| A HOUSE BUILT WITH A DECK
For pictures of this event, please check out Mark Napolitano's videos
on the homepage.
There were 170 entries for a total prize pool of $311,239. 18 were paid.
FINAL TABLE
Seat/Player/Hometown/Chip Count
1 Amir Vahedi Las Vegas NV 66,500
2 Minh Nguyen Lake Elsinor CA 29,500
3 Barry Shulman Las Vegas NV 73,500
4 Cecilia Reyes Madrid, Spain 38,000
5 Frank Kassela Germantown TN 15,000
6 John Bonetti Houston TX 43,500
7 Doug Booth Bowling Green KY 10,500
8 Daniel Elwell Nashville TN 6,000
9 Terry Garner Hattiesburg MS 53,000
35:55 remained in the 500/1,500 level.
Oh, Amir, what am I going to do with you?
In the middle 90's Amir Vahedi, Sirous Baghchehsaraie, David Levi, me
and a cast of thousands used to play the small buy-ins at Hollywood and Crystal
Park casinos every day. These were my brothers in the dream of making it big
in poker. Arab and Jew, young and old, rich and poor. That was the poker melting
pot that proved to me that all human beings can get along, if they have the
same goal, even if they are trying to take each other's money.
First Amir Vahedi broke out of the ghetto of ‘unknown-ness.' I mean
he has his own bobble-head doll, now, for crying out loud. And last night while
playing in this event, the ultra-famous Amir was watching himself win the ‘Battle
of the Sexes' on the big screen in front of him. What a commentator! He
knew exactly what was going to happen before it did.
Now Sirous and David are breaking out, and I'm still writing tournament
reports.
Hmmm.
I love Amir because he gives me cigars, but I'm easily influenced. Anyway,
when Vahedi came to the Final Table today he was second in chips. He was late
coming to the table because he was also playing in the $3,000 No Limit that
had started four hours before. Uh, oh, I thought. Then he said something to
the effect that he didn't care that much about a $100,000 first prize when
the other game had a $300,000 first prize. Double uh, oh!
You guessed it. Amir Vahedi was the first one out in 9th. Then, naturally,
he busted out of the No Limit before the money. Second prize in this event,
where he'd already made the Final Table, paid $56,000. Instead, he got
$4,000 for 9th.
It certainly wasn't bad play on Amir's part. It took 37 hands to
get him and during that time he was in the small blind to a guy who was on fire.
Terry Garner, in the nine seat couldn't miss a hand with a bb gun at 100
yards. The killer for Vahedi was when he had the King high flush on the turn
and another Spade came on the river to promote Garner's A of Spade to the
nuts. Besides, as is common in these situations, the all-in bets won every time.
Still, 9th from 2nd is awfully unlucky. I wish my brother had only played one
game at a time. But Amir is a gambler with a capital G. Always has to be in
action.
Another name player who had a bad day was John Bonetti. He was burnt by the
same match that toasted Amir. No wins, and all the short stacks growing past
him. All that junk John gave us about learning to lose gracefully, when he was
an announcer, was forgotten by John when he was a player. Could anything have
been more predictable? Before John left in 8th, however, there was a funny scene.
Phil Hellmuth came in. He went directly to his dear friend Bonetti and whispered
in his ear. We all joked in unison, "One player to a hand." "No
advice." When John won a small all-in later, Phil yelled to John, "My
advice is to win the next hand, John" Phil Hellmuth is riding high in the
real world. Maybe that will finally relax him. Bonetti lasted until hand 57,
when he finally had to give it up with second pair on the flop. John had 6k
left in the big blind. He tossed in the remainder on the flop. Card Player magazine
publisher, Barry Shulman, flopped top pair and called.
It's wonderful to see John feeling well enough to roar like a lion, again,
but he roared at the wrong guy as usual. John was angry that there were only
three dealers in rotation for the Final Table. Bonetti didn't like being
beaten up by the same three people. The tournament director, David Eglseder,
didn't make that decision. So much for losing gracefully.
There were two amazing stories at this table. The first was Daniel Elwell's.
Amir Vahedi started with 66,000 in chips and finished 9th in a Limit Hold'em
game. Daniel Elwell started with 6,000 in chips and finished 7th. Actually it
took another river rat catch by the incendiary Terry Garner to eliminate Elwell,
or Daniel would have had a lot of chips. Daniel and Terry pounded each other
until Daniel was all-in on the turn. Elwell had A K and flopped a King with
two diamonds. Garner didn't care what Elwell had. He was going to the river
with his diamond flush draw. The board paired on the turn and a third diamond
rivered. Terry Garner couldn't lose. The deck was his friend.
I lost count of how many times Frank Kassela went all-in and won the hand.
It had to be nearly ten times, it seemed. Finally, Frank was short stacked yet
again. This time Kassela's chips were lost on a great read by Barry Shulman.
Somehow, on hand 84, Barry sensed that his fourth pair was good on a board of
J 5 4 10 9 with three diamonds. Shulman had raised from the cutoff spot with
6 5 offsuit. He took a tremendous amount of heat with his pair of 5's,
looking at a flush and straight possibility along with four overcards. Wow!
Barry called Frank's river bet immediately. Kassela couldn't believe
Barry's hand. Frank showed an A Q before mucking. On hand 101, Kassela's
string of successful all-ins was broken when Cecilia Reyes found a poker-playing
girl's best friend—diamonds--and flushed Frank out in 6th with A J
over pocket Jacks.
With her husband Juan Carlos Mortensen sitting behind her, Senora de Mortensen
went on a precipitous slide right into 5th place. The stunning Cecelia, with
her golden locks, couldn't win a hand after the flush. She became more
frustrated with every loss. She lost all of her beautiful composure, before
she lost her last chips. Good thing I don't know any Spanish swearwords,
my ears would have been burning. Carlos is going to have to listen to bad beat
stories all night. The winner of this event a few years ago, Reyes was all-in
for her big blind on hand 116, where she couldn't beat Minh Nguyen's
pocket 7's.
Four hands later, the second amazing story at this table, Doug Booth (who started
with only 10,000 in chips) couldn't survive any longer. Doug made an extra
$20k for his pluck and luck. Doug went all-in with any Ace and was outkicked
by the drilling dentist/land developer from Hattieburg Terry Garner. Booth needed
a stale after his A 4 of Spades couldn't even split with Terry's A
10 offsuit. Like Elwell, Booth had a great run sitting in front of the hot guy
Garner.
Three handed they split the money on a chip count basis and played for the
bracelet and WPT entry. That was the problem. Terry Garner had over half the
chips and he wanted the win, but he didn't want to play in the final. Unfortunately,
Garner didn't know the rule in advance that the winner gets a reserved
seat in his name only. He couldn't win the event, take the bracelet that
his wife was looking at, and then sell the seat.
I wondered why Barry Shulman took the money. His response was a classic. "You
can't have too much ego in these things. I had 23% of the chips and was
getting better than 2nd place money." Barry? Can't have too much ego?
In the same paragraph, I was speechless. LOL.
As a competitive person, Barry knows no equal. We've seen that in his
business. We see it when he plays. Someone asked him to smile early at this
table, "I can't, I'm working." He only softens up when Allyn,
his wife, comes in to give him a kiss. In a scene that could have gotten ugly,
but thankfully didn't, Barry took offense at the loud whoop and hand clap
that Terry Garner did when Terry's third set of Kings held up. Barry berated
Terry, a brand new tournament player, for ‘unsportsmanlike conduct. No
one would like to see players act with more class than I, but in my opinion,
Terry wasn't out of line. He was just imitating what he saw players do
on television. Terry Garner is a highly successful dentist and land developer.
He could have reacted just as angrily, but instead he calmed down, said he didn't
know he was being offensive and he offered his hand to Barry, who took it. As
a businessman, feigning anger is a tremendously effective way to control situations.
I'm going to choose to believe Barry was on a move to rattle a hot player.
Shulman got a nice raise over second place money and went out third when he
couldn't win a hand. Typically, on hand 133 Terry Garner made a monster
to end Barry day. With K Q, Terry Garner'd a K Q on the flop and a Queen
on the turn. .In the end all was cordial between Barry and Terry as all three
tried to figure out how to solve Garner's final event problem. Heads up, Terry had a 2-1 chip lead on Minh Nguyen. It took another 60 hands
but the incredible cards Garner was dealt finally wore Nguyen down.
Terry Garner is going to have to cancel his appointment Monday at least. He's
playing in the final, probably with his wife wearing the bracelet.
They just stacked off a few times at the end until Terry won a hand to finish
building his prize winning house with a deck. |
