Poker Champion Tells Story of Dead Money
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Poker champion tells story of dead money Humberto Brenes had just deposited four neat stacks of blue USD 1,000 chips in the middle of the green felt. Raise, USD 70,000. Moneymaker studied him again through his sunglasses. Brenes was one of the best no-limit Texas Hold ‚em players in the world. Moneymaker was a rank amateur who’d never played in a live tournament. Truthfully, he was scared to death. But after qualifying on the Internet for the World Series of Poker’s championship event, the 27-year-old Tennessee accountant had somehow made it to Day Four, just one day from the final table, outlasting 794 of the world’s best poker players. Now he sensed Brenes was bluffing. He took a breath. „I raise you all your chips“ — about USD 120,000. Breaking into a grin and wagging his finger at Moneymaker, Brenes said, „I call.“ Moneymaker felt sick. Professional poker players have a name for the hundreds of wannabes who plunk down the USD 10,000 buy-in at the Big One every year. „Dead money,“ they call them. Some 50 million Americans play poker, whether in penny antes at family reunions or USD 10-USD 20 limit games at the local union hall. Many fancy themselves to be pretty good. But the leap to poker’s biggest stage – the World Series at Binion’s Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas each May – is like sandlot to the major leagues. Moneymaker’s unlikely journey began three months earlier at his modest home in Spring Hill, Tenn. With USD 40 from his online gaming account, he sat down in front of his computer to play in a tournament on Pokerstars.com. Despite questions of its legality, online gaming is booming in this country, a USD 4 billion a year industry. More than a million Americans place bets daily on the Internet. Moneymaker was a Pokerstars regular, using the handle „Money800.“ As he struggled to learn the intricacies of no- limit Texas Hold ‚em, he’d lost more than USD 15,000 in the past year. In college, he’d been a sports gambling addict, winning and losing more than USD 50,000. His then-girlfriend, now wife, Kelly, finally delivered an ultimatum: sports betting or me. Poker seemed safer than wagering on sports scores – and even other casino games of chance like blackjack and baccarat. Poker is primarily a game of skill. The house has no built-in advantage; players match up against each other. True, luck is involved, but the game is much more like chess, another game Moneymaker used to play. He assured Kelly he’d get it eventually. Most poker novices start out in „limit“ games – USD 3-USD 6 or USD 10-USD 20 – which can be mechanical. It’s when betting goes „no limit“ that Hold ‚em moves into the realm of art – and becomes expensive. Knowing what cards to play is just the beginning. There’s also understanding when to mix things up, reading other players and bluffing. For a good no-limit player, it often doesn’t even matter what cards he has. Could Moneymaker ever be one of the best? With his short brown hair, babyface and medium build, Moneymaker looks the part of the regular Joe. He works in a cramped office above a Nashville restaurant and learned to play mostly by watching others. He labored to improve. His daily routine: Come home from work, change, hole up in the study to play. If he caught a good run of cards, he might play all night. Soon Kelly was demanding that he cut back – and not just online. In one particularly tough beat last spring, he lost USD 4,000 at a casino. With a baby on the way, USD 12,000 in credit card debt and mortgage payments, it was money they didn’t have. Kelly was livid. She took over control of their finances. He slept on the couch for a week. But Moneymaker had what most good poker players have, a short memory. The Pokerstars tournament he sat down to play in February dangled a tantalizing prize: The winner out of 18 players got a free pass to enter a bigger USD 615 buy-in tournament for a seat in the Big One. To his mild surprise, he won. The next weekend, it was the USD 615 buy-in. When he finally put out his last competitor at 10 p.m., Kelly was there to celebrate with him. It wasn’t until the next morning that Moneymaker realized what he’d done. Scraping together the airfare and hotel costs would be hard; his chances of winning anything almost nil. His father, Mike, agreed to „buy“ a part of his seat for USD 2,000, in exchange for a portion of his winnings. Another friend gave him USD 2,000; another, USD 500. In May, two weeks after sitting for his CPA exam, Moneymaker and an old fraternity buddy, Bruce Peery, flew to Vegas. When the World Series of Poker began in 1970, it was a handful of high-stakes gamblers who made a living in smoky back rooms. They were friends of Vegas pioneer Benny Binion. Over time, poker began to shed its outlaw image, finding legitimacy in elegant card rooms and casinos. The World Series grew accordingly. Recently, the Internet and The Travel Channel’s runaway hit, „World Poker Tour,“ have elevated interest. Located in fading downtown Las Vegas, Binion’s is five miles from the opulent Strip where most of the tourists now go. The casino caters mostly to working class locals. Moneymaker was surprised by how rundown the place looked and that his room had no air conditioning. He found Benny’s Bullpen, the old bingo hall that houses the tournament, on the second floor. His plan was to use the USD 4,500 he’d brought to play some satellite tournaments, smaller events that offer players without deep pockets a shot at winning seats at the Big One or earning cash. For Moneymaker, they were a chance to practice his shaky live game. Playing live differs from playing in cyberspace mainly because of the importance of „tells,“ the physical tics and twitches that betray even the best players. Over the next few days, Moneymaker managed to win a few satellites, but then squandered most of his cash betting on sports. Over the phone, Kelly warned him not to pull money from their bank account. On Monday morning, Moneymaker joined the scrum of players waiting to register: 839 players from 27 countries, a record number. This year was the first in which Internet players were represented in large numbers – several dozen. The turnout meant the top 63 places would be paid. The runner- up would win USD 1.3 million. The champion would get a USD 2.5 million check. The object of Hold ‚em is to make the best five-card hand out of seven cards dealt. That sounds simpler than it is. Here’s how the game is played: Each player is dealt two „hole cards“ face down. One player puts up a bet, called the „small blind.“ The next player to the right is required to post double that, the „big blind,“ setting up an initial pot. Based on his hole cards, each subsequent player decides whether to „raise,“ „fold,“ or „call,“ meaning match the previous bet. Next, three community cards, „the flop,“ are shown face up, followed by another round of betting. Then, a fourth shared card, called „the turn,“ is flipped over. Finally, a fifth shared card, „fifth street“ or „the river.“ Both the turn and river have their own betting rounds. In the World Series, players start with USD 10,000 in chips and play until they lose them all. By the end of Day 1, just playing patiently, Moneymaker had accumulated USD 60,000 in chips, good enough for 11th place. Elated, he called his wife, who’d been following his progress online. Maybe with some luck, he said, he could finish in the money. Day 2 brought more of the same. Without catching great cards, Moneymaker chugged along, stealing pots with raises, folding respectfully when he needed to. With two hours left in the day, two players joined the table. Moneymaker recognized Johnny Chan, the legendary player featured in the poker movie „Rounders“ and the last repeat champion of the Big One. The other new player was Phil Ivey, winner of four smaller World Series events at age 27. The pair proceeded to stage a Hold ‚em clinic, shrinking Moneymaker’s stack from USD 187,000 to USD 109,000. Staggering from the table, Moneymaker felt like he’d been in a prize fight. In his hotel room, he took stock. He’d been playing scared, he realized. He vowed to play aggressively. „I’m not going to be run over anymore,“ he said. It didn’t help when he learned the next morning that he was at the ESPN table, rigged with microphones and cameras for the network’s later broadcast. Still, Moneymaker came out aggressively, taking USD 75,000 early on from the table’s biggest stack. Just before the dinner break, he found himself pitted against Chan. This time, Moneymaker was less nervous. With a pair of aces and good a chance at a flush – five cards of the same suit – he coolly made a small bet so Chan would think his hand was weak. Chan responded by raising him back. Yesterday, he would have folded, but this time, after waiting a few seconds, Moneymaker bet all his chips, pushing his stack toward the middle.