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It would be nice to be young again. The pain in my back, the stresses of life … it would all be gone … apparently replaced by the thrill of winning World Series of Poker bracelets. As I write this, I’m less than twenty-four hours removed from Steven “Mr. Smokey” Billirakis winning his first bracelet in his first event — the first of the Series.
Yesterday, he was 21 years, 11 days old.
It’s not like Billirakis was a true newbie to this kind of thing. He’d been a remarkably successful online player for the last three years, his online alter ego familiar to those who dwell in the online poker community. Still, his taking of a record that’s been broken in each of four consecutive WSOPs was major news. He raised a bar that most of us had already assumed was high enough to be safe, at least for more than a year.
The youngest-ever record belonged to Phil Hellmuth for fifteen years. Hellmuth’s win over Johnny Chan in the Main Event of the 1989 Series was a shock to a community founded on experience. The record would go unchallenged until the Internet gave birth to a new generation of players who’d see the opportunity for riches as presented by the 2003 championship. In 2004, they’d start to emerge.
The man who would finally break Hellmuth’s record was Gavin Griffin. Just 22 years of age, Griffin awed the world as he defeated veteran Englishman Gary Bush to win the ’04 $3,000 Pot Limit Hold’em event and $270,420. The record was erroneously proclaimed to be almost unbreakable, sure to stand for a long time. It would endure only a little more than a year.
Griffin’s record would be smashed by another American, Eric Froehlich. “Efro” was just over 21 years, three months when he took his title. In his first WSOP cash, he won the $1,500 Limit Hold’em event at the ’05 series, taking down Jason Steinhorn to win $303,908.
The record wouldn’t rest. Froehlich’s reign would end a little over a year later when Jeff Madsen raised the bar to ludicrous heights. He was a little over 21 years, one month when he took his first bracelet against Erick Lindgren at the 2006 World Series. He was hailed as the likely eternal record holder; amazingly, his record fell before his twenty-second birthday.
“Hope you’re ready for your life to change,” Madsen told Billirakis when presenting the latter with his bracelet. For Madsen, his sudden success would bring on untold invitations to untold parties and a degree of celebrity he could never have foreseen. He even got himself a celebrity girlfriend in The Real World’s Trishelle Cannatella. The kid who won that first bracelet was gone, replaced by a savvier, more experienced Madsen.
For Billirakis, the win was business as usual. “I don’t really care about the bracelet,” he told me after winning it. It may be because it took so little effort to get the thing, but he rationalizes his outlook in a different way. “Some players want it so badly they let it affect their play. For me, it’s just about competition. I guess it’s nice to have though.”
Smokey thinks the pressure to win the bracelet may have been a deciding factor in his heads-up showdown with Greg “FBT” Mueller. A professional hockey-player-turned-pokerpro, Mueller had been playing good aggressive poker until the reality of the bracelet loomed. According to Smokey, he tightened up like a drum when confronted by his dreams.
The match started close to even, with Mueller holding a T2,350,000 to T2,170,000 lead, but Billirakis took it away almost immediately. When the game switched to limit play, Steve had the lead by T300,000, but he couldn’t be feeling too good about the lead; he’d never played limit before prepping himself with two rounds of online play a week before the tournament.
The two would fight a seesaw battle over the next fifty hands, the chip lead changing hands a half-dozen times. Billirakis’ inexperience in limit play showed, but it was countered by his overall aggression. He was taking the majority of the pots, only to see Mueller repeatedly take bigger ones. Finally, Steve won a monster that gave him the lead for good.
Mueller had the button and limped in for T100,000 before Smokey checked. The flop came 4♦3♦5♥; Steve checked, then raised the Mueller bet. FBT called and the turn came 6♦. This time, Billirakis bet out; Mueller called, but when the river came 8♣ and Billirakis bet one more time, Mueller knew he was done. He folded his hand, giving the kid a 3:1 chip lead. He’d never give it back; eight hands later the tournament was over.
If his predecessors are any indication, Billirakis has a bright future. Hellmuth, Griffin, Froehlich, and Madsen have all found further success, buoyed by the skill that got them their records and the confidence that resulted from them. Still, it will never be quite the same for the kid. No time is ever like the first time.
Gary Wise hopes he’ll be good enough to win a bracelet when he turns twenty-one. You can find him writing anything and everything about poker over at www.wisehandpoker.com
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