| BRIAN'S SONG, THE SEQUEL, OFFERS HAPPIER ENDING By Andrew N.S. Glazer When the final table of the 2001 Tournament of Champions had slimmed down to four players, relative unknown Brian Saltus said softly, “Boy, am I in some company.” Truer words could hardly have been spoken, as Saltus found himself playing a friendly little game for two hundred grand with three of poker all-time greatest players, T.J. Cloutier, Scotty Nguyen, and “Miami” John Cernuto. Some time later—at 2:55 a.m., to be precise—Saltus found himself heads-up with the legendary Cloutier, winner of an amazing 51 major ($500 or larger) tournaments, and poker’s all-time leading tournament money winner, and found himself trailing in chips $1.7 million to $300,000. “Warm up my car, will you?” joked Saltus, a 60 year-old attorney from Idaho, who plays $10-20 games back home and only started playing tournament poker a little over a year ago. The joke seemed appropriate. Cloutier had the chips, the experience, and, I assumed at the moment, the karma, having suffered his stunning final card defeat in the Championship Event at the 2000 World Series of Poker to Chris “Jesus” Ferguson. Little did I know that we were soon to have a champion whose own recent profiles in courage would dwarf the manly way Cloutier accepted defeat in the 2000 Series, and who would prove that perhaps karma takes sides we can’t always anticipate. THE FINAL HAND Saltus battled back from the huge chip deficit to take a small lead when Cloutier, holding the button and having posted the $15,000 small blind upon it, brought the hand in for a raise to a total of $95,000. Saltus called, and with $202,000 sitting in the pot (the antes were $6,000 each), the two players looked at a rainbow flop of J-10-9. Saltus led out for $40,000, Cloutier moved all-in, and Saltus called with very little hesitation. Cloutier turned over A-J for top pair and the lead, and Saltus showed 10d-8d for middle pair with an open-ended straight draw. An irrelevant four hit the turn, and Cloutier was one card away from a monstrous chip lead when the queen of spades hit the river to give Saltus the straight and the title. I couldn’t help but think of author George R.R. Martin’s fantasy series “Wild Cards,” where an alien virus hits the Earth’s inhabitants with bizarre unpredictable effects, killing many, but turning some people into near superheroes called “Aces” and others into pathetic near-monsters called “Jokers.” The multitudes that died were said to have “drawn the Black Queen.” Cloutier had drawn the literal poker equivalent of the figurative fantasy card, and suffered yet another crushing final card defeat. For a few moments, I thought this story was going to be all about Cloutier’s championship heart and how he stood up so bravely in yet another agonizing final card defeat. I know this man has a drive to win, and it’s almost unthinkable to me that he’s suffered two final card defeats in two such huge tournaments in two years. Yet he stood there like a man, no whining or complaining, and when I asked him if the result felt unfair, happening twice like that in such a short time, he just shrugged and said, “What can you do? I wanted to win the tournament. I didn’t. I can’t go crawl off into a corner somewhere.” Courage and honor in defeat. That was the story. I was sure of it. Then, suddenly, I wasn’t so sure. TALK ABOUT YOUR UNEXPECTED TURNS… Suddenly, in a moment no one had choreographed or expected, Saltus took the microphone and addressed the SRO crowd, and in a few eloquent, heartfelt words, put poker into perspective. “This is the thrill of my young life,” Saltus began. “Two and a half years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer and had five organs removed, and went through six months of chemotherapy. Right now I’m cancer free. Playing next to T.J. is a humbling experience: this is just another bad beat for him. In my opinion, he’s the greatest poker player ever to live, and you just have to love Scotty, too.” Talk about not throwing Saltus into TJ’s wounds… but Brian Saltus wasn’t through. TOC founder Chuck Humphrey brought out a bottle of champagne to celebrate the victory, and Saltus raised his glass with a toast. “To the most important thing in life,” Saltus began, “good health. T.J. is two months older than me, and I hope we’re both playing poker 30 years from now.” In the aftermath, I learned that Saltus had also recently undergone triple bypass surgery, and he noted that “two thirds of the people who had what I had a year and a half ago are dead now.” A HAPPIER SEQUEL TO “BRIAN’S SONG” The famous television special “Brian’s Song” was, if you never saw it, about the tragic death of Chicago Bears running back Brian Piccolo at an early age to cancer. I never forgot it, because it aired for the first time just a few months after my own father had died from cancer when I was 16. That this particular sequel to Brian’s Song had a different ending seemed to trivialize poker, no matter how important the game feels as we play it. Having dodged life’s Black Queen, it somehow seemed fitting that Saltus’ Tournament of Champions was saved by it, but that’s only the end to a very long and interesting tale, so let’s go back to the start of tonight’s lengthy final table. My apologies to the 18 valiant warriors who battled from the 27 who started at noon down to the final nine, but there was so much good poker at the final table, there really isn’t room to tell their tales here. There were certainly dramatic and difficult moments, like when Scott O’Bryan’s pocket kings fell to pocket aces and crippled what looked like excellent final table chances, and when Phil Hellmuth held Kh-9h, found a flop with a nine and two hearts, moved all-in, only to find himself up against pocket kings and to see neither his flush draw nor nine save him, but the rest of this story belongs to the final nine. When we started play, the seats and chip positions were: 1. Dick Corpuz, $161,000 2. “Miami” John Cernuto, $111,000 3. Steve Zolotow, $220,000 4. Scotty Nguyen, $125,000 5. Andy Gamboa, $366,000 6. Grant Smith, $112,000 7. T.J. Cloutier, $295,500 8. Dave Wehner, $399,500 9. Brian Saltus, $223,500 Cernuto, Zolotow, Nguyen, and Cloutier are all certifiable poker legends with World Series bracelets and need no introduction to those who have been around the game. I knew Corpuz and Gamboa were both extremely tough no-limit specialists from my days living in Northern California, where the “other” Andy G. would frequently win Bay 101 tournaments for which people would congratulate me (and occasionally vice-versa). We’d also frequently sign up for the same games and ultimately I decided that I’d be Andy NS to halt the confusion. I knew that both Corpuz (who tends to frequent Lucky Chances, just outside San Francisco) and Gamboa were perfectly capable of winning the title. Smith, Wehner, and Saltus were the three X-factors, although Saltus had won a no-limit event earlier in the week. We began play with $1,000 antes and $2,000-4,000 blinds, meaning that nine-handed there would be $15,000 in dead money sitting on the table at which an initial raiser could take aim. THE EARLY CHIP LEADER GETS IN TROUBLE Wehner, the chip leader, got involved in almost every pot the moment the first cards came out, and while he hurt Gamboa on one hand when his pocket kings turned into kings full on the turn, I rapidly started getting the feeling that Wehner was just playing far too many hands and flat calling far too many bets to have much chance at success, and sure enough, his chips started melting away, $15,000 here and $30,000 there. No-limit hold’em just isn’t a game where making lots of flat calls will work for very long, and Wehner kept uttering “I call” again and again. 1998 World Champion Nguyen was very nearly the day’s first casualty, when he limped in from the small blind against Gamboa, who raised it $20,000 from the big blind, only to see Scotty then move in. Gamboa called with A-J against Nguyen’s Q-J. Scotty is a popular and charismatic champion, and the crowd yelled, “queen, queen,” as the flop came out. The crowd got its wish: Q-2-4-5-K, and Scotty’s three-outer had him back in the game. At the end of the 46 minutes remaining at the opening level, we were still nine-handed, and the blinds moved to $3,000-6,000, and the antes to $1,500, meaning the dead money was now $22,500. We finally lost one of the X-Men when Grant Smith brought a pot in for a $20,000 raise, Nguyen moved all-in, and Smith called. As-Qs for Smith, A-A for Scotty, who had to survive a scary two-spade flop before two blanks sent Smith out ninth. We were playing one-hour rounds, and Smith was the only player to exit during this one: the game had started tight and stayed that way through the first several hours. When we hit the next break, the blinds moved to $5,000-10,000 and the antes to $2,000, meaning $31,000 in dead money in the eight-handed game. The approximate chips counts were now: Corpuz, $200,000 Cernuto, $80,000 Zolotow, $173,000 Nguyen, $260,000 Gamboa, $315,000 Cloutier, $400,000 Wehner, $340,000 Saltus, $245,000 THE WORST BECAME BEST AND THEN WORST AGAIN Soon after we started back, Zolotow, a native New Yorker who is a well-read intellectual and has a life outside the poker world (although he also spends several months a year in Las Vegas and originally tutored many of today’s top players), opened a pot for $40,000, and Gamboa raised it to an even $80,000. Z moved all-in, and Gamboa called after a brief hesitation. 7-7 for Z, 8-8 for Gamboa, a horrible situation for Zolotow, but the flop came Ac-7c-4c, giving Zolotow a set of sevens and the lead. He couldn’t be too comfortable, because Gamboa held the 8c, and while the turn was a blank, the 5c hit the river, turning the better starting hand into the better finishing hand, and Zolotow was out eighth. Wehner’s stack continued its steady decline, and it looked like he was headed for a seventh place finish when he hooked up with Nguyen on a big pot just after the levels moved up to $5,000-15,000 blinds and $3,000 antes. Scotty turned out to be on what had to be a cold dead steal, though, because despite the big pot decided not to call Wehner’s final $39,500 all-in raise. The new capital infusion got Wehner back to nearly a quarter million. The infusion didn’t last long. Shooting at the $41,000 in dead money, Wehner pushed his stack all-in pre-flop, and Saltus decided to call. 2-2 for Wehner, A-K for Saltus, but the A-4-5 flop sent Saltus into the lead, even though he also now had to worry about a three that would give Wehner a straight. The board finished 5-7, and the starting chip leader was now indeed out seventh, with Nguyen staring ruefully at the chips Wehner had taken and almost immediately given to Saltus, the new chip leader. IF YOU THOUGHT TWO HOURS TO ELIMINATE TWO PLAYERS WAS LONG… We were six-handed, and incredible as it seems, we stayed that way for nearly three hours. It wasn’t that the game got tight: far from it. Indeed, the action picked up considerably from the tight opening play. It just seemed that every time a small stack hooked up with a big one, the small stack emerged triumphant. Scotty Nguyen played the cat with nine lives for most of the day. He’d already survived the opening A-J vs. Q-J confrontation, and soon thereafter he and Miami John got all the money in preflop with John holding A-A and Scotty 10-10. The Q-9-7-3 board looked ready to send Scotty home, but a miracle ten on the river doubled him up to more than $300,000 and had to leave Cernuto wondering about his luck with aces. Not that long before, he’d held two black aces in the big blind, and everyone had folded around to him: a “walk in the big blind” at the worst possible moment, and now a beat with the aces in a dominating position. We were now well past midnight, a long day for players who had already played their hearts out for two straight days previously, and it got longer when Corpuz, as a short stack, doubled through Miami John when his A-Q held up against John’s nearly mandatory call with A-J. The chips now looked like Corpuz, $190,000 Cernuto, $170,000 Nguyen, $215,000 Gamboa, $470,000 Cloutier, $570,000 Saltus, $450,000 Scotty’s stack started getting short again, and he made uncalled all-in preflop moves with 2-2 and 8-5, grabbing chips without cards but certainly living dangerously and inviting players to call another all-in move. SALTUS RE-RE-RAISES AND TAKES THE LEAD Saltus did just that when he’d grabbed the chip lead after a hand when Gamboa opened for $40,000, Cloutier raised $100,000, and Saltus moved all-in. Gamboa hesitated a while before mucking, but Cloutier didn’t take too much time to muck his pocket tens. Feeling chip heavy and probably bulletproof, Saltus opened a pot for $65,000, only to see Scotty move all-in for another $100,500. Between his own recent successes and Scotty’s propensity for showing weak all-in moves, Saltus decided to call with Ac-5c. Scotty showed 5-5, and while the 3-4-6 flop made a split pot a distinct possibility, blanks on the turn and river doubled Scotty through. “This cat got nine lives, baby,” Scotty said, and sure enough, one of poker’s coolest cats had used another one, albeit this time as a favorite. We hit another break, and the blinds moved to $10,000-20,000, and the antes to $4,000, putting $54,000 in dead money on the table. We were still six-handed, but it wasn’t for lack of action. The short stacks kept winning the confrontations, as Corpuz showed when he decided to call Saltus’ opening bet of $60,000 all-in for his remaining $42,000. 6d-7d for Corpuz, Q-J for Saltus, and it didn’t look like Lucky Chances’ favorite son was in for much of a lucky chance when the flop came K-8-8. A five on the turn also gave Corpuz outs to a straight, but he just won the pot the old fashioned way, spiking a six on the river. When you added in the blinds and antes, the move almost tripled Corpuz, a result he’d of course considered when he shoved his last 42k out there with small suited connectors. SCOTTY DISDAINS POT ODDS FOR A BETTER MOMENT The next big confrontation came when Scotty opened a pot for $80,000, and the now enriched Corpuz moved all-in for almost exactly $100,000 more. Scotty would be getting better than 3-1 odds on his call, if he decided to make it, but ultimately decided he wanted to save one of those nine lives, and tossed 10d-Jd away. Given the pot odds, I was a little surprised Scotty threw such a strong drawing hand away, but then I remembered a Hellmuth line about champions not being as obsessed with pot odds as regular players and being more concerned with getting their money in with the best of it. Maybe it was good Scotty saved one of those nine lives, because he needed it fairly shortly thereafter. Short again at $136,000, he moved all-in to open the pot, and Cloutier called him relatively quickly. Ks-4s for Scotty, A-J for T.J., the flop came low and meaningless, but Scotty spiked a king on the turn to double through. “Nine lives, baby, I tell you,” Scotty repeated. Just about the time I started thinking we’d still be six-handed on Tuesday, Corpuz fired his remaining $80,000 at a 9-8-6 rainbow flop, and Cloutier called fairly quickly. 5c-6c for Corpuz, bottom pair, and Q-10 for T.J., a double belly-buster (two inside straight draws with either a seven or jack giving him the straight) as well as two overcards. Sixteen outs twice made T.J. the favorite, and while the four on the turn didn’t change anything, a jack on the river busted Corpuz. SCOTTY’S EMOTION’S COST HIM TEN MINUTES Scotty Nguyen had been playing to the crowd all night, and kept cranking up the amperage as the evening went along, but he ran afoul of the Orleans/TOC strict policy against profanity when Miami John started to raise him from the small blind, and had only put in $60,000 of what looked like what was to be more money when Scotty said with a bit of anger, “I go all-in, you think you can keep f—king robbing my big blind all night?” Miami John folded, but Tournament Director Dave Lamb had heard Scotty’s words from more than 20 feet away, and the penalty at this tournament for the f-word is automatic. Scotty got a ten-minute penalty, and showing remarkable composure for getting a penalty at this late and costly stage, coolly left the room to wait out his sentence. He got a ladder climb while he was gone, too, because just a couple of minutes later, the short stacked Gamboa moved all-in and again T.J. played sheriff, a fitting role for the tall Texan, and he was packing more ammo, because Gamboa could produce only A-8, while T.J. had A-K. The Q-J-2-4-9 board sent Gamboa out fifth. HE PROBABLY FELT LIKE THE DESPERATE FOURTH INVITEE FOR BRIDGE Scotty returned, and it was at this point that Saltus uttered his “Boy am I in some company” remark. How would you like to be playing shorthanded with this tournament threesome, after only a year of playing tournaments? Saltus had been playing poker forever, but tournaments were a new game for him. You don’t have to be a tournament veteran to feel good about looking down and spotting A-A, though, and Saltus found the hand and opened for $80,000. Miami John raised to a total of $280,000, and was virtually pot-committed when Saltus moved in. A-6 for Miami John, and a Q-10-5-5-4 board finished him off. After playing three hours without losing anyone, we’d suddenly lost three players in less than eight minutes. Cloutier and Saltus each had a little over $800,000, and Nguyen had a bit less than $400,000. T.J. grabbed another $100,000 from Scotty when he moved in on Scotty’s opening raise, and as we hit the break, T.J was closing in on a million with Scotty down to about $220,000 and Saltus hanging tough at $840,000. The new blinds were $15,000-30,000, and the antes $6,000. That made it $63,000 to sit out a round, and three-handed, the button comes around pretty fast. SCOTTY NEEDED TO MOVE, AND HAD A FEW LIVES LEFT Short-stacked, Scotty was at a tremendous disadvantage here, and had to make a move, cards or no cards. Saltus opened for $100,000, Scotty moved all-in, and Saltus called. 4c-6c for Scotty, J-10 offsuit for Saltus, and we looked at a 5-7-10 flop, giving Saltus a pair he didn’t need and Scotty an open-ended straight draw he needed desperately. An eight hit immediately, completing Scotty’s straight. Saltus was still live to a nine, but he hit a useless jack for a second pair on the river, and had to ship Scotty $232,000. Scotty made another comment about his nine lives, and it sounded like he said he might just have used the last one. If that was indeed his comment, he was prophetic, because not that long thereafter, at 2:45 a.m., Scotty raised $100,000, Cloutier moved all-in, and Scotty called instantly with A-K. Cloutier turned over 6-6, and nothing higher than a nine ever hit the board: 9-7-3-8-8, if you must know. Scotty had slipped the noose on numerous much more dangerous situations, but at the end he couldn’t win a coin-flip hand, and instead of the much-awaited Nguyen-Cloutier confrontation, we had Cloutier-Saltus for all the marbles. CLOUTIER HAD THE LEAD, CHIPS, AND EXPERIENCE… BUT MAYBE NOT FATE As the heads-up battle commenced, T.J. had a 3-1 chip lead, about 1.5 million to $500,000, and it quickly grew to the 1.7 to $300,000 I mentioned earlier. As everyone waited for the expected conclusion, suddenly nothing could go right for T.J. Saltus doubled through on an A-J vs. A-4 battle, getting the chips within striking range at $750,000-$1,250,000. T.J. got a little back when Saltus bet $75,000 and T.J. raised him back an uncalled $225,000, and then Saltus showed he hadn’t been kidding when he’d mentioned his lack of tournament experience to me on the break. PLAYED MUCH HEADS-UP BEFORE, BRIAN? “The button is always the little blind when we’re heads-up, right?” he asked. It’s a reasonable enough question for a 10-20 player from Boise, Idaho, but the question was pretty conclusive proof of a fairly short tournament resume. Maybe the question started the avalanche that was soon to follow, or maybe it got into TJ’s head, because from that point on, he was almost helpless. He limped in from the small blind on the button, Saltus raised $100,000, and T.J. called. The flop came K-5-7, Saltus checked, T.J. fired $300,000, and Saltus check-raised all-in. T.J. released his hand, and Saltus now had the lead at about $1.2 million to $800,000. T.J. managed to get a bit closer before the final hand you’ve already read about. The unthinkable had happened. Dropped in amongst three of the all-time great tournament players, the tournament novice had triumphed, as just as the crowd was wondering what T.J had done to deserve this fate so soon after the stunning loss to Chris Ferguson in the 2000 WSOP, Saltus made the speech that brought tears to eyes of many in the room. POKER KEEPS HIS COMPETITIVE SPIRIT ALIVE Saltus later made other comments, about how he’d been a high class competitive athlete when he’d been younger, but that when you hit 60, your body can’t compete the way your mind wants it too, and how he loves poker because it gives him that same chance to compete and get the blood flowing, and while these were all true and noteworthy enough, his emotional speech about cancer recovery left everyone in the room thinking that perhaps a different kind of champion had emerged from this years Tournament of Champions. For me, the importance of poker vs. the importance of more important things like life and health and family and friends can never be overemphasized, but I’ve never done it as eloquently, and from such a lofty platform, as our new champion had managed. It was such a reality check that it’s made me say “what the hell” (no ten-minute penalties here, I hope) and offer up an idea I had just a few weeks ago. THE OTHER ANDY G WAXES PHILOSOPHICAL For a 45 year-old heterosexual male who’s never been in a war, I probably have more experience with deaths of close friends than the vast majority of guys who would fit in with my description. I’ve delivered too many eulogies for too many people I’ve loved too much, and in a few cases, I’ve said things in the eulogies that I’d wished I’d told these folks while they were still around. So the idea hit me, not so long ago: why wait? Why not, maybe as a birthday present, instead of some useless knickknack, write out the eulogy you’d deliver for a close friend and give it to him or her? Yeah, you might be exposed as an old softie at heart, but you might grow a bond you’ll treasure for years, instead of living with regret for years at things you didn’t say when you had the chance. I have no idea how many people will read this, and of those, how many will think this oddball idea will make some sense, and of those, how many will actually carry through on it. I’d like to think at least a few will. I’m not smart enough to figure out why decent human beings like Brian Saltus get put through the things he’s been put through the last few years, but if his story gave me the guts to put my strange idea into print, maybe it makes a little more sense in a world that rarely does. If this idea helps enrich the lives of a few people, Brian, you should take it as another of those laurels you so richly earned today, and a modest repayment for the suffering you endured and triumphed over. Like Scotty would say, you earned it, baby, you earned it. |
