London Wrap-Up: Tales From The WSOP and EPT
As soon as I arrived at the Empire Casino, my friend Benjo (a French journalist from Lille) suggested that we check out the hot massage girls otherwise known as the Ibiza Angels. I cannot verify if they actually gave high quality massages, but the workers were all smokin’ model types. They were too classy and too natural to be working on the pole. They were more like angels who wore tight white tank tops that exposed their supple stomachs. Poker tournaments are boring affairs. It was nice to have some high-end eye candy waltzing through the tournament area.
The traveling carnival that is the poker circuit crashed the streets of London for two weeks as the biggest names in the poker universe descended upon the British Isles. Four bracelets were up for grabs at the second annual World Series of Poker Europe at the Empire Casino in Leicester Square, while the European Poker Tour hosted two events across town at the historic Grosvenor Victoria Casino.
I fl ew to London to cover both events and arrived late to the WSOPE Main Event in true Hellmuthian fashion. It seemed so cliché that my fl ight from Amsterdam was delayed for over two hours due to fog at Heathrow. When I fi nally arrived at my rented fl at in Soho (a much cheaper alternative to staying in a hyperexpensive jail cell of a hotel room), I suffered a minor panic attack when my laptop died. That sent me on über-tilt. Over the last four years, I have been traveling along with the tournament circuit. I don’t have an actual home and own very few material items aside from what I can carry with me on the road. My laptop is my only cherished possession. When it died, a small part of me died as well. I had also downloaded a ton of new Grateful Dead bootlegs that I was eager to listen to while I rode the tube, and nothing is worse in life than being in a foreign country without your favorite stash of gonzo porn.
Without a laptop, I grabbed a pen and a pad and headed down to the Empire Casino in Leicester Square to engage in some old-fashioned journalism. Leicester Square is sort of like Times Square with hordes of British jailbait hussies running amok. On the weekends, the Square is fi lled with late-night party people getting sloshed before they pack themselves onto night buses and hope not to get puked on by an inebriated binge drinker slurring incorrect lyrics to Oasis songs.
Last year, the WSOPE organizers made a tactical error trying to spread out the £10,000 Main Event championship over three casinos. London casinos are relatively tiny spaces compared to their Las Vegas counterparts. The organizers were forced to use multiple venues. The original plan backfi red last year mainly because they did not get the massive turnout that they originally anticipated.The fi eld at the 2008 WSOPE did not include too many European amateur players. While the WSOP in Las Vegas attracts amateurs from all over the States, the WSOPE brand did not have a similar effect in Europe. Though it received a fair turnout from American superstars seeking bracelets and underage Internet players who can compete due to a lower age requirement, the fi eld at the WSOPE lacked European dead money. Numbers in the preliminary events were unimpressive considering that Europe is supposed to be one of the areas of booming poker popularity.
The tournament organizers decided that only one venue would be used for the 2008 WSOPE. The Empire was chosen despite their space defi ciency. Gaming tables were removed from the fl oor in order to make suffi cient space for tournament tables. The Empire arranged tables in three different areas of the casino and it was impossible to watch all of the action in one spot. Although the Empire relaxed their entrance policy to accommodate casual spectators (no more waiting in line to get your passport scanned and get an admission card), viewing space was still limited.
Another positive change included hosting the media room in the actual casino. Last year, the media room was located in the basement of a hotel across Leicester Square that may or may not have been a bunker during the sullen days of WWII when the Luftwaffe rained down bombs onto the streets of London. This year, dozens of media outlets were cramped into a lounge area. Benjo wrote his updates from a couch that he shared with a member of the Swedish media, while Neil Stoddart, a local photographer, uploaded photos from his seat on a stool at a bar. Although some might think those are poor working conditions, they’re just par for the course in European casinos where space is extremely sparse.
Annette “Annette_15” Obrestad was the reigning champion of the WSOPE and the PR gurus set up a heads-up match between the Norwegian wunderkind and Doyle Brunson. That was a wet dream for media types. Fifty years ago, Texas was the hotbed for poker players. These days, it’s the bleak landscapes of Scandinavia that are the training grounds for many of the world’s premiere players. The streets of London were set as a location for an old-fashioned showdown. The aging grizzled gunslinger Doyle Brunson was pitted against the young gun Annette Obrestad in a best-of-three heads-up match. Everyone joked that Brunson had underwear that was older than Annette, but when the dust settled, Texas Dolly emerged victorious and schooled the Scandi chick.
“We started with 20,000 dollars each and it was supposed to be two out of three,” said Brunson. “But I held some lucky cards and beat her the fi rst two. She seemed to be comfortable and played well.”
Although Brunson held off a hyper-aggressive Scandi, the legend could not beat gravity on Day 1B. Benjo witnessed the mighty Brunson fall as he waited to take his seat after a break. Brunson simply lost his balance and managed to cut his arm in the fall. But being a warrior, he didn’t let the minor accident distract him. He survived his fl ight and advanced to Day 2 despite having a diffi cult table draw that included Jesus Ferguson, November Niner Chino Reem, and several young Scandis with perfectly messy hair.
Sunday in London meant that Americans were jonesin’ for NFL action. The suits at Harrah’s rented out a private suite at a sports bar near Piccadilly Circus to give the Las Vegas sharks a place to hang out during dinner breaks. I scored an invitation to the suite where they had over a dozen screens with plenty of free food and booze.
I walked inside and spotted Phil Hellmuth slumped over a stool with his eyes peering into the souls of the players in the Green Bay Packers game. He cheered for his home-state team while a few pros huddled in the corner on laptops and sweated their bets and fantasy football pools. At one point, Hellmuth got bored with the game and retreated to the corner to play a high stakes game (either hearts or spades) with Brandon Cantu, Layne Flack, and Jeff Madsen.
Sherkhan Farnood from Afghanistan won a bracelet in the H.O.R.S.E. event at the WSOPE, where he had been a nemesis for Phil Hellmuth. There was an incident when Hellmuth blew up after getting beaten. He pointed at Farnood and screamed, “How do I lose my chips to the worst player in the world?” On Day 2, Farnood and Hellmuth were at it again. Farnood picked off Hellmuth, eliminating him in 12th place. Before the Poker Brat could leave the table, he had to get the last word in. However, Farnood won the battle of wits when he said, “I’m trying to prove that I’m the second worst player in the world.”
By the end of Day 2, Andy Bloch and Erik Seidel were at the top of the leader board in chips with Daniel Negreanu and John Juanda not far behind. When the fi nal table was set, Ivan Demidov (one of the November Nine) made history by advancing to two WSOP Main Event fi nal tables in one year. Demidov was one of two Russkies at the fi nal table along with three Las Vegas pros (Juanda, Negreanu, and Scott Fischman), a Scandi, a Fin, and a couple of Brits. Sounds like the start to a bad ethnic joke.
As the action dwindled down to the fi nal table, I switched assignments and headed across town to the Vic to cover the opening fl ights of EPT London. The gang at PokerStars hosted a welcome party the evening before at Cafe de Paris near Piccadilly Circus. The last time I attended a PokerStars party was in Las Vegas during the WSOP where I witnessed Dario Minieri and Isabelle Mercier sucking face a few meters in front of me. I wondered what sort of hijinks would ensue this time?
The catering staff served small offerings of fi sh and chips while I spent most of the time in the hidden bar downing shitty French beer with my friends from the media. I engaged in degenerate prop betting which included some lime tossing with Benjo. I had been rusty but nailed my fi rst shot. Benjo stepped up and missed. Due to the plunging economy, I demanded to be paid in euros instead of dollars. We settled on a compromise and Benjo paid his debt in British pounds.
The fi nal table of the WSOPE began at 1pm at the Empire Casino. My girlfriend covered the fi nal table for PokerNews while I was across town at the Vic covering Day 1B of the EPT London. I closely followed the action online. John Juanda began the fi nal table as the chip leader, but took a couple of hits and lost the lead. By late night, he was among the fi nal three players and battling two Russians, Ivan Demidov and Stanislav Alekhin. Earlier in the evening, there were whispers of foul play. Both young players were backed by the same guy and they were being carefully watched by the tournament staff to make sure they were not soft playing one another. Despite the potential for shenanigans, John Juanda remained tough and gutted his way into a heads up battle against Alekhin.
When I crashed for the night, Juanda and Alekhin began heads-up play. I woke up a couple of hours later at 9am and logged onto PokerNews to discover that they were still playing heads up and were about even in chips. My girlfriend and her colleague Garry had been providing hand for hand coverage for the entire night – for well over twenty hours! They had just fi nished Hand #400 and there was no end in sight.
Garry missed his fl ight back to the States. He rebooked and was on the verge of missing his second fl ight. Everyone on the PokerNews crew was fatigued after the twenty-hour plus marathon. I was fresh and volunteered to fi nish off the fi nal table of WSOPE at the Empire and then race over to the Vic for Day 2 of the EPT London. A double dip. A subway series… well, make that a tube series if you will.
Cue Enter Sandman. I’m a Yankees fan and as I briskly walked down Charring Cross Road, passing crowds of tourists and suits, I felt like Mariano Rivera trotting out of the bullpen at Yankee Stadium to pitch in a World Series game as the famous Metallica song blared on the stadium’s PA system. Owen, a writer from Canada, busted my balls and said I was nowhere as good as Mo Rivera and that I was more like Flash Gordon. Well, maybe he’s right and it was more like coming out of the bullpen to pitch the bottom of the 21st inning in a marathon of a baseball game.
My cooler powers were in full force. Within several hands of sitting in the media area, John Juanda made a timely double up and crippled the young Russian. Juanda only needed a couple more hands before he fi nished off Alekhin and took down the WSOPE Main Event.
Moments after his epic victory, John Juanda walked over and gave a hug to Masa Kagawa, one of the players who railbirded him all night and all morning long. Roland De Wolfe milled around as well. He played in the EPT London the night before, went to bed, woke up, and arrived in time at the Empire Casino to see Juanda take it down. “This is the longest fi nal table that I have ever played,” said Juanda. “He (Alekhin) had me down a couple of times. I was pretty sure and confi dent that I was going to win. I didn’t give up. I have to give the last two players a lot of credit.”
When Juanda fi rst began as a pro, he won several bracelets and held the most out of his core group of friends that included Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, and Allen Cunningham. Since the early days, Juanda’s friends have all surpassed his total. Juanda felt a tremendous wave of accomplishment when he fi nally collected his fourth bracelet.
“It’s so long ago when I won my last bracelet, I can’t remember. It’s embarrassing. Some people have to keep up with the Joneses. I have to keep up with the Iveys and Cunninghams and Negreanus,” he joked. “I wondered if I will ever win again. Today there are so many young excellent tournament players from all over the world. Like the two young Russians and the Scandis. Much more than it used to be. Daniel Negreanu said that we have to step up our game.”
I fi nished up my last minute assignment at the Empire and left that casino just before noon. I rode the tube for three stops and arrived at the Vic just in time for the start of Day 2 of the EPT London. I wandered into the casino and raced up a fl ight of stairs as a devastatingly beautiful blonde waltzed past me. I had never seen her before. She smelled like a bouquet of fresh fl owers and I asked Benjo if he knew who she was.
“Ah, so you met Devilfi sh’s jailbait girlfriend?”
