$3,000 Limit Hold'em: The Cincinatti Kid Wins the Sequel

Editor's note: This is one in a series of articles originally written for an Internet website for the 2001 World Series of Poker tournament events.

Even people not associated with the poker world have heard of The Cincinnati Kid, the movie in which Steve McQueen, as Eric Stoner, "The Kid," tried to take down Edward G. Robinson's Lancey Howard, "The Man," in a high-stakes five-card stud game. The Kid outplays The Man most of the way, and is on the verge of breaking him when The Man wins the final huge pot, making a straight flush to beat The Kid's full house.

What most average movie watchers don't know, of course, is that the final hand, the big confrontation between The Kid and The Man, could never have been played that way by two good poker players, never mind two great poker players. It still made for good theatre, and besides, there was Ann Margaret to keep things interesting during the nonpoker scenes.

In the $3,000 buy-in limit hold'em championship at the World Series of Poker, Jim Lester, a Cincinnati native who was playing $100-$200 poker at age 14 and, I "kid" you not, $1,000-$2,000 poker when he was 16, won the title, thanks in large degree to catching a big hand against a guy who is The Man in Texas hold'em, not in age but in WSOP bracelets with seven of them, Phil Hellmuth Jr. I guess this gives the real-life sequel to the real-life Cincinnati Kid.

A total of 192 players started this tournament, and when we started play at the final table, the seats and chip counts were:

Seat Player Chip Count

1 Mike Shi $8,500

2 Phi Nguyen $70,500

3 Hung La $32,500

4 Alphons Jaeggi $25,500

5 Jim Lester $63,500

6 Phil Hellmuth Jr. $21,500

7 Alex Brenes $76,000

8 Minh Ly $96,000

9 Paul Ladanyi $182,000

Hellmuth's appearance at the final table was a minor miracle, because he had been so short-chipped earlier in the tournament. It turned out that Lester's appearance was another minor miracle, because he had been down to six $500 chips with four tables to go.

With a start like that, it isn't surprising, in retrospect, that Mike Shi nearly outlasted chip monster Paul Ladanyi, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's see how the action went down.

We started play with 43 minutes left on the clock at the $2,000-$4,000 blind level, playing $4,000-$8,000. This gave the short stacks little time to find a hand or make a move.

Everyone Got a Seat? Good, Let's Start With a Bang

I recorded every single hand in this tournament (don't worry, I won't torture you with each and every one), and my entry for hand No. 1 got us off to a flying start.

Phi Nguyen, on the button, brought the hand in with a raise, and Hung La three-bet his Vietnamese countryman from the small blind. Jaeggi, a Swiss player (this table had a very international flavor: Shi is Chinese, Ladanyi is from Hungary, and Brenes is from Costa Rica), called two bets cold from the big blind, and Nguyen also called, putting $36,000 into the pot before anyone could settle comfortably into his chair.

The flop came a moderately scary 10 9 8, La bet right out, and both opponents folded, a good move, as La turned over pocket aces for a $24,000 stack increase in one hand. Now that's how to start a final table.

The shortest stack, Shi, more than doubled through when Ladanyi raised hand No. 3 and Shi called all in. A-J for Ladanyi, A-Q for Shi, a queen hit the flop, and Shi had a tiny bit of breathing room.

La raised hand No. 12, got no callers, and showed A-A for the second time. Bob Thompson joked that we were sure there were only four aces in the deck.

Jacks Not So Nimble for Nguyen

Nguyen, who had started as one of the chip leaders, continued a quick slide when he brought hand No. 14 in for a raise, only to get three-bet by Jaeggi. He called, the flop came A 9 6, Nguyen bet out, Jaeggi raised all in, and Nguyen called. K-K for Jaeggi, J-J for Nguyen, a king hit the turn to seal matters, and Jaeggi had doubled through.

Hellmuth, who was playing tight, looked a little wistfully at all of these pocket pairs, as if to say, "Where are my pocket aces?" (I guess he wouldn't have wanted Nguyen's pocket jacks, at least not when Nguyen got them.) He finally got involved on hand No. 17 when he raised, Nguyen called, the flop came A-Q-7, Hellmuth bet, Nguyen raised to put Hellmuth all in, and Phil called. A-5 for Hellmuth, K-7 for Nguyen, and Hellmuth wound up making an unnecessary nut flush when a fourth heart hit the board on the end.

Ladanyi, who had come in owning nearly a third of the chips, continued a slide of his own on hand No. 19 when Jaeggi bet out at a K J 10 flop, Ladanyi raised, and Jaeggi called. The J hit the turn and the Q the river, with Jaeggi leading out each time and Ladanyi calling each time. Jaeggi turned over A Ku for a royal flush, and Ladanyi tossed his hand away with the look of a man who had flopped two pair, probably with K-10.

Nguyen's slide straight downhill ended on hand No. 25 when he brought the hand in with a raise, Jaeggi called two bets cold, and Brenes, looking colorful and patriotic in a red, white, and blue Costa Rica sweatshirt and hat, three-bet the hand.

Danger, Wil Robinson!

Too bad that robot from Lost in Space wasn't around. A three-bet from a strong player like Brenes after a raise and a cold call would have had him flailing his arms and yelling, "Danger, Wil Robinson." Everyone called, despite the danger, and the flop came 8 6 5. Everyone checked to Brenes, who bet, with Nguyen calling and Jaeggi deciding discretion was the better part of valor. The 8 hit the turn, Brenes checked, Nguyen pushed in his last $7,000, and Brenes called. A K for Nguyen, Q Q for Brenes, but he dodged the better flush draw when a harmless 7 hit the river, and Nguyen was out ninth at 4:50 p.m.

A couple of hands later, Ladanyi raised again and got three-bet by La from the small blind. Ladanyi called, the flop came 8 8 3, La bet right out, Ladanyi raised, La reraised, and Ladanyi called. La bet his last $3,000 in the dark, and Ladanyi called. A-A for La, the third time he'd held that hand in the game's first three rounds, and A-Q for the fast-falling Ladanyi, who'd run into pocket aces on hand No. 26, too. He slammed his hand flat on the table when he saw La's hand, in an understandable nonverbal, "How many times am I going to be up against aces today?" gesture.

Lester made a big move by check-raising and winning both hands No. 29 and 30, hurting Ly on the first hand and Jaeggi even worse on the second, where the action went all the way to the river.

We'd played 30 hands in the first 43 minutes, and Ladanyi's chip lead was gone, with most of his chips, albeit indirectly, now in Lester's stack. The blinds moved to $3,000-$6,000, playing $6,000-$12,000.

Pocket Rockets Strike Again

Pocket aces reared their ugly (or pretty, depending on your point of view) head again on hand No. 37, when Minh Ly (the Las Vegas version; there's another good player with exactly the same name in California, so I think one of them is going to have to pick or get a nickname) opened with a raise, Lester three-bet from the big blind, and Ly called. The flop came J 7 4, Lester bet out, and Ly called. Another jack hit on the turn, Lester again led out, but this time Ly raised. Lester thought about it, but called, and both players checked when the 6 hit the river. Lester showed his aces, and Ly mucked. Lester was now the clear chip leader, with more than $125,000.

We lost Jaeggi, who played gamely but called a few too many double raises cold for my liking, when he raised under the gun on hand No. 41, Ly three-bet him, and Jaeggi raised his last $3,000 all in. A-10 for Jaeggi, A-K for Ly, the board came Q-5-3-K-3, and we were sevenhanded at 5:30 p.m.

Ladanyi dropped to $57,000 on hand No. 45, and for a moment it looked like the impossible was going to happen, the early chip leader exiting before some of the tiny stacks, when he hooked up with Brenes on the very next hand. Ladanyi raised, and Brenes called from the big blind. Brenes bet out on the Q 10 4 flop, and Ladanyi called. Another 4 hit on the turn, Brenes again bet out, and Ladanyi raised with only $15,000 left in his stack. If Brenes had a real hand, Ladanyi was gone, but Alex mucked, and Ladanyi had a playable stack again.

Who's That Tall, Quiet Guy in

Seat No. 6?

Hellmuth had mostly been missing in action during these early stages, waiting for some kind of hand with his short stack, and he found one on the next hand, raising from the button with Ly calling from the big blind. The flop came A Q 2, Ly checked, Hellmuth tossed his last $4,000 into the pot, and Ly declined. Hellmuth showed 10-10.

Lester, who had become the table bully, raised hand No. 52, and Hellmuth popped him back, putting his last seven chips out on the table as if assuming that Lester was going to call the raise and put him all in for one more chip, but Lester did something very few initial raisers do when they get three-bet: He laid the hand down, probably because Hellmuth had been in such a tight gear. Hellmuth showed Q-Q, and now had enough chips to start putting his foot on the accelerator, the way he likes to play.

He hit the gas two hands later, but didn't find anyone else who wanted to drag, so he took the blinds uncontested, and then started playing some of those mind games that unnerve some opponents and annoy others. On hand No. 59, Shi raised Hellmuth's big blind, and Phil started giving him "the stare." Hellmuth looked at Shi, then down at his own cards, back at Shi, back down at his own cards, back at Shi, and then he finally said, "For some reason, I think you're a little weak, but I don't have anything of my own," and he tossed his cards away.

Shi, unlike so many players who give away unnecessary free information in situations like this, didn't cooperate by showing Hellmuth his hand: He just tossed it into the muck as he collected the pot.

"You are Getting Sleepy …

Very Sleepy …"

Hellmuth won the next hand on the turn, though, and suddenly his stack had hit $72,000, real money in this game, when the mind games recommenced on hand No. 66. Shi raised Hellmuth's big blind again. Phil gave him the stare, said, "This time I read more strength," but called. The flop came K-9-5, Hellmuth bet right out, and Shi folded.

Hellmuth raised the very next hand out of the small blind, and Brenes called from the big blind. The flop came Q 10 9, Hellmuth bet straight out, Brenes raised, and Hellmuth folded. Brenes turned over 8-5 offsuit, apparently having sensed that Hellmuth had gone into "take over the table" gear. "Oh, man, I had him drawing dead; I had king-eight," Hellmuth said.

"Why didn't you try to read him?" asked someone.

"I didn't bother because I figured when he called me before the flop, he had me beat," Hellmuth said. "I can't imagine him playing 8-5 against me there."

At hand No. 71, I estimated the chips at:

Shi – $25,000

La – $25,000

Lester – $160,000

Hellmuth – $60,000

Brenes – $80,000

Ly – $66,000

Paul "Ebb and Flow" Ladanyi – $160,000

Brenes grabbed $30,000 from Ladanyi on the next hand, hence my nickname for Ladanyi, who now resides in Malibu, where he gets, I suppose, to see the Pacific tides ebb and flow more slowly than his chips were doing here.

A Wake-Up Call From

Bob Thompson

As hand No. 76 was being dealt, Tournament Director Bob Thompson announced that we had 11 minutes left at the $6,000-$12,000 level, at which point we'd take a break, and then come back playing with $5,000-$10,000 blinds and a $10,000-$20,000 limit. Although all of the players knew the structure before they sat down, and all had to be sensing the round was nearing its end, I wondered if this announcement would spur anyone into playing faster in an effort to pick up some chips before the limits got out of hand.

Apparently, I wasn't the only one to have had the same thought.

Hellmuth raised the next hand, La reraised all in, and Hellmuth called; 8-8 for La, A-10 for Hellmuth, and the board came down Q-7-4-9-10, sending La out in seventh place.

Two hands later, the other fast guy pushed. Lester raised from the button, and Hellmuth looked at him briefly and then looked over at Brenes in the big blind. Hellmuth looked left and right again, said, "OK, I'll throw away the best hand," and folded. Brenes called.

The flop came 8 6 4, Alex checked, Lester bet, Alex raised, Lester raised, Alex raised, and Lester called. The 2 hit the turn, Alex checked, Lester bet, and Alex called. The 3 hit the river, completing a flush if Alex had been on a draw, and Alex bet straight out. Despite the huge pot, Lester released his hand.

Say "Lester Raises" Three Times Fast

Lester raised the very next hand, and took the blinds. Lester raised (sense a pattern?) the very next hand, but this time Hellmuth three-bet, with Lester calling. The flop came 9 4 2, Lester checked, Hellmuth bet, and Lester called. When the 7 hit the turn, Lester checked again, Hellmuth bet again, and Lester let it go.

Lester had lost a ton of chips in three hands, even though he'd won one of them.

We returned from the break at 6:45 p.m., with six players now contending at the vastly higher limit, and the chip counts were:

Shi – $20,000

Lester – $97,000

Hellmuth – $120,000

Brenes – $140,000

Ly – $58,000

Ladanyi – $130,000

Hand No. 1 after the break proved to be even more action-packed than hand No. 1 of the tournament, and I think it was one of the key hands of the tournament.

The Kid's Rematch Against The Man

Lester raised out of the small blind, and Hellmuth reraised, with Lester calling, putting $60,000 in the pot preflop. The flop came J 6 5, Lester bet, and Hellmuth called, making it an $80,000 pot. The 9 hit the turn, Lester bet, Hellmuth raised, pushing two $20,000 towers into the pot, and Lester reraised all in for his last $17,000. Yikes! J-9 for Lester, two pair, and Hellmuth had no outs with his A-K. The Cincinnati Kid had The Man, this time.

Lester had grabbed a big chip lead with $194,000, and Hellmuth was running on fumes at $23,000. On the very next hand, Lester raised from the button, Hellmuth reraised all in from the small blind, and Lester called. 3 3 for Lester, 10 10 for Phil, and the board came A Q 4-blank-club. Lester had made a flush with the random trey and four clubs on the board, and Hellmuth was gone.

This Time, the Other Guy Provides the Controversy

Hellmuth, who had a history of stormy exits in his younger days, just drew his lips inward, exhaled, patted the table, and wished everyone good luck. I mention this not to chronicle a nonevent (that is, a nontantrum) but because I then witnessed something I'd never seen in covering about 70 WSOP final tables, which meant it was something I'd never seen in watching more than 500 people get busted out of a World Series event.

The guy who busted Hellmuth out, Lester, called across the table with what most observers at the time thought was a taunt: "Hey, Phil, don't put me in your column for making a bad play." I had never seen the winner taunt someone who had busted out of a tournament before. Hellmuth glowered, but merely said softly, "Pretty funny, Jim," accepted his money, and left.

Max Shapiro and I converged on Lester about this after the tournament was over: The incident was the first question we each wanted to ask. "No, I didn't mean it as a needle, although he took it that way" he said. "I put a real bad beat on Phil with 12 players left last night, raising with 8-7 offsuit and staying in the hand and eventually making a straight on the end. I knew that when I put my money in, I was beat.

"It was a bad play to stay in," he continued. "Phil said it and I knew it, but I stayed in because I had no interest in getting to the final table with a tiny stack. I wanted to have enough chips to play and go for the bracelet, not just make a final table, and if I'd gotten off the hand, my stack would have been just too small. So, that was the hand I was talking about."

OK, I'll Buy it, but the Timing Wasn't Great

Plausible enough, and perhaps even understandable as a release of tension, but I've never seen even the "Poker Brat" say anything to someone he'd just busted out of a tournament, and I wouldn't recommend that you do it, either. It's hard enough to be graceful in that moment of hurt when you stand up, when people are clapping or congratulating you for finishing where you did. You might feel good about a high finish a few days later, but the moment you have to stand up is an empty, awful time. No joke is ever going to be funny to someone who has just busted out of a big tournament near the title.

Nonetheless, I think Lester was telling the truth about his intent, and while judgment is important, intent is more important, so let's move on.

Shi busted out on the very next hand (yes, the $10,000-$20,000 limit was having its expected effect), taking K 7 up against two aces, and we were fourhanded, with the chip counts:

Lester – $250,000

Brenes – $110,000

Ly – $90,000

Ladanyi – $125,000

Three hands later, Ladanyi raised, Brenes three-bet from the small blind, and Ladanyi called. The flop came 7 3 3, and Brenes bet and got called, which also happened when the K hit the turn. The 2 hit the river, Brenes bet his last $15,000 all in, and Ladanyi called. Brenes turned over K J, and collected the $200,000 pot when Ladanyi mucked.

It Wasn't Ladanyi's Day

I don't know what Ladanyi had, but I guess it's safe to assume he was leading on the flop. Although the guy did play fast, that's not a crime; indeed, it's often the path to victory. On this day, he ran into a lot of big hands before the flop and some tough hits after the flop. A few hands later, he lost a tough one to Ly when an ace hit the river, giving Ly the win with his A-K after Ladanyi had been leading on the flop and turn.

At hand No. 105, K-J did Ladanyi in for good. Ly raised from the small blind, and Ladanyi called from the big blind. The flop came J 4 2, Ly checked, Ladanyi bet, Ly raised, and Ladanyi reraised all in. He turned over A 8 to Ly's K-J, an overcard and the nut-flush draw, but a harmless 6 and 7 finished Ladanyi in fourth.

At this point, the three remaining players grew extremely interested in their precise chip counts, which were:

Lester – $215,000

Brenes – $165,000

Ly – $197,000

It was 7:20 p.m., and the boys took a little stroll to gear up for the final battle, and after their break, the chips flew fast and furiously.

Lester the Aggrestor

Lester, as he had been for most of the tournament, was the most aggressive of the three, but unlike Ladanyi, who seemed to run into big hands whenever he pushed, Lester wound up turning over winners. He gouged Brenes when he raised from the button, Brenes three-bet from the small blind, and Lester called. The flop came A 8 6, Brenes bet out, and Lester called. The 5 hit the turn, putting two flush draws out, Brenes bet out again, Lester raised, and Brenes mucked. Lester turned over the A 5, two pair and a nut-flush draw, a pretty spiffy hand in three-way action.

He kept pushing, and his stack kept increasing; Thompson called him "a freight train rolling downhill" at one point, when Brenes and Ly both seemed defenseless to the onslaught.

It looked like the whole thing might end on hand No. 120 when Lester raised from the button, Brenes reraised from the small blind, and Ly reraised from the big blind. One more bet from Lester put them both all in, and it all happened so fast, we had to back up for a moment to figure out whether Brenes or Ly had started the hand with more chips, in case Lester busted them both. Brenes had one more than Ly, but it didn't matter; 7 6 for Lester, A-Q for Brenes, A-J for Ly, and as Lester cried out for some little ones, the board came down K-Q-8-J-4, sending Ly out third, and giving Brenes about $100,000 to Lester's $476,000, and suddenly rekindled hopes.

Brenes Draws the Black Queen

The rekindled hopes lasted two hands. Lester raised from the small blind on the button, Brenes reraised, Lester reraised, Brenes reraised, and Lester finally called, with $50,000 each in the pot. Brenes bet in the dark, Lester looked at the 8 7 4 flop, and raised Brenes all in. A K for Brenes, J J for Lester, and the 2 on the turn gave Brenes real hopes for a $200,000 stack with an ace, a king, or a diamond on the river, but for the second tournament in a row, that all-so-appropriate black queen fell on the river, and we had a champion.

The real Cincinnati Kid made a small fortune playing while he was young; he had talent and a backer, and his regular opponents were guys who arrived with suitcases full of cash and "no idea about how to play," Lester related. He'd grown rich enough by the time he was 22 that his wife asked him to quit playing poker full time and put the money into a business, which he did; he's a contractor.

He still plays a lot of poker, about a hundred days a year, he estimates, usually in big side action; he flies to Las Vegas, Atlantic City, or Tunica three or four weekends a month. Charlie Brahmi, a 1999 WSOP winner, Atlantic City player, and a Lester pal, was sitting nearby as Lester related this, and said, "Andy, you wanna know how high this guy plays? He calls me up at the Taj on the weekend to ask if the games are big enough." (The weekend action at the Taj gets pretty big, so someone who would bother to check before traveling must indeed want the big-time action.)

Tournaments are a relatively new love for The Kid. He's 40 now, and played his first-ever tournament last year at Commerce Casino, in one of those $330 buy-in limit hold'em events with rebuys that draw 600 or 700 entrants, and he made the final four before they chopped up the money. ("I was hooked on tournaments then and there," he said.) Incredibly, he's played seven limit hold'em tournaments in his life, and has made the final table in five of them.

The real Cincinnati Kid knocked out The Man, and then polished off his other opponents in grand style. You da Man, Kid. You da Man.

Final results:

$3,000 limit hold'em

Entrants: 192 o Prize pool: $558,720

1. Jim Lester $223,490

2. Alex Brenes $111,745

3. Minh Ly (Las Vegas) $55,870

4. Paul Ladanyi $33,525

5. Mike Shi $25,140

6. Phil Hellmuth Jr. $19,555

7. Hung La $13,970

8. Alphons Jaeggi $11,175

9. Phi Nguyen $8,945