| SPEED KILLS THE OTHER GUYS
I was going to take a couple of days off after a long road trip, but it's hard for me to do when I'm back home in Las Vegas. And I know there's a Final Table out there.
There were 117 entries. 9 were paid.
FINAL TABLE
Seat/Player/Hometown/Chips
Seat 1 J J Liu Palo Alto CA 25,500
Seat 2 Steve Rosling Portland OR 21,000
Seat 3 Gavin Smith Ontario, Canada 23,500
Seat 4 Frank Ryan Sag Harbor NY 25,500
Seat 5 Yohannes Muroz Las Vegas NV 45,500
Seat 6 Rod Brown Lubbock TX 42,500
Seat 7 Mike Gambony Scottsdale AZ 41,000
Seat 8 Mark Gregorich Las Vegas NV 7,500
Seat 9 Frank Sfeir Canyon County CA 7,500
There were 37 minutes left in the 500/1,000 blinds, playing 1k/2k
Two significant happenings occurred today and neither involved the poker game going on.
The most important to me was the clarification that Tom McEvoy gave me about his last hand that made him World Champion. Please see my correction in yesterday's blog. I'm hoping Tom will write me with a detailed description of his experience in 1983 so I can publish it.
The other important happening was a sighting of Benny Binion Behnen. Benny was playing in Event #3 that I'll report about tomorrow. I haven't seen Benny since the Horseshoe was closed by Federal Marshals in January of last year. Wild would be the description of the speculation concerning Benny's well being and future. When asked about his future in poker, Benny said that he planned on playing in tournaments, ".especially when they are in Las Vegas." That is so good to hear.
Now about this group today. In all my years of covering poker, I've never seen a table that bet as fast as this one did. It was almost like online poker. We averaged 45 hands an hour, LIVE. What ever decision process was required, took nanoseconds.. That included raises, three bets and four bets. Tournament Director, Johnny Grooms, correctly told the crowd that the chip were "flying."
Since the game was Limit Hold'em, no single bet was terribly significant. So pots were hammered with chips from all directions. It was as if no one believed anyone else had a hand. Players literally had to three bet to start to be taken seriously.
In this overheated environment, one player had a distinct advantage over all the others--Yohannes Muroz. His experience at representing hands, whether he had them or not, made it impossible to tell when Yohannes was bluffing. It had to be obvious to all the players at the table that Muroz couldn't possibly have all the hands he was betting, but which one were bluffs? Most times Yohannes was called down, he turned over a good hand.
Muroz basically put on a Limit Hold'em clinic that everyone else at the table paid to see. Not just his betting was exquisite, he put some reads on the other players that were unbelievable. On a couple of occasions he called down raising bettors against him with third or fourth pair or even no pair. How in the world he know when players were bluffing him or on a draw, when they were raising and reraising, was very impressive.
First out was one of the two short stacks, Frank Sfeil. He had the button and K 6 with only a few chip left. Sfeil went all-in with the best hand preflop. Steve Rosling was in the big blind with 10 9 and caught a runner runner straight.
John Inashima used to be the greatest short chip player in tournament poker. But John doesn't play in many events anymore. Now that dubious title probably belongs to Tony Cousineau, but a serious challenger has to be Mark Gregorich. Why these guys never have any chips is a mystery, but amazingly they can hang on until they get paid.
Gavin Smith always tells me that I never write about him. I say he should win more than the BARGE tournament and I will. Smith isn't even the most famous Gavin, Griffin is. Smith calls Griffin a 'one-hit wonder' and promises I will have something big to write about him soon.
But not today.
Unless it's that his pocket Kings knocked out the all-in Mark Gregorich in 8th. That's not a big deal, Gavin. Mark had is usual no chips with an A Q.
Besides that, the pot only bought Smith five hands. Gavin was the next out in 7th when his second pair of pocket Kings were cracked by yet another 10 9, suited this time, from Steve Rosling. Gavin got a terrible beat when the board came Q 8 5 J 6. The gutshot straightener on the turn sent the fun-loving Canadian north of the ropes. Now he can't say I haven't written about him.
Gavin is a very funny guy who, because he has such a great attitude, will do well. Maybe not as well as Gavin Griffin, but hey.
Five handed the chips washed around the table continuously. Normally the 58 hands it took to eliminate the next player would have been excruciatingly boring, but these players bet so fast that it took just over an hour.
Rod Brown's goose was cooked anyway, but when an Ace hit the turn he went all-in with A K in the big blind. Yohannes Muroz is undoubted the finest poker player ever to come out of Eritrea, a tiny coastal country next to a very big Ethiopia. He undoubtedly played the finest starting hand with pocket Aces to deliver Rod Brown's body into 5th.
As soon as we went to 2k/3k blinds on hand 135, Mike 'Shoes' Gambony picked up a foot and set it on the rail in 4th. Actually, Mike's A 10 was the best hand until Yohannes Muroz, who was dreaming cards all day, caught a King on the turn with his K Q.
A funny story: Last week I walk into Bay 101 in San Jose and J J Bortner is at the Final Table of an event. I yell "J J" because I've know Bortner for years from her play in the WSOP. I get no response from the woman, so I say "J J Bortner." The woman says "That's not my name." I'm stunned. I have been known to have trouble distinguishing some Asian players. I confused Meng La for Vinnie Vinh last week.
(Something Matt Savage will never let me forget.) Which would be laughable if you saw them standing next to each other. Anyway, I think I've lost my mind. That's J J Bortner or her identical twin. I look on the stat sheet and the name of the player in that seat is J J Liu. Now wait a minute. An identical twin with the same first name? That seems nearly impossible. Finally, it's explained to me that J J is now divorced and she has retaken her maiden name. I haven't lost my mind.
Three handed this really wasn't' a contest. In short order, Yohannes had almost all the chips. Who would get the extra $10,000 for 2nd? Liu was losing this battle with Steve Rosling. She went all-in with pocket 5's for her last 12,000 on hand 165. Muroz had A 7 and flopped an Ace to give the newly single J J :Liu a single 3rd.
Heads up, Rosling started out as a 5-1 dog on chip count. In reality he might have been 20-1 as Yohannes schooled him. In one four bet pot that Rosling mucked on the river, I asked Muroz how he knew Rosling was on a draw. "He made a mistake earlier," Muroz told me. I took that to mean that Yohannes had a tell on Steve that allowed him to bet out with assurance.
Soon enough it was over, Q 10 vs 10 8 for Steve. 177 hands in four hours. That might be a record that won't be broken. Good job by the Rio dealers to move that quickly. The speed game suited Yohannes Muroz perfectly and speed killed all the others. The only thing faster was how quickly the line of debtors formed to get paid back when Yohannes collected his winnings.
Official results:
1 Yohannes Muroz $40,855
2 Steve Rosling $22,700
3 J J Liu $12,485
4 Mike Gambony $9,080
5 Rod Brown $7,945
6 Frank Ryan $6,810,br>
7 Gavin Smith $5,675
8 Mark Gregorich $4,540
9 Frank Sfeil $3,405
MikePaulle@PokerPages.com | 
