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Welcome to the dance – The Big Dance –
a World Poker Tour (WPT) final table. I’ll take
you through flops, crazy turns, and across some wild
rivers towards the realization of a dream – the
dream of journeying to a WPT final table. The Bicycle
Club, known simply as “The Bike” to all
the local felt dwellers, recently completed its annual
“Legends” championship series with record
numbers in attendance. The $5,000 main event drew a
field of 839 runners, coincidentally the exact same
number of entrants in the main event of the 2003 World
Series of Poker, in which I finished 38th.
A few years ago – I think it was in 2001 –
Phil Gordon and I were traveling the wilds of darkest
Africa. It was a tempestuous time in our lives, both
of us braving the wilderness in the name of adventure,
unaware where it would take us. Somewhere along that
crooked and unmarked path, perhaps near the mist of
Victoria Falls, Phil turned to me and said, in an ominous
tone, “If we make it out of Africa alive, there
will be nothing left to conquer.” While I was
reflecting gloomily on this prospect, Phil said something
that I will never, ever forget. He said, ‘Rafe…
unless… of course… we do what no man has
done since the beginning of history… we take an
RV across America!’
Day 1
I got to my table just as the first card was pitched
from the deck and saw no one I recognized other than
a friend I’ve played with for the past couple
of years. He took up residence two to my left. I started
out folding almost everything the first hour and established
a pretty solid image at my table. This is reflected
in one of the most bizarre events that has ever happened
to me in ten years of poker. After nearly doubling my
stack to around 18,000, and with the blinds at 50-100,
I made it 350 to go from the cut off. The button, who
has been playing tight but timid, raised me 2,000 from
his above average stack of 14,000. It seemed like a
scared bet to me and, when the blinds both folded and
the action was back to me, I decided to take a stand
with my AK, and fire back 8,000 checks. I was feeling
confident and comfortable. I contemplated saying something
to talk him into the hand, but decided to just keep
quiet and let him decide his own fate, as it seemed
to me that I would be facing a race situation. But,
after realizing that he would have to put all his chips
at risk this early in the tournament (since I had him
covered), he decided to fold and meekly turned over
two kings and threw them in the muck face up. “Wow!
How can you fold that hand?” I said, in surprise,
and then proceeded to stammer around as if I had aces
and pretended to be disappointed that I didn’t
get a call. One thing I certainly didn’t want
to do was get the guy directly on my left upset by letting
him know that he threw away the best hand. So instead
of my stack being down to around 4,000, where it was
supposed to be, it was now increased to just over 20,000
and I had a sense that something special was happening
to me.
About 15 minutes later, after losing a couple of small
pots, another strange thing happened. With the blinds
still at 50/100, a really tight player with a stack
of about 15,000 brought it in for 300. A rather loose
player on his left, who I’ve been involved with
in a couple of large pots already, flat called 300 of
his 12,000 stack and everyone else folded to me on the
button. I looked down to find two black aces! I was
almost certain that the under-the-gun raiser had a big
hand, perhaps jacks or queens and my creative mind started
to flow. I thought to myself, “If I make some
bizarre out of line play here after losing my last two
pots, I might just get called. I decided that the most
bizarre thing to do would be to suddenly move my 18,000
chips all-in, in an attempt to win the 750 in the middle.
After about two minutes, the under-the-gun raiser showed
two kings to the player on his right and mucked! The
remaining player who had flat called now went into “the
tank” and started mumbling about how he should
call but doesn’t want to take the risk and, after
about a minute, he too threw his hand face up into the
muck. The hand – TWO KINGS! Unbelievable! I almost
fell out of my chair when it was confirmed that both
players had mucked two kings before the flop in the
same hand!
That made it three different players in less than an
hour to lay down pocket kings to me without ever seeing
a flop. It was quite evident at that point that nobody
wanted to go broke on this table, which gave me permission
to take whatever I needed. I had it easy time for the
rest of the day and ended day one with 47,000 in chips
– well above the 25,000 average.
Day 2: ‘I’m in the mood for dancing…’
We were going to play down to the money (63 players)
and, starting the day with over 300, it figured to be
a long day. Today’s table was much tougher, with
a few local professionals both on my right and left.
Even though I was chip leader at my table, I knew that
I was in for a rough day. Nothing I tried seemed to
work. I would occasionally take down a small pot which
would bring me near to my starting chipcount for the
day, but I was never ahead. In fact, after playing for
nearly eight hours, the average chips had moved to around
85,000, whilst I was down to 40,000. The field had lapped
me. I was, by now, feeling quite frustrated. I was doing
battle with my psyche which was telling me to just push
all-in and get it over with. “Double up or go
home,” it was saying to me. Instead of a battle
of minds, I was in a battle with my own mind and I realized
I was facing the toughest opponent of all: myself. After
nearly a half-hour struggle, I won the battle by laying
down two jacks to a pre-flop raise and I instantly felt
more confident, knowing I was back in control of my
self-discipline. My turnaround hand came soon after.
With the blinds at 800/1600 with a 300 ante, I picked
up pocket kings and made it 3,500 to go from the middle.
Everyone folded to the big blind, who called my modest
raise with 8-6 suited. The flop fell 8-5-4 and he checked.
I bet, got check-raised all-in and, when the dust settled,
I had doubled up to over 80,000! It felt as though a
bag of bricks was lifted from my back. My table suddenly
parted like the Red Sea and I started “felting”
some of my opponents. I finished the day in the money
with over 125,000 in checks.
Day 3: ‘Dancing on the ceiling…’
It’s always more comfortable to play
from a position in which you can only improve your finances.
With all the remaining players now in the money, it
was time to make a move, as we were playing down to
the final six coveted spots on the TV table, and an
automatic admission into the Professional Poker Tour.
Many players fell off quickly and, as I looked around,
most of the recognizable pros had headed to the rail;
however, one that remained was on my left: Max Pescatori,
the Italian Pirate. Knowing how dangerous Max is, I
decided to wait for a hand to make a stand. Early on,
I found two queens and made a large raise from the cut
off. Max, who had me covered by about 40,000, re-raised
me with AQ and I pushed. Max called, and once again
my hand stood up and I moved into a dominant chip position
on my table. I improved further with a big suck out.
I raised on the button with A-J and got re-raised from
the small blind. I figured this player might be on a
move, so I moved in, as I had him covered by quite a
bit and my raise was large enough for him to get away.
But it was no move – he had…TWO KINGS! I
suck out when an ace flops and now I realize why the
other players all laid down the kings to me before the
flop. Just kidding!
When we reached the final ten I was in the middle of
the pack. Tim Pham had been taking players out two-at-a-time
and had built his stack to over three million.
Summer was coming to a close, but the room was hot
and filled with tension. The Bike had these big fans
going, circulating the cool air. I remember how I use
to enjoy talking into a fan as a kid and hear my voice
vibrate, so in between hands I would mosey over and
start singing into the fan. My opponents clearly thought
I was nuts and probably decided it was best to steer
clear of this nut job. By now we were down to seven
and you could cut the tension with a knife. The player
on my right was short stacked and moved in with two
queens. I woke up with pocket bullets, and suddenly
the night was over. We would return tomorrow to play
for over a million dollars!
The Finals: ‘I never really knew you
could dance like this’
Play was tight for the first couple of hours, even though
the blinds started at 15-30K with a 5K ante. It took
two hours to lose a player and, in fact, this final
would go down as the longest in WPT history. It was
a seesaw battle, but when we finally got down to four,
a key hand developed between me and Alex Kahaner. He
had made a move on Tim Pham about 15 minutes earlier
and showed it. He tried the same thing against me, pushing
all-in for over a million and a half from the small
blind, but, picking up the same body language that he
had when he was against Pham, I decided to look him
up with the K-Q of hearts. Alex was indeed making a
move with the 6-4 of hearts, but he made a pair of sixes,
and I lost a little more of a third of my stack. I then
got lucky to take out Tim Pham when he moved in from
the button and I called from the big blind with a smaller
ace, and won to eliminate a very tough opponent. Jake
Minter, who I know from the cash games, played a solid
game but caught some bad timing when he moved in and
was called and eliminated by Alex with a bigger ace.
After a slow start, the crowd was suddenly into it and
I remember thinking of the scene in the movie Gladiator
where the slave owner says to the gladiator, “Win
the crowd and you will win your freedom.” We came
back from a short break for the presentation of the
money. Women in black leather and chains (sexy biker
girls) brought the money and the championship ring in
on a Harley wrapped in chains and leather. We were now
playing heads up for over $500,000 and the title! I
had a little more than four and a half million to Alex’s
three and a half million. With the blinds at 100-200K
and a 10K ante, the action got going right away. A few
hands in, I raised from the button making it 600K to
go with A-4. Alex, I could tell, had decided to get
really aggressive, and reraised me, making it one and
a half million to go. I felt two things: One, that I
had the best hand and, second, that Alex was not going
to back down, but keep putting the pressure on me. If
I moved in here Alex, would still have over 2 million
left, and I felt that he would probably fold if he was,
in fact, bluffing. I dug deep and pushed all my millions
to the middle. Alex looked deflated. “I got him,
I thought,” but just then, Alex went into to his
thoughtful spot and decided the pot had too much money
in it to give it up. He asked Denny Williams, the tournament
director, what time it was and then said, “Let’s
gamble!” and pushed all his chips in with J- 10!
I was amazed that he called and I didn’t like
the fact that I was only a 60/40 favorite with this
much at stake. I enlisted the crowd support and everyone
started chanting ACE! ACE! ACE! The flop fell Q-9-4.
I was only two cards away from the championship, when
a king fell on the turn. I was drawing dead and was
left with little more then a million and some dashed
hopes. The final hand saw Alex move in with K-J and
I called with pocket sixes. The flop came 2-3-5, the
turn a 9, and on the river – one of the kings
that I had managed to avoid for the whole tournament.
It was one hell of a run, but one that came up just
a little short. Imagine climbing Mount Everest and having
to turn back 100 yards from the summit after years of
training. The good thing about it is that the mountain
isn’t going anywhere and I will climb again and,
maybe one day, I’ll stand on top of the world.
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