Chuck Humphrey
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TOC Chief Wins at Lowball!
By Max Shapiro
In a very short session, Tournament of Champions founder Chuck Humphrey took down the eighth event of Big Poker Oktober, $100 lowball. After nine hands at the final table, the five finalists made a deal, and Humphrey, a slight chip leader over Rusty Bagaygay, was the winner. Fortunately, he's a man of man parts, so an accounting of his accomplishments and plans for poker will help take up the slack in this report caused by the brevity of the play.
Lowball is a nostalgic game that appeals to the older generation. "Basketball Sam" Davis, long-time Bicycle Casino dealer and veteran of the Stone Age days of Gardena poker, laid 2-1 odds that nobody under age 58 would win the tournament. He lost by a year; Humphrey is a mere 57.
Ninth out was Don Halpern, all-in for $900, who stood pat on a jack. Boris Kocas drew one to a 5-3-A-joker and caught a winning nine.
At the final table, Freddy Legaspi, who owns an import business, lasted one hand. Humphrey button-raised with a draw to a 9-3-A-joker. Legaspi called all-in for $3,700 and drew one to a 9-6. Humphrey caught paint but Legaspi paired. Three hands later, Tom Moore, in the small blind, went all-in. Kocas, in the big blind, joined him by adding his last $100 chip. Both of them, and Rusty, drew two. Moore, a retired sales manager for a systems controls company, paired twice and lost to Kocas' straight seven.
On the sixth hand, Kocas raised with his last $4,000. He drew two to 70504 and caught a 10. It wasn't good enough because Marcel Sabag, who owns a cellular and page store, drew one card to a six and made a nine.
The finalists then talked deal, but Sabag, who has a lowball win and a couple of other final table finishes to his credit at Commerce, balked. They played three more hands until Sabag finally went along, and that ended the festivities. Humphrey, with $29,200, took the title and trophy. In second place was Bagaygay with $27,000. General Poy had $12,900. Sabag had $10,600, and Steve Elghanayan finished fifth with $6,800.
Humphrey recently announced that the third annual Tournament of Champions will be expanded to a full week, July 23 to 29, 2001, with four $1,000 events added to the three-day championship event. He also disclosed his proposal to flatten out tournament pay-outs, making them less top-heavy and prone to deals, will be endorsed in the next issue of Card Player. He'd like as many as five tables paid, never less than two times the buy-in, with the final table percentages being 28, 22, 16, 10, 8, 6, 4 1/2, 3 and 2 1/2. Finally, he is working on launching, in about a year, a U.S. Poker Association to represent "all the interests in poker": players, casino, tournaments, and equipment manufacturers.
Biography - Chuck Humphrey
Chuck Humphrey is a modern-day Renaissance man. His astonishing resume includes: securities attorney; venture capitalist representative; venture capitalist; video store entrepeneur (sold to Blockbuster video); owner and operator of a Denver hotel; found of a phone cable installation company; founder of Tournament of Champions; and now, first-time tournament winner. He's only played in five lowball events, but finished at the final table twice.
Humphrey, who's only been playing poker for a couple of years, likes split games and lists Omaha hi-lo as his favorite game. Tonight he "limped along" most of the way, got up to $5,000 at one point, dropped back to $2,800 when players drew out on him, and then had a final rush just before the final table that brought him there as the chip leader. He hopes that his suggestion to push tournaments "down and out," which he started with the TOC, will help do away with the sort of deals he himself participated in tonight.
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