

Bill Smith and I used to play the Southern Circuit and we had been close friends for years. Everybody knows that Bill was an alcoholic, and by the time we got to heads-up play, he was just starting to feel the booze. You could always tell when Bill was drunk because he would start calling the flop. If it came 10-7-4, he would say, “21!” And if he had to leave the table for a bathroom break, he’d have a little hop in his step. We used to call it a git-up in his git-along.

When Bill and I started heads-up play, I had the most chips. Then a key hand came up in which I had 9-9 and he had K-K. I raised and he reraised. Bill won the pot and took a big lead. I started chipping away at him and got to the point where I had one-quarter of the chips and he had three-quarters—Bill was drinking heavily and that made it easy to get his chips. When he was sober, he was the tightest player in the world. When he was half-drunk, he might’ve been the best player in the world. And when he was drunk, he was horrible. And he was getting that way.

I had just won a pot with something like a 5-4 suited, and then I looked down at an ace. Bill raised it and I just moved my whole stack in. I didn’t even look at my second card because there was a chance that I could win it with a raise, or if not, I’d probably have the best hand anyway, two overcards if he had a pair. My chances were pretty good.

Bill called my all-in bet and turned over 3-3. I looked at my kicker for the first time—it was a three! With A-3 offsuit, I only had one overcard against his pair. The flop came 4-5-10, so I could have caught an ace for top pair, or a deuce to make a straight. But that didn’t happen. Bill won the title.

Three years later, I made the final table for the second time. I thought the 1988 WSOP Main Event was one of the finest tournaments of all time. The final table had a very tough line-up. It was funny in a peculiar way. Every time the action was passed to Humberto Brenes on the button, he moved in—and I was always in the big blind when he did that. “Sooner or later, I’m gonna pick up a hand,” I thought to myself, and started making plans.

The next time Humberto moved all-in on the button, the little blind passed and I looked down at the A-Q of spades in the big blind. I called. He didn’t have as many chips as I had, and I was looking forward to getting all of them. In the stands, his Costa Rican friends were asking him what he had. “Nuevo-six,” he answered. I knew how to count in Spanish, so I knew that he had a 9-6. He was bluffing just like I thought! The flop came with a 9-6-x, another 9 came on fourth street, and finally a queen came on the end, big deal! So he made a full house and knocked me down to almost nothing.

About four hands later when I was on the button, I picked up the A-10 of clubs and got it all in against Erik Seidel, who had 5-5. His fives held up like iron and I went out in fifth place. Once I went out, I thought that it would get down to Johnny Chan and Seidel, two great players, and indeed they came first-second.

Ron Graham, who finished third, had a lot of chips but he never wanted to play a flop—he always moved all his chips into the pot before the flop. Brenes and Graham are very good players, and Jim Bechtel, the man who came sixth, went on to win the Main Event in 1993. Quintin “Catbird” Nixon, who finished seventh, is a great player too.

I’ve always enjoyed playing against the best players, and everybody at this final table was quite a player. That’s why I thought it was one of the best WSOP Main Events ever played. Look for another Hand of Destiny next week, all of which I’m recounting for you from my book Championship Tournament Hold’em Hands.