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You occasionally heard the whispers if you kept your eyes on the internet. Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, absent from the WPT landscape, had started losing his mystique. They forgot the world championship; they forgot the fi ve bracelets; people who would never achieve his levels of stardom or skill couldn’t remember the last time he’d won something, and the facelessness the internet provides let them talk about it.
That couldn’t have bothered Jesus as much as the also-ran status he’d become immortalized for in NBC’s National Heads-Up Poker Championship. In 2005, the fi rst year it was held, he defeated Cyndy Violette, Gus Hansen, Mimi Tran, Mike Sexton, and then TJ Cloutier, only to lose 2-1 in the fi nals to Phil Hellmuth, who was in the rarest of form. In 2006, his run was even tougher; he beat Freddy Deeb, Chip Reese, Josh Arieh, Jim McManus, and Huck Seed to make the fi nal again. There, he lost his chance for redemption, losing to Ted Forrest.
In 2007, Jesus lost in the fi rst round to Scott Fischman. Any talk of another trip to the fi nals ended there and he was reduced to also-ran status. In a game where – as celebrity is concerned - victory means everything (NHUPC producer Mori Eskandani lists victory as one of the essential the selection process. “Anyone can cash six times at the World Series. You’ve got to win!”), such a reduction is a death sentence. Come the 2008 event, Ferguson wasn’t going to be any more favored than the 55 other professionals in the eld. Ferguson’s 2008 event started tough and stayed that way, running a harder gauntlet than any of previous;
Round 1: He played against fellow Full Tilt Poker poster boy John Juanda. Ferguson won tough, quiet duel, the longest in the bracket, by getting Juanda short-stacked and forcing his man all in with the worst of it pre-fl op.
Round 2: It was 2007 semi-fi nalist Gavin Smith. Ferguson wore down the big Canadian, then won a coin fl ip to take Gavin’s short stack.
Round 3: Mike Matusow was the survivor of a four-man bracket including Joe Hachem, Tom Dwan, and Phil Hellmuth, and managed to get a lead on Jesus, but it didn’t last. Once again, Ferguson prevailed in a tough fi ght that outlasted all others in the round.
Round 4: Jesus squared off vs. sit-n-go specialist Jon Little. The aggressive youngster built a massive T280,000-T40,000 lead but couldn’t fi nish the job; twice, Ferguson got all in with the best of it and survived, then completed the comeback.
In the semi-fi nals, Jesus had the pleasure of facing Phil Ivey, who was playing like a man possessed after his win at the LAPC the night before the NBC event. Their match ended when Jesus, holding pocket eights on a 9-4-3 fl op, called Ivey’s all-in, made on the strength of pocket sixes. The fi nal was set and found Ferguson staring into a familiar face. Andy Bloch is one of Ferguson’s closest friends in the industry. They worked together on the FTP software, they share a higher-education-built mathematical bent, they’ve become synonymous with one another in their lawsuit fi led with fi ve other players against the World Poker Tour, and theirs is a friendship that moves beyond business and the felt. They dine together… golf together, and now they’d play together with the championship title at stake.
In the fi rst match of the best two of three, Ferguson got out to a quick lead, building his stack to greater than three times Bloch’s, but couldn’t hold onto it. Andy doubled through with a fl ush against Chris’s three eights, then took the lead and kept it. Ferguson’s life had to be fl ashing in front of his eyes for the third time.
The second match started with both players playing tight poker. The stacks were never more than 10% apart in the early going before Bloch moved ahead, stretching his lead out to T940,000-T340,000; but like Little before him he couldn’t fi nish Jesus off. Ferguson doubled up to pull back to even, then won the match by hitting quad queens after the chips got all in pre-fl op. They were down to one match for the championship.
Obviously, we know now that the third match was all Jesus. He grabbed a quick lead and forcefully lengthened it before the hand that would fi nally crown him a heads-up champion. With the blinds T5,- 00-T10,000, Jesus raised to T25,000 and got a call before the fl op came 10s 7s 3s. Jesus made what looked to Bloch to be a continuation bet of T35,000 and Andy check-raised to T105,000. Ferguson made the call.
The turn 7h was met by another Bloch bet, this time for T150,000. Ferguson moved all in, leading Bloch to pause for the longest seven minutes of his life before he did the unthinkable: Andy pulled a coin from his pocket, fl ipped it, and then called the bet. He turned over 10s 4s – top pair and a four fl ush - but it was only good for second place to Ferguson’s Jc Js. The 7c on the river was the nail in Andy’s coffi n. Jesus was the champion.
After the win, the voices were silenced. After all those questions asked over the last couple of years, people quickly remembered just how good Jesus has been and continues to be. With a lifetime record of 16-3 in the event, there’s no question he’s been its greatest competitor. The mystique is back, right where it always should have been.
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