| [Report kindly submitted by Max Shapiro]
'Jerry T' Gets By in Limit Hold'em With a Little Help from His Friend
"Jerry T" is a Las Vegas club disc jockey and pro player whose only tournament wins until now have been in several of the Mirage's "Poker Zone" daily events. Then, playing in a regular $40-$80 game, he came to admire the skills of Raymond Davis, a local pro. "I want to be one of the best," Davis recalls Jerry saying as he asked for help and advice.
Davis, seeing he was a bright and eager young man, began tutoring him. "I also had to keep him in the game because he was a live one," he joked. In any event, his protégé proved an apt student as he ran off with the sixth event of Hustler Casino's Challenge Cup, limit hold'em, which paid $27,515 for first place. He got into it by winning a satellite and then never had to rebuy. Davis was there coaching him all the way, reinforcing some of his personal strategy tips such as: Avoid getting into raising wars with big pairs and just see the flop; don't play pairs smaller than 9s; and avoid multi-way pots.
Jerry T had plenty of chips throughout and was never in trouble. His big break came at the third table when he pulled in a big pot with kings-full.
The final table for tonight's $60,000-guaranteed, multi-rebuy event didn't start until 4 a.m., but then took only 47 minutes to finish. It began with nine instead of the usual 10 players when two got knocked out simultaneously. At one of the second tables, Frankie O'Dell eliminated Wayne Chang by flopping a set of treys while at the other, William Kim busted Qin Li with pocket 9s. Both players pocketed $1,085.
The final table started with $1,500 and $3,000 blinds and limits of $3,000-$6,000, a full 40 minutes remaining. There was no lack of action from the beginning. In the first round of play, four players went broke in three consecutive hands. On hand seven, Charles Khoury was very short-chipped after folding on the river the hand before. Now in the big blind, he went all in with a respectable As, Js against Sam Pyo's K-3. A flop of J-4-3 put Khoury in the lead, but then a king on the river gave Pyo a winning two pair. Ninth place was worth $1,265 for Khoury.
On the next hand, Pyo raised and Tony Assali re-raised all in with Ac, 6s. "Mickey Mouse," making his third final table appearance, called, as did Pyo. The flop produced a scary K-Q-10, all spades. Pyo bet, holding Q-9. Mickey Mouse, with an ace of spades and a 9, raised all in on his nut flush draw. A 7c and 10c were dealt, and two more players left the room. The mouse, an attorney in charge of a real estate investment trust, pocketed $2,170 for finishing seventh. Assali, a restaurateur, dealer and pro player, got $1,810 for eighth.
Then, on the very next hand, Kim raised $1,500 all in with K-9 and was called by Vinnie Landrum with A-K and Patsy Vanada with Q-J. Patsy bet out when a flop of Q-5-5 paired her queen. Landrum called, but then gave it up when Patsy bet fourth street after an 8 was dealt. No king came on the river to save him, and Kim finished sixth, collecting $2,895.
Patsy owns a restaurant in Jackson, California, which is near Sacramento. The high point in her poker life came when she won $10,300 for third place in a Bay 101 event five years ago on her birthday. Today she showed her guts by refusing to be bluffed. She called a raise by Pyo with A-5, bet a flop of J-6-2, then called his bets when a 6 turned and a deuce rivered as her ace-high beat his Q-5 bluff.
On hand 14, Landrum again held the A-K he had earlier folded. This time he went with it, and it led him to the exit. Holding Q-9, O'Dell put him all in for $5,600 when a Q-2-4 flopped. A 10 and a 5 were no help, and Landrum finished fifth, which paid $3,620.
"What a flop!" Jerry T exulted after a pot where he cut down Patsy's stack of chips. He had K-Q and made a nut straight when a J-10-9 came. On the flop, he just called Patsy's bet, then raised when a 5 turned. When a jack came on the river, she gave it up.
A few hands later, Jerry and Patsy both called Pyo's raise. "Gamble," Tony said, though he wasn't gambling that much with pocket jacks. After the board came 8-3-2-3-7, Patsy, holding just ace-high, was left with under $5,000 in chips. That went all in on the next hand. Jerry T had A-2, Patsy had K-J, and when the board showed 9-8-3-7-6, the table was down to three finalists.
Jerry T had $108,900 in chips to $70,000 for O'Dell and $49,200 for Pyo, who is in the import-export business. After some discussion, the three agreed to a tournament-ending deal.
A little wrangling did ensue over the question of who got the trophy. Until this event, whenever a Challenge Cup ended before one player had all the chips, the trophy had been decided by a hand of showdown. Jerry T, as the chip leader, was anxious to take possession of his first title with the showdown, but O'Dell said he didn't like giving up trophies. He finally relented, and event number six was in the books.
Afterwards, O'Dell, a devout born-again Christian, said he wanted it to be noted that he was thanking his lord and savior for "blessing" him. Jerry T's thanks, less spiritual but just as heartfelt, went to Raymond Davis. --Max Shapiro
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