No Limit on (and for) 27 Survivors' Abilities
Day 2, July 25, 2000
By Andy Glazer
Successful tournament poker players need lots of different kinds of poker skills, and the ability to change gears is probably right near the top of the list. In any poker tournament, the constantly advancing blinds (and/or antes), player movement, and shifting stack sizes mean a player has to be able to shift from slow to fast and back again, sometimes within a matter of minutes.
In the Tournament of Champions, that need for mental and emotional flexibility is tested to the nth degree, because of the additional complication of shifting from limit hold'em to limit stud to limit Omaha 8 or better. Not only do you have to know three different games, you have to be able to shift between them every half hour.
Now that the Fab 27 have proven their ability to shift gears among these three limit games, they're going to have to show us something else tomorrow-one more shift, to no-limit hold 'em.
There are few unknowns among the finalists, something second chip leader Mike Matusow commented on when we got down to four tables. "Look around," he said. "We all know just about everyone here. Everyone left can play."
Everyone can play, and now everyone will play the greatest skill game of them all. We should be in for a great show tomorrow. So how did we get there?
We started play today with 184 players, and the first moment of note came when player #80 was knocked out. That left Gloria Tschetschot as the sole remaining woman, and the winner of the diamond earrings donated by Russ Hamilton. About 30 minutes later, though, Gloria lost a big pot on a bad beat, and we were left with an all-male run for the money.
When the dinner break arrived, we had 47 players left, and with 45 scheduled to finish in the money, the meal and break were a bit tense for the short stacks, and I'm not hypothesizing, because I was one of them. As Matusow sat with us at the buffet, he started relating a bad beat story.
"Mike," I said (with a grin, as he's a poker cruise pal), "those of us with $25,000 are not interested in hearing bad beat stories from guys with $160,000."
Mr. Matusow is nothing if not sharp and aware, and got the message. He didn't bring up any more bad beat stories for at least five minutes.
Once play resumed, we avoided the lengthy hand-for-hand situation of six tables trying to eliminate player #46 when #47 and #46 got eliminated on the same hand. When the redraw was completed, the tables and chip counts were:
Table 52
| | 1. Young Phan | $89,900 |
| 2. Jeff Shulman | $39,700 |
| 3. Diego Cordovez | $49,400 |
| 4. Jim McDermott | $19,800 |
| 5. Alan Colon | $80,700 |
| 6. Jim Pechac | $23,000 |
| 7. Tex Flaniken | $25,700 |
| 8. Ray Greene | $55,700 |
| 9. Anthony Hamilton | $128,700 |
Table 53
| 1. Hassan Habib | $45,000 |
| 2. Tex Morgan | $37,100 |
| 3. Tom McCormick | $6,000 |
| 4. Alvin High | $37,000 |
| 5. Spencer Sun | $72, 400 |
| 6. Marc Durand | $34,700 |
| 7. Yoshihisa Saito | $25,300 |
| 8. Chip Jett | $38,000 |
| 9. Henry Nowakowski | $79,600 |
Table 54
| 1. Louis Asmo | $31,700 |
| 2. Mike Shi | $8,700 |
| 3. Sam Grizzle | $36,000 |
| 4. Takashi Kobayasi | $17,600 |
| 5. Simon Zhang | $93,500 |
| 6. Russ Salzer | $67,200 |
| 7. Bill Munger | $36,000 |
| 8. Gene Timberlake | $53,000 |
| 9. David Plastic | $21,000 |
Table 55
| 1. Vasili Lazarou | $97,700 |
| 2. Kevin Song | $150,700 |
| 3. Bill Fain | $63,900 |
| 4. Laurent Besnainou | $24,900 |
| 5. Andy Glazer | $16,700 |
| 6. Greg Sellgren | $51,900 |
| 7. Fred Coleman | $57,000 |
| 8. Bob Mangino | $88,900 |
| 9. Hans Pfister | $107,000 |
Table 56
| 1. Josh Arieh | $72,700 |
| 2. Todd Bleak | $40,700 |
| 3. Mike Matusow | $170,900 |
| 4. Jan Boubli | $47,600 |
| 5. Simon Trumper | $16,800 |
| 6. Jean-Bernard Bot | $86,000 |
| 7. Johnny Davis | $14,900 |
| 8. Roy Thung | $50,000 |
| 9. Steve Zolotow | $24,000 |
With the final 45 set, the International Cup, awarded to the nation (other than the U.S.) having most finishers in the money was decided. France defended the title it won last year by playing Boubli, Besnainou, and Bernard in the money, but was given a close run by the UK and Japan, which each placed two in the money: Trumper and Hamilton for the UK, Kobayasi and Saito for Japan.
The usual collection of bad beats, great plays, great beats and bad plays knocked out the fifth table relatively quickly. Finishing 37th-45th, and taking home $4,000 each, were (in order of highest finish to lowest): Sam Grizzle, Greg Sellgren, Tex Morgan, Jeff Shulman, Johnny Davis, Tom McCormick, Jim Pechac, Simon Trumper, and Steve Zolotow.
Table four also went down relatively quickly. Your author made a valiant comeback, only to lose a monster pot that would have put me right back in the hunt, on a three-outer. As I quickly realized, though, if I had three-bet the dumb hand before the flop, and/or raised on the flop, the way I was supposed to, my small-blind nemesis almost certainly wouldn't have been around for the draw out, so unlike most poker heroes who get to exit only due to the incredible good fortune of their opponents, I lost because of one and probably two bad plays. Live and learn.
Finishing 28th -36th, and taking home $6,000 each, were (in order of highest finish to lowest): David Plastik, Chip Jett, Marc Durand, Tex Flaniken, Todd Bleak, James McDermott, Mike Shi, Andy Glazer, Alvin High.
The Fab 27 take the follow seats tomorrow, with ammunition as indicated:
Table 1
| 1. Spencer Sun | $132,200 |
| 2. Diego Cordovez | $48,200 |
| 3. Takeshi Kobayashi | $84,900 |
| 4. Russ Salzer | $92,200 |
| 5. Mike Matusow | $210,000 |
| 6. Roy Thung | $26,700 |
| 7. Hassan Habib | $120,000 |
| 8. Kevin Song | $222,500 |
| 9. Alan Colon | $39,000 |
Table 2
| 1. Robert Mangino | $82,000 |
| 2. Bill Munger | $20,900 |
| 3. Fred Coleman | $97,000 |
| 4. Vasili Lazarou | $84,600 |
| 5. Bill Fain | $83,400 |
| 6. Jan Boubli | $101,000 |
| 7. Jean-Bernard Bot | $107,000 |
| 8. Louis Asmo | $46,200 |
| 9. Young Phan | $111,000 |
Table 3
| 1. Henry Nowakowski | $146,300 |
| 2. Simon Zhang | $66,900 |
| 3. Ray Greene | $125,500 |
| 4. Laurent Besnainou | $33,700 |
| 5. Anthony Hamilton | $150,900 |
| 6. Josh Arieh | $148,300 |
| 7. Gene Timberlake | $4,700 |
| 8. Yoshihisa Saito | $7,200 |
| 9. Hans Pfister | $47,200 |
Two of our survivors are repeaters from last year: both Louis Asmo and Jan Boubli made the final table in the 1999 TOC. Yep, this game is just all luck.
Although the published schedule originally called for play to start at a higher level, because of the relatively low number of entrants, tournament management decided to start play with $200 antes and $1,500-$3,000 blinds, a step down from today's finish, to "make it less of a shootout and allow for a greater skill factor." The players loudly applauded this decision.
In another groundbreaking move, Mike Sexton designated, before the tournament, $50 (2.5%) of each $2,000 entry fee to go towards dealer tips, eliminating the chance that the dealers could be stiffed by busted out players who weren't feeling generous in the moment of defeat. "We're very proud to be the first tournament to do this," Mike said. "It's a certainty that the dealers will appreciate if anyone wants to tip more, and my feeling is that the very top finishers probably will, but no one needs to feel obligated, because the dealers have already been taken care of, at least at a reasonable minimum level."
The prize payouts will be:
| 1st | $239,400 |
| 2nd | $119,700 |
| 3rd | $71,820 |
| 4th | $47,880 |
| 5th | $35,910 |
| 6th | $29,925 |
| 7th | $23,940 |
| 8th | $17,955 |
| 9th | $11,970 |
| 10th-18th | $10,000 |
| 19th-27th | $8,000 |
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