No Fear and No Limit
What do you get when you mix the Vegas Supercross Finals, SoBe No Fear energy drink, and a deck of cards? You get Kevin Windham’s home game on crack. For those of you who know motocross, you know it’s not a sport for the faint of heart. And for those of you who play No Limit Texas Hold’em, you know that there’s just as much adrenalin involved in shoving your entire stack in on a bluff as there is on the back of a HondaCRF450R.
On May 7, 2006, at Bally’s Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Kevin Windham, one of motocross’s favorite celebrities, became one of poker’s favorite hosts. The Kevin Windham Supercross of Poker, a DIVISION production (www.divisionpoker.com), brought in a league of the most celebrated motocross stars, including Ricky Carmichael, Chad Reed, Jeremy McGrath, Billy Laninovich, and Jimmy Button, marrying poker’s ubiquitous popularity with the motocross industry’s love of adrenaline-inducing, high-risk-high-reward activities.
Even professional snowboarder and Olympic gold medalist Ross Powers came to play for a chance to win a guaranteed seat to the World Series of Poker Main Event. For the first time, motocross fanatics sat down with their heroes on the only true level playing field: the poker felt.
With bounties on pro riders, not only did players win custom chip sets generously sponsored by CDPoker.com, but they also earned serious bragging rights. Taylor Massey of Carlsbad held the honor of knocking out Ricky Carmichael, winning a “bounty” medallion. Ricky seemed un-fazed as he walked away with the trophy for “First Knocked Out.” Or maybe it was the fact that, only 12 hours earlier, he had won something in the area of $1 million at the Vegas Supercross Finals.
After four hours of play, we reached our final table, which looked something like this.
With John holding over a third of the chips in play at the final table, it was going to be a hard task to knock him off. The first player to take a shot at John’s mountain was the last-standing female player, Jill Ellis. Celebrating her birthday in style, Jill decided that she would send all the cookies in with a Ks 8s. John decided that his Qh Jc was good enough to snap her off. Jill was looking good on the flop when it came down Kd 10c 5d, but when the turn brought the gutshot 9h, giving John the straight, Jill was blowing out the candles on the tournament.
The next big hand to go down was one that all will remember well. Steamrolling the table, John raised before the flop from early position, with two black fours. Chad Reed was getting low and decided that his Ah 5h was the best thing he had seen since the stripper at the pool earlier in the day, so he moved all in. Sitting pretty behind both players was Jimmy Button, on the button with pocket cowboys (Yee-haw!). Jimmy didn’t waste any time and decided that he, too, was moving all the cattle into the station. Now the decision was back to John. If he called and won, he would knock out two players in one fell swoop. Eventually he announced, “Call,” and we officially had the pot of the day. The flop came down Jc 7h 3h. Jimmy’s kings were in the lead but the flop meant that Chad could still suck out with either another heart or an ace. John Waite – well, all he could do was just that… wait. The turn brought the 10., so now Jimmy was a clear 75% ahead of the field, something he has never been on the back of a Yamaha. The river was an incredible 4d, giving John the miracle one-outer on the river he needed to take out both players. Having more chips at the start of the hand than Chad, Jimmy’s only consolation was that he got a few bucks more for sixth place over Chad’s seventh. With that brutal hand, Jimmy was also the unhappy recipient of the Bad Beat Trophy.
With the blinds creeping up, the players began to drop like flies. Next to go was Karl Scanlan. Having massaged the short stack all day, Karl was finally all in for his big blind. Karl’s random surprise hand of Jd 3s was no match for the chip leader John’s Ac 8s when the final board read Qc Qs 9h 6s 5d.
It was at this point of the tournament that the rest of the table was looking to put some kind of sedative into John’s drink.
Next to go was Tim Dixon, who thought he got lucky when his all-in bet with Qs Jc was called by Steve with the Qh 2c. The flop changed all that when it came down As 2d 5h. The turn and river, Ah 3s, were no help for Tim, and he walked away with fourth place; especially impressive considering that this was the first time he had ever played in a casino.
The next elimination hand saw Charlie Borden move all in with a Jh8s and Steve call with a 3c 6c. Charlie liked the flop of As Qs Jc, but the turn brought the scary 10c, giving Steve a club for the win and a king for a chop. The river was the brutal 4c, making Steve his flush, and flushing all of Charlie’s hopes down the big porcelain bowl.
With that, Steve now found himself not only heads-up with the man who had dominated all day, John Waite, but incredibly, he now also had the chip lead. Not yet down and out, John decided to take a crack at a huge pot early on with nothing more than 7s 2c. The move not only succeeded in making Steve fold, but John also managed to win the award for the best bluff of the day after he proudly showed it to everyone. The trophy: a golden bull on a pedestal donated by the one and only Bluff Magazine. Unfortunately for John, however, after his little bluffing fiasco, not much went his way; and he soon found himself in terrible chip position. After about an hour of grueling heads-up play, Steve had an almost 4:1 chip lead over John, and soon they got it all in before the flop. John showed Jd 4h but Steve had the best of it early with the Ac Kh. When the flop came Qh 8d Jh, the cheering section for John went crazy. The turn card was the fateful Ah giving Steve top pair and the lead. The river card, 8., was no help for John, and we had our first winner of the Kevin Windhams’ Super Cross of Poker.
Steve collected a very nice first prize payout and he now finds himself heading to this year’s World Series of Poker, where he has the chance to win the Big Dance and an estimated $10 million first place prize. Along with all the great poker action, the players donated all of their rebuy monies to the Road 2 Recovery charity, raising a verymuch- appreciated $15,000. Maybe the director of the charity, Jimmy Button, will know what it feels like to be on that road after that one-outer that is now permanently etched in his brain.
Many thanks to all who attended this stellar event. It was one to remember.
Until next time. May the flop be with you. . . Always HUX
