Sunday, September 12, 2004
New York Daily News - Sports - Poker Face: Getting taste of ultimate sinGetting taste of ultimate sin
PPT finishes up by taking a walk
on wild side in Vegas high-stakes room
LAS VEGAS - It is Labor Day weekend, and the boulevards of Sin City are bumper to bumper. But tucked away in a corner of the High Limit section of the Bellagio's poker room, it's just another night of cards for the best gamblers to ever play the game.
Day in and day out, the action at Table No. 1 is the largest stakes poker game in the world.
Eight seats. Eight players from among the world's best 20 or so – Doyle (Texas Dolly) Brunson, Johnny Chan, Chau Giang, Jennifer Harman, Howard Lederer, Sammy Farha, Chip Reese, Lee Salem, Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen, Barry Greenstein, Daniel Negreanu, John Hennigan, Doyle's son Todd, Ralph Perry (a former New York City limo driver) and a player known simply as Cuco.
Some of the names are recognizable from the No Limit Hold'em tournaments that are popular on TV these days; others are unknown to the casual observer because they don't bother with the tourneys, or because they prefer other poker games, such as Omaha or Seven-Card Stud.
The stakes at Table No. 1 usually range from $1,000/$2,000 to $1,500/$3,000. A typical pot is at least $20,000 and can easily total $50,000. When the World Series of Poker is in town the stakes increase to $4,000/$8,000.
"On any given night, we always have the biggest game in town," says Doug Dalton, the Bellagio's director of poker operations. "The table is always full, with a waiting list."
When a banker from Dallas named Andy Beal comes to town, the stakes go even higher - pots in excess of $1 million are the norm.
Welcome to The Big Game.
WHAT A FINALE
There is no better way to end the summer-long Pienciak's Poker Tour than to share my up-close-and-personal look at this elite game of poker.
I am amazed at the casualness of the proceedings. It's as if they're playing for nickels and dimes instead of tens of thousands.
The players banter constantly with each other.
It's toss in four $500 chips, tell a joke, grab some grilled cheese and tomato soup (or a $42 steak or some $21 Kobe beef sliders).
Then it's call the $2,000 raise, drink some Mountain Valley Spring water from Arkansas, grab the cell phone to call home.
In the middle of a hand, Perry, 39, pulls out his wallet and shows me photos of his wife and two young children. He tells me the youngsters are local karate champs.
"Have you ever seen a $25,000 chip?" he asks as he shows me one. "It cost about eight cents to make."
Play alternates every eight hands between Limit Texas Hold'em, Seven-Card Stud, Seven-Card Stud 8 or Better, Omaha 8 or Better and Deuce to 7 Triple Draw.
Sitting on plush cloth chairs in a no-smoking environment, each player hordes stacks of $500 chips, 20 to a stack, plus a handful (or more) of $5,000 chips. I spot Giang with a stack of $5,000 chips, plus 10 stacks of $500s, retrieved from the poker room's safe deposit boxes.
"The money is just bullets for gambling. It's poker ammunition," says Todd Brunson. The table has a listed minimum buy-in of $20,000, but most of the players bring considerably more to the table to avoid being put in a psychological or strategic disadvantage.
"Real poker is not the No Limit tournaments. They're for TV," says Manhattan resident Abe Mosseri, 31, who was mentioned in an earlier PPT column. "The real games are the money games, like this one."
The poker room crowd gazes in awe as world champ Johnny Chan joins the fray.
"This is the biggest game in town," he says. "You have all types of top players - businessmen and high-limit players. The action is great."
Chan, 49, tells me he also prefers side games over tournament play. "You don't have to sit there for hours and hours. You can go to dinner and take a break whenever you feel like it. A tournament is like going to work. You play two hours, you get 10 minutes to go to the bathroom."
Three nights a week - Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday - singer Celine Dion's husband, Rene Angelil, joins The Big Game.
"I've been playing poker since I was a kid back in Canada. "I thought I knew how to play until I started playing with these guys," says Angelil, 62. "I'm learning every day. It's like being in college - and I have the best teachers."
He says he can afford to lose, but "I don't lose too much money. I don't make the same mistakes I made six months ago, and in six months I'll be better than I am today."
MILLIONS FROM TEXAS
The stories of Andy Beal are legendary at the Bellagio - it's said that two books are in the works about the poker-playing billionaire banker.
"He's a very classy gentlemen," says Doyle Brunson. "The money doesn't really mean anything to him. Prestige is what he's looking for."
Beal made tons of money buying broken banks during the savings & loan scandal. He lost about $200 million on a project to privately launch rocket payloads, first from an island off Anguilla, then from the coast of Guyana.
He's also a math whiz who loves poker.
About three years ago, Beal began visiting Vegas.
"He started out playing $80/$160 Limit Hold'em," says Dalton, 55. "Then he wanted to know if there was anyone around who would play a lot higher."
Beal joined The Big Game. Then he made an even bigger game of his own.
Beal said he would play for extremely high stakes, provided he could play head's up - against only one player at a time.
Soon he was switching off between the likes of Lederer, the Brunsons, Greenstein, Chan or Harman in Limit Hold'em - $50,000/$100,000 or $100,000/$200,000.
The pro players pool their money.
"You can literally win or lose a million dollars on a hand," says Jack McClelland, 53, who ran the World Series of Poker for 15 years and now runs tournaments at the Bellagio.
Beal has had very good days and very bad days. He's been up millions at a time, then down millions.
In response to scuttlebutt that Beal lost $10 million during one of his recent visits, McClelland says, "That's quite doable. You play $100,000/$200,000, you can lose $2 million in an afternoon."
Todd Brunson says: "I've beaten him for $20 million, $20.5 million to be exact."
Giang, 49, recalls the time he took the banker for $6 million. "That was pretty big."
Harman says she has pleasant million-dollar memories, too.
Word is that Beal, who did not return phone calls, is down $40 million. But journalist/author James McManus, who's writing a magazine piece about the Beal game, says "Beal is certainly down, but that number is in dispute."
McClelland says Beal was here for a day and a half his last visit, during the World Series of Poker. "He lost $5 million and said, 'I'm going home.'"
"His latest thing is he's 'never coming back,'" says Doyle Brunson. "But he's said that before."
CHARMIN' HARMAN
There are many in the poker world, including the regulars at The Big Game, who believe Harman is the best female player in the world. "Not only that," says Perry. "She's one of the best players in the game, period."
Harman, in her 30s, has won two World Series of Poker bracelets, the only female who can say that.
She's a regular at The Big Game, again the only female who can say that.
She's also the leading female money winner on the World Poker Tour.
The PPT watched her for two nights; she won both times, about $40,000 each evening.
This is the stuff legends are made of.
Harman had wanted to win big at this summer's World Series of Poker. Instead, she underwent a kidney transplant.
Harman allowed ESPN to film the operation. "I wanted to make people aware of the donor program," she tells me.
Harman says she loves playing poker and has been going to casinos since she was 16.
"I make money off people who play bad. That's my profession," she says. "It's like a regular job. You have your house, you have your cars and you have your bills."
She's most proud of her performances at The Big Game: "I do really well."
Duke wins ESPN title
Ten of the world's best poker players gathered at the Rio casino in Las Vegas on Sept. 2 for a very secret event - a made-for-TV Tournament of Champions.
Sponsored by Harrah's Entertainment, which owns the casino, the contest will be broadcast Sept. 21 on ESPN.
The game was invitation only; the $2 million prize pool was winner-take-all.
"That's what poker has come to," Doyle (Texas Dolly) Brunson, 71, told me the week before at the World Poker Tour's Legends tournament in Los Angeles. "They put up $2 million and we don't have to put up a nickel."
Brunson was joined by three other World Series of Poker champs - Greg Raymer, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth.
Also participating were T.J. Cloutier, Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Chip Reese, Howard Lederer and Howard's sister, Annie Duke.
So who won the secret contest?
Within hours of its conclusion, word swept through Las Vegas poker rooms - Annie Duke had captured the title.
No comment from any of the players, who are sworn to secrecy, on who won or on the rumor that at least several of them had formed a team to share the loot if one of them won.
ESPN and Harrah's failed to return calls.
Originally published on September 11, 2004
PPT finishes up by taking a walk
on wild side in Vegas high-stakes room
LAS VEGAS - It is Labor Day weekend, and the boulevards of Sin City are bumper to bumper. But tucked away in a corner of the High Limit section of the Bellagio's poker room, it's just another night of cards for the best gamblers to ever play the game.
Day in and day out, the action at Table No. 1 is the largest stakes poker game in the world.
Eight seats. Eight players from among the world's best 20 or so – Doyle (Texas Dolly) Brunson, Johnny Chan, Chau Giang, Jennifer Harman, Howard Lederer, Sammy Farha, Chip Reese, Lee Salem, Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen, Barry Greenstein, Daniel Negreanu, John Hennigan, Doyle's son Todd, Ralph Perry (a former New York City limo driver) and a player known simply as Cuco.
Some of the names are recognizable from the No Limit Hold'em tournaments that are popular on TV these days; others are unknown to the casual observer because they don't bother with the tourneys, or because they prefer other poker games, such as Omaha or Seven-Card Stud.
The stakes at Table No. 1 usually range from $1,000/$2,000 to $1,500/$3,000. A typical pot is at least $20,000 and can easily total $50,000. When the World Series of Poker is in town the stakes increase to $4,000/$8,000.
"On any given night, we always have the biggest game in town," says Doug Dalton, the Bellagio's director of poker operations. "The table is always full, with a waiting list."
When a banker from Dallas named Andy Beal comes to town, the stakes go even higher - pots in excess of $1 million are the norm.
Welcome to The Big Game.
WHAT A FINALE
There is no better way to end the summer-long Pienciak's Poker Tour than to share my up-close-and-personal look at this elite game of poker.
I am amazed at the casualness of the proceedings. It's as if they're playing for nickels and dimes instead of tens of thousands.
The players banter constantly with each other.
It's toss in four $500 chips, tell a joke, grab some grilled cheese and tomato soup (or a $42 steak or some $21 Kobe beef sliders).
Then it's call the $2,000 raise, drink some Mountain Valley Spring water from Arkansas, grab the cell phone to call home.
In the middle of a hand, Perry, 39, pulls out his wallet and shows me photos of his wife and two young children. He tells me the youngsters are local karate champs.
"Have you ever seen a $25,000 chip?" he asks as he shows me one. "It cost about eight cents to make."
Play alternates every eight hands between Limit Texas Hold'em, Seven-Card Stud, Seven-Card Stud 8 or Better, Omaha 8 or Better and Deuce to 7 Triple Draw.
Sitting on plush cloth chairs in a no-smoking environment, each player hordes stacks of $500 chips, 20 to a stack, plus a handful (or more) of $5,000 chips. I spot Giang with a stack of $5,000 chips, plus 10 stacks of $500s, retrieved from the poker room's safe deposit boxes.
"The money is just bullets for gambling. It's poker ammunition," says Todd Brunson. The table has a listed minimum buy-in of $20,000, but most of the players bring considerably more to the table to avoid being put in a psychological or strategic disadvantage.
"Real poker is not the No Limit tournaments. They're for TV," says Manhattan resident Abe Mosseri, 31, who was mentioned in an earlier PPT column. "The real games are the money games, like this one."
The poker room crowd gazes in awe as world champ Johnny Chan joins the fray.
"This is the biggest game in town," he says. "You have all types of top players - businessmen and high-limit players. The action is great."
Chan, 49, tells me he also prefers side games over tournament play. "You don't have to sit there for hours and hours. You can go to dinner and take a break whenever you feel like it. A tournament is like going to work. You play two hours, you get 10 minutes to go to the bathroom."
Three nights a week - Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday - singer Celine Dion's husband, Rene Angelil, joins The Big Game.
"I've been playing poker since I was a kid back in Canada. "I thought I knew how to play until I started playing with these guys," says Angelil, 62. "I'm learning every day. It's like being in college - and I have the best teachers."
He says he can afford to lose, but "I don't lose too much money. I don't make the same mistakes I made six months ago, and in six months I'll be better than I am today."
MILLIONS FROM TEXAS
The stories of Andy Beal are legendary at the Bellagio - it's said that two books are in the works about the poker-playing billionaire banker.
"He's a very classy gentlemen," says Doyle Brunson. "The money doesn't really mean anything to him. Prestige is what he's looking for."
Beal made tons of money buying broken banks during the savings & loan scandal. He lost about $200 million on a project to privately launch rocket payloads, first from an island off Anguilla, then from the coast of Guyana.
He's also a math whiz who loves poker.
About three years ago, Beal began visiting Vegas.
"He started out playing $80/$160 Limit Hold'em," says Dalton, 55. "Then he wanted to know if there was anyone around who would play a lot higher."
Beal joined The Big Game. Then he made an even bigger game of his own.
Beal said he would play for extremely high stakes, provided he could play head's up - against only one player at a time.
Soon he was switching off between the likes of Lederer, the Brunsons, Greenstein, Chan or Harman in Limit Hold'em - $50,000/$100,000 or $100,000/$200,000.
The pro players pool their money.
"You can literally win or lose a million dollars on a hand," says Jack McClelland, 53, who ran the World Series of Poker for 15 years and now runs tournaments at the Bellagio.
Beal has had very good days and very bad days. He's been up millions at a time, then down millions.
In response to scuttlebutt that Beal lost $10 million during one of his recent visits, McClelland says, "That's quite doable. You play $100,000/$200,000, you can lose $2 million in an afternoon."
Todd Brunson says: "I've beaten him for $20 million, $20.5 million to be exact."
Giang, 49, recalls the time he took the banker for $6 million. "That was pretty big."
Harman says she has pleasant million-dollar memories, too.
Word is that Beal, who did not return phone calls, is down $40 million. But journalist/author James McManus, who's writing a magazine piece about the Beal game, says "Beal is certainly down, but that number is in dispute."
McClelland says Beal was here for a day and a half his last visit, during the World Series of Poker. "He lost $5 million and said, 'I'm going home.'"
"His latest thing is he's 'never coming back,'" says Doyle Brunson. "But he's said that before."
CHARMIN' HARMAN
There are many in the poker world, including the regulars at The Big Game, who believe Harman is the best female player in the world. "Not only that," says Perry. "She's one of the best players in the game, period."
Harman, in her 30s, has won two World Series of Poker bracelets, the only female who can say that.
She's a regular at The Big Game, again the only female who can say that.
She's also the leading female money winner on the World Poker Tour.
The PPT watched her for two nights; she won both times, about $40,000 each evening.
This is the stuff legends are made of.
Harman had wanted to win big at this summer's World Series of Poker. Instead, she underwent a kidney transplant.
Harman allowed ESPN to film the operation. "I wanted to make people aware of the donor program," she tells me.
Harman says she loves playing poker and has been going to casinos since she was 16.
"I make money off people who play bad. That's my profession," she says. "It's like a regular job. You have your house, you have your cars and you have your bills."
She's most proud of her performances at The Big Game: "I do really well."
Duke wins ESPN title
Ten of the world's best poker players gathered at the Rio casino in Las Vegas on Sept. 2 for a very secret event - a made-for-TV Tournament of Champions.
Sponsored by Harrah's Entertainment, which owns the casino, the contest will be broadcast Sept. 21 on ESPN.
The game was invitation only; the $2 million prize pool was winner-take-all.
"That's what poker has come to," Doyle (Texas Dolly) Brunson, 71, told me the week before at the World Poker Tour's Legends tournament in Los Angeles. "They put up $2 million and we don't have to put up a nickel."
Brunson was joined by three other World Series of Poker champs - Greg Raymer, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth.
Also participating were T.J. Cloutier, Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Chip Reese, Howard Lederer and Howard's sister, Annie Duke.
So who won the secret contest?
Within hours of its conclusion, word swept through Las Vegas poker rooms - Annie Duke had captured the title.
No comment from any of the players, who are sworn to secrecy, on who won or on the rumor that at least several of them had formed a team to share the loot if one of them won.
ESPN and Harrah's failed to return calls.
Originally published on September 11, 2004
