Shoot-Out
Event Sets New Record
for Speed in Eight-Deal Showdown
A world's record of sorts was set here
at the Hustler Casino when the final table
of the limit hold'em shoot-out event took
10 minutes to play out.
Give or take 15 seconds, that is.
What happened was that after five hours
of play, with the start of the big championship
event coming up the next day, and super
satellites underway, Tony Ma proposed
a nine-way chop of $3,000 each, with eight
showdown hands to determine the order
of finish. Since all participants started
with the same chips, this seemed reasonable
and everyone agreed to this civilized
finish to event number 15.
With as much hooting and hollering as
you would expect at a World Series championship
event, the participants sat down, ringed
by a pumped-up crowd of cheering spectators,
and the cards were dealt out in a blur.
This writer is not entirely sure who had
what, or what the board cards were, but
since nobody else was either, I can pretty
much write what I want and nobody will
ever be able to tell the difference.
Adding insult to injury, somebody ripped
the bio sheets in half, and in putting
them together I very likely co-joined
different players.
For this I had to get out of bed?
The $100,000 guarantee event the previous
night didn't get to the final table until
4:15 a.m. and lasted well past daylight,
and by the time I had written the story,
driven home, had a bite to eat, said my
prayers and fell into bed, it was almost
time for the shoot-out conclusion, and
after an emergency call from tournament
coordinator Warren Karp, I sped down the
freeways at calamitous speed, barely arriving
in the nick of time, ready to do my usual
award-winning coverage report, only to
be told it was all over but the shouting.
Warren could just as easily have phoned
in the report to me.
Oh, yeah, the winner was somebody named
Walt Schafer.
I think.
And, no, I don't know who he is or what
he does for a living or what his poker
accomplishments are, if any, because by
the time the cards were all dealt out
he was gone.
OK, to be honest, this really wasn't the
world's fastest event. The record is probably
held by the Four Queens, when Jim Miller
set up a 21-way chop in an employees event.
And a lowball tournament at the Bicycle
Casino once ended in a final-table eight-way
chop with no hands dealt because the old
people needed to get back to their rest
homes by 10 p.m. bed-check. But why ruin
a good story?
Anyway, justice was served in a manner
of speaking, because Tony Ma, the perpetrator
of this outrage, finished dead last, even
though he was in the lead on the flop
three times.
OK, the problem now is how to write a
report of 800 or so words when nothing
happened. I could use 36-point type to
fill the space, or increase the spacing
between lines, or maybe write in all capital
letters to use up more space. But, no,
being a journalist of integrity, I will
attempt to write a balanced, accurate,
thorough tournament report.
Are
you kidding?
Let's
see. Hand one. This was the big one, for
first place. The flop was A-Q-2-K-6 with
three spades and Schafer made a jack-high
flush. He was the winner and got the trophy
and will no doubt be guest of honor on
the Tonight show and write a book in which
he reveals his winning strategy.
Eat
your heart out, Phil Hellmuth.
Placing
second was George Picerne who was dealt
K-2 and made a third king on the turn.
Placing
third was Ramsey Daniel,whose brilliant
play turned Q-4 into trip fours.
Placing
fourth was Al Baham who won with -- are
you ready for this -- two sevens!
Oh,
well, so much for journalistic integrity.
Let's get this over with. Frankie O'Dell
finished fifth when he paired a king,
Chris Karagulleyan was sixth with A-high,
Anthony Lee was seventh with a paired
king, Edwin Pairavi was eighth with nine-high
and Tony Ma, as I said, finished last.
Exciting, huh?
Hold
it! I just came up with a truly remarkable
statistic. Everyone finished in the same
order as his seat number. Do you know
what the odds against this are? It's 362,879-1!
So we have a story after all.
Max Shapiro
|
