| A FAIR FIGHT
When the Final Table formed today, there were three Texans and seven non-Texans sitting at it. Why, down Texas way son, that's what we'd call…a fair fight.
There were 107 entrants in the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha for a total prize pool of $502,900. Two tables were paid, a total of 18 players.
It looked like the French were the only Europeans to show up. Not true. This is the WSOP. With a $5,000 buy-in, the stars of poker from around the world are sure to attend. Here are some of the 'names' who played but didn't get paid: Jim Bechtel, Lyle Berman, Chris Bjorin, Barny and Ross Boatman, Humberto Brenes, John Cernuto, Eskimo Clark, TJ Cloutier, Claude Cohen, Allen Cunningham, Paul Darden, Ian Dobson, Chris Ferguson, Layne Flack, Ted Forrest, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, John Kabbaj, Robin Keston, Jim Lester, Kathy Liebert, O'Neal Longson, Marcel Luske, Elie Marciano, Tom McEvoy, John McIntosh, Men Nguyen, Scotty Nguyen, Amarillo Slim, Ben Roberts, Erik Seidel, Mike Sexton, Johan Storaakers, Surinder Sunar, Dewey Tomko, Simon Trumper, David Ulliott, Ram Vaswani, Steve Zolotow.
To setup the Final Table Monday night, French movie star/singer Patrick Bruel had A K. The all-in Ralph Perry was completely dominated with K Q.
THE FINAL TABLE 12 mins left of 75. The blinds were $1,000/$2,000
Seat# -- Player------- Hometown------- Chip Count
Seat 1) Ken Flaton - Las, Vegas NV. $88,000
Seat 2) Issam Tannouri - Paris, France. $39,000
Seat 3) Robert Williamson III - Dallas, TX. $103,000
Seat 4) Patrick Bruel - Paris, France. $88,500
Seat 5) Berry Johnston - Las Vegas, NV. $51,000
Seat 6) Johnny Chan - Houston, TX. $47,000
Seat 7) Jacky Chitwood - Calina, TN. $44,000
Seat 8) Chau Giang - Las Vegas, NV. $30,500
Seat 9) Reza Daeipour - Paris, France. $34,500
Seat 10) John Bonetti - Houston, TX. $10,000
You'd have thought you were watching a tournament at the Aviation Club in Paris rather than one at the WSOP. To have three Frenchmen and no other Europeans at the table appeared bizarre. You could forgive the Parisians
for thinking that it was the Americans who had come to visit them at their home Club in Paris, not them coming to Las Vegas.
This report could have been called "Waiting For Aces, the Sequel" after the last Pot-Limit Omaha we had. Pocket Aces seems to be the only hand these fellas have enough confidence in to bet with any vigor. From the beginning we were seeing maybe three or four showdowns an hour. It was 'bet and take it' or 'bet, call, bet out and take it.' Seeing a turn card was cause for crowd jubilation.
The only thing that stops this process from taking forever is the increasing blinds. The short stacks are eventually forced to make a move. That's what happened to Reza Daeipour. He was running low on ammunition so he reraised
all-in from the small blind with A Q 7 3. Jacky Chitwood had the Aces this time and covered Reza. To no one's surprise, the Aces were good. Aces up sent one of three Parisians out for café au lait..
In a brief appearance by 'The Lion' John Bonetti, we didn't get to hear him roar. "I did the best I could, " John said. He did well to move up to 9th with only $10,000. Chau Giang seemed to be the only player with guts and imagination. He saw how tight this table was and stole plenty of chips with raises. Caught on a steal attempt from the button by Bonetti's all-in, Giang turned over J 10 10 5. Bonetti had a high wrap with K Q J 9. With three overcards, John figured to win this hand, but it didn't happen. The 10's played as 10's up when the board came low and paired.
There were 18 bracelets at this table to commence. Six of them belonged to the 'Chinese Wall' Johnny Chan. Today "the Orient Express" was derailed by lack of cards. In one hand where he said he had K K, Johnny couldn't call a 'pot' raise after the flop by John Williamson when it came Q 10 9. Chau Giang, who'd survived a couple of all-in hands early to accumulate a healthy stack with his aggressive play, reraised Johnny all-in with Q J 9 8. Chan had A 10 10 8. The wall crumbled in 8th as Giang made Jacks full of 9's. Now, we were down to only one Texan out of seven players. But that Texan was the confident chip leader. When he heard us discussing the loss of two Texans, Robert Williamson looked over to the writer's area and said,"I'm the anchor."
In Pot-Limit Omaha, the hand that gets whacked the most it seems is pocket Kings. The 'Ace-Magnets' were working overtime today. Issam Tannouri loves to show his hand. It caused some tension at the other end of the table, as they wanted to see it also. Finally, Steve Morrow was able to convince Issam that he'd get a penalty if he didn't quit. Frustrated by not being able to speak French between hands as well, Tannouri seemed almost relieved to find pocket Kings in his hand and to go all-in. Issam's good buddy, Patrick Bruel, did the honors with (of course) pocket Aces. Issam got to go to a less restrictive game in 7th.
Everyone had chips now, so it was an hour of 'bet and take it.' In this game, if you don't take enough turns you lose. Jacky Chitwood didn't take enough turns of 'bet and take it.' Jacky was the only player at the table from the real world. All the rest were either from Paris, Texas or Las Vegas. Chitwood is probably the best poker player in Calina Tennessee, but Jacky didn't have enough chips to
stop Ken Flaton in the big blind from calling his short stack all-in with an underpair and getting there.
During an early break, Berry Johnston went over to someone in the stands and said, "Isn't it unbelievable? I'm getting nothing." The great Johnston, with a record 45 cashes at the WSOP, couldn't even limp in against the big blind. Berry being Berry, he just kept tossing that garbage away until he had no choice but to play. Patrick Bruel flipped in the last $3k to cover Johnston's all-in. Berry had the dreaded pocket Kings. They don't need to find Aces to lose. These Kings lost to 7's and 6's to give Berry the berries in 5th.
Being French, Patrick Bruel wanted to stop for a dinner break. But Bob Williamson sensed that Chau Giang was getting antsy. Bob thought Giang would make a move to either get more chips or go to a big, live game somewhere
else. Williamson was correct. Giang did make a move. And for once pocket Kings held up. That's because Chau's move didn't have an Ace with it. Giang went all-in with a high wrap, Q J 10 9. If he'd had an Ace, he would have
cracked the pocket Kings again. The high straight didn't materialize and Chau was free in 4th to go make real money.
With Chau Giang gone, the remaining three chopped up the prize money on chip count and played for pocket change and the bracelet. Suddenly, a game that had been so s-l-o-w got very fast. Pocket Kings found a new way to lose for Ken Flaton. He was all-in with the unlucky pair and lost to Bob
Williamson's Q's and 10's. "Remember The Alamo!" Bob Williamson was the only player of the last five without a bracelet. He'd said he was "the achor" when it was 6-1 against Texas. Now it was 1-1. Paris had Patrick Bruel and he was on a mission to save his countries future. "When I won in 1998," Patrick said, "France won the World Cup two months later. So it is very important that I win today for France." Bruel was afraid if he lost, France would lose the 2002 World Cup that's being played this summer. Stay tuned 'cause Patrick lost. He should have known better than play pocket Kings. The next new way they lost was to the nut straight by Bob Williamson with a 7 5.
Maybe three Texans against seven non-Texans ISN"T a fair fight after all.
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