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We associate major events with the years in which they occurred. Jimmy the Greek played Johnny Moss in 1949. The World Series of Poker launched in 1970. The WPT started filming in 2002. The association routes from the date giving the events context. Events + time = history.
It’s because of the intro that we are fascinated with end-of-year lists. The New Year is bread and butter for the columnist. Some stories we have to hunt down, some we have to wait for so they’ll come to us, but come the New Year, there’s one true constant we can always rely on for a few extra minutes holiday revelry because it’s already more or less written itself.
The end-of-year top-ten.
God, I love those words. I mean, I’m a fan of lists in general: top five movies, top five bands, and so on; but the end of year top ten list is great because you’ve done your research over the year you know you’re writing it, so you don’t need to go through the whole process of actually finding something to write about. Furthermore, those wonderful folks who pay you for your work actually want you to come out with those lists, since they’re a great way to remember the last 365 days.
If only every day were New Year’s Day.
That said, what follows is one man’s rendering of the top ten poker-related events of 2007. Let me state here and now that no one was polled for this and the order I’ve selected is entirely based on one man’s perceptions, namely mine. I’d have asked others for help, but it’s my top ten list, damn it. I was just going to throw out other folks’ input anyways.
Here then, in ascending order, is what I’m calling the top ten poker-related events of 2007. Don’t let your eyes sneak across the page and ruin what I can only assume will be torturous, adrenal exhilaration as your mind wonders wildly what number one could possibly be.
# 10 Deeb/Griffin Victories
I hate it when the authors of these kinds of lists cheat by calling them “top ten,” then through some loophole get some extra listees in there. I mean, grow a sack and use that chopping block, am I right?
Yeah, I’m a hypocrite.
Thing is, neither Freddy Deeb’s victory at the WSOP’s $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event or Gavin Griffin’s win in the EPT’s Grand Final was exceptional for their storylines; they were just two very massive tournaments won by good, solid citizens who had been there before and will likely be there again.
After the impossible-to-duplicate magic of the 2006 H.O.R.S.E. event, Freddy was the sole survivor of an experienced final table at which David Singer was the only repeat final-table finisher (actually, maybe Singer should have this spot; H.O.R.S.E. was his first event in three weeks thanks to being at his ailing father’s bedside). Freddy won despite getting all in with three players left, forging a remarkable comeback against Bruno Fitoussi. It was good stuff, but it was no Doyle-Chip-Phil-TJ-Patrik-Bloch-Singer-Tomko-Bechtel storyline.
Griffin, who once upon a time was the youngest player ever to have won a WSOP bracelet, got more attention for his breast cancer-dedicated shock of pink hair than his $2.4 million-plus victory, taking down up-and-coming Canadian star Marc Karam to end the festivities on a day also included the ousters of Andrew Black and Ram Vaswani.
Two good players doing two good things for lots of money. Will people remember these moments in ten years, though? Probably not.
#9 Cunningham’s Historic Win
…Of course, people had forgotten what Allen Cunningham did at this year’s WSOP two days after he did it. Cunningham won the event’s $5,000 Pot Limit Hold’em world championship, besting a remarkable final table that included the previous year’s champion in Jason Lester, the 2004 champion (Griffin again), Humberto Brenes, and eventual second-place finisher Jeffrey Lisandro. Interesting that Brenes, Lisandro, and Cunningham were considered by many the three remaining pros in the ’06 Main Event.
In beating Lisandro for the title, Allen notched his name all over the World Series record books. He became the third youngest player in history to achieve five bracelets (behind Phils Ivey and Hellmuth). He moved into a first-place tie with Chris Ferguson, Johnny Chan, and Ivey for most bracelets (five) in the 2000s. That wasn’t best of it though.
In winning yet another bracelet, Cunningham had now won a bracelet for three years running. In poker’s history, that feat had been accomplished previously by only four men: Johnny Moss, Doyle Brunson, Bones Berland, and Erik Seidel. The first three of them all did it in the seventies against double-digit fields, and even Seidel’s wins in 1992-’94 just weren’t close to this. He may be quiet about it, but no one questions any more that Allen is amongst the top two to three tournament players in the world.
#8 Billirakis Breaks the Record
Apparently, Gavin Griffin gets mentioned in every entry on this list. Griffin’s win in 2004 made him the youngest player ever to have won a bracelet, a record that would fall a year later at the hands of Eric Froehlich. Froehlich’s reign was similar, with Jeff Madsen smashing down walls at the 2006 WSOP, forced to wait all of forty days beyond his twenty-first birthday to get the gold. “This time,” the world said, “the record will stand for a while.”
Nice prediction, guys.
Madsen was in attendance in support of his buddy Greg Mueller, who’d end up being the only thing standing in the way of online poker monster Steve “MrSmokey” Billirakis. Billirakis, aged twenty-one years, ten days, smashed both Mueller and the record with an attitude that struck many as almost being indifferent. Almost. Now, the bar’s been set again. Of course, since we all assume it won’t happen, someone will break it next year.
#7 Yang Wins Main Event
The rules say “one man per hand,” so some would complain that Jerry Yang’s constant invocation of God’s name might have been a little unfair, especially when considering the results. I mean, how else could a guy who was deemed such a long shot heading into the final table not only win, but do it in such a dominating fashion?
Having played poker for only two years, Yang knew he was the least experienced player at the final table, so he made a decision to do his best to eliminate any edge that experience might give the opposition by coming out guns ablazin’. He almost single-handedly took out start-of-final-table chip leader Phillip Hilm and kept on betting. Most famously, he raised Lee Childs out of pocket queens on a nine-high flop. If Childs had made the call, we’d have a different champion today.
Jerry’s reign has been anti-climactic thus far. As of year’s end, he hadn’t found a mainstream sponsorship deal and hadn’t made his way to many high-profile events. Instead, he’s spent his time playing father to his six children, after twenty years behind a desk. It’s hard to blame him, but there are a lot of folks waiting to take a crack at the champion while he’s still got those millions in his pocket.
#6 CHIP REESE PASSES
There are a lot of people who will tell you: “So what, another poker player died. Seat open,” but Chip Reese was no ordinary poker player. Reese passed away on the morning of December 4th, 2007 due to pneumonia-related symptoms, and the inner circle the poker industry mourned.
Reese, just fifty-six when he passed, had previously been a crucial member of the industry both as a player and as an innovator. He was the anchor of The Big Game and counsel to the biggest names in the game. Mirage CEO Bobby Baldwin said of him, “Poker is a game of ego, but once you got a few drinks in folks, they’d admit that Chip was probably the best. The ‘probably’ let them keep their names in the discussion.”
What became obvious with Reese’s passing was the profound effect he’d had on the people who knew him. “He was a better father than a poker player and he was the greatest poker player of all time,” said old running mate Danny Robson. For Doyle Brunson, who considered Reese his best friend, it was hard to speak about his departed friend, but he summed Reese the player up well: “He was the greatest game player in history.”
#5 WCOOP
Every year exits with its labels. As poker goes, ’03 was the year of the boom; ’06 was the year of the Safe Port Act; and, unfortunately, 2007 may go down as the year of the scandal.
Every year, PokerStars hosts the World Championship of Online Poker, the largest online poker event on the calendar. This year’s WCOOP was the largest ever. Everything was going beautifully, with twenty-three events drawing over 40,000 entrants for a combined prize pool of over $24 million — but the beauty was distorted by how it all ended.
The $2,500 Main Event ended with the winner “TheV0id,” reputed to be English professional Mark Teltscher. Before the money could be awarded though, PokerStars announced there was an investigation pending. A few days later, it was announced that “TheV0id” had been disqualified for undisclosed reasons. Everyone else moved up a spot, with the biggest beneficiary being Omaha’s Kyle Schroeder, who’d originally finished second. The move from second to first was worth approximately $320,000.
Why didn’t you hear more about the disqualification? Two reasons: the lack of publicly available facts on the story and its being overshadowed by…
#4 POTRIPPER
As ugly as the WCOOP mess was, PokerStars dealt swiftly and effectively to address and correct the situation. When it became obvious in October 2007 that a number of accounts on AbsolutePoker were being played with knowledge of opposition holdings, that company’s old management regime failed to do the same.
Rumors of wrongdoings at Absolute had started months earlier, but an inability to prove those claims caused a collective shrug of the shoulders until lightning struck. Playing in the finals of a tournament against an account called POTRIPPER, Marco Johnson lost a massive pot after check-raising all in, only to be called by ten-high. It was a play that could only have been made if POTRIPPER was certain the ten was good enough.
Dumbfounded by the sequence of events, Johnson contacted Absolute and asked for a hand history. What he got instead was an encrypted Excel file which, once untangled, contained a complete record noting the comings, goings, contact information, and hole cards of every player in the tournament. Once Johnson and a few hundred friends in the online community were able to piece together POTRIPPER’s tournament, the misdeeds were obvious.
Absolute’s initial reaction was to deny anything was wrong but, as they were repeatedly confronted by evidence to the contrary, they begrudgingly started to recognize their problems. Even now, the community watches as Absolute tries to piece its shattered reputation back together.
#3 Hellmuth’s Eleventh
There’s no bigger tournament than the World Series of Poker and no bigger personality in the game than Phil Hellmuth. It’s fitting then that the former seems to bring out the best and brightest from the latter.
Entering the 2007 WSOP, the universally accepted number one storyline was “the race to eleven.” With Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, and Hellmuth tied with ten bracelets a piece for the most of all time, the question who would fi nally break the deadlock. The answer came in event 15, a $1,500 buy-in No Limit Hold’em tournament.
Hellmuth outlasted a field of 2,628 before dominating a solid final table that included professionals Scott Clements, Rick Fuller, and Fabrice Soulier. He finally triumphed over amateur Andy Philachack, winning $637,254, the second-largest prize of his career. Despite achieving what had long been a dream, Hellmuth was far from fi nished for the Series; he’d make another final table and cash four more times in total before the dust settled.
Now, the question is when – or if – anyone will ever catch up to Hellmuth again. Only Chan, Brunson, Erik Seidel (who won his eighth bracelet near the end of the Series), and Billy Baxter have seven or more bracelets with the chance to win more. With Phil continually adding to his total and the fields getting increasingly larger, it may be a long time before we see the lead change hands again.
#2 Mortensen Pulls the Ultimate Double
There have been thirty-seven Main Events at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and five World Poker Tour world championships. With the fields now as large as they are, there was a very distinct possibility that no player would win both of the poker world’s biggest titles in our lifetimes. Carlos Mortensen put all that to rest.
The Ecuador-born Mortensen, the winner of the Main Event at the 2001 World Series of
Poker, stormed his way to the final table of the WPT championship in April of 2007. Once there, he put on a masterful performance, surviving a strong field to reach the heads-up portion against Kirk Morrison.
“We were flipping coins for $2 million,” Morrison would remember afterwards. Despite the remarkable stakes, both men kept remarkably calm; and it was finally Mortensen who emerged victorious. For Carlos, it was the biggest win of his career — just short of a $4 million payday. For Morrison, the cash was doubly significant. It marked the fourth WPT in a row in which he’d cashed, tying the record held by close friend Daniel Negreanu.
#1 Annette Rewrites the Record Books
With the passing of UIGEA in late 2006, poker’s growth became reliant on expansion beyond American borders. That, combined with Harrah’s desire to take the WSOP brand worldwide, led to the first World Series of Poker event held outside the States: WSOP Europe.
Held in London, the fact the event happened at all would have made this list. Unlike the circuit events that had taken WSOP outside of Las Vegas, WSOPE would feature bracelet events, three of them. Further excitement was generated by London’s gambling laws allowing players as young as eighteen to play. For bracelets.
The first player to win a bracelet off American soil was, is, and always will be Thomas Bihl. The young German won over £70,000 in outlasting an epic H.O.R.S.E. final table that included Jen Harman, Kirk Morrison, and Jesus Ferguson. Bihl’s victory would have been the story of the event if it weren’t for one diminutive figure left standing at the end of the championship event.
Annette Obrestad, already an established entity in the online community, won the Main Event at WSOPE. In doing so, she became the first woman to win a WSOP Main Event and, by over two years, the youngest player ever to win a bracelet. She took the title, along with £1,000,000, two days short of her nineteenth birthday, beating John Tabatabai in the final. The record books had to be started from scratch.
Think about this: Annette won’t be able to play in the Vegas version of the World Series of Poker for another two years. Good thing there’ll be plenty of other tournaments for her to play in 2008. Of course, there’ll be others looking to write their own history by then. We’ll talk about them on next year’s list.
Gary Wise had a busy 2007. He’s looking forward to more of the same at his website, www.wisepoker.com.
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