My First World Series of Poker Bracelet - Part III

I really would have liked telling this story in one single column, but I don't think it would have been right to tell Barry Shulman that he needed to allow me 10 extra pages for my column! So, I decided to break it down into three parts, also realizing that it would be easier to read that way.

Briefly, here's what you missed if you missed Part I and Part II. I went to Vegas with little dough again, and chopped up a satellite with Todd Brunson and Mike Matusow after a 40-hour session of playing poker. The next day in the pot-limit hold'em tournament, my first World Series of Poker event ever, I was looking to get some experience playing with the best, and arrived at the table from hell. I quickly changed my tune about wanting to play with the best players. I got lucky, played about as well as I could at the time, and made it to the final table.

OK, now that that's out of the way, let's get to the details. This is how the 1998 $2,000 buy-in pot-limit hold'em final table looked:

Seat No. 1: Lee Markholt, $15,000; Tacoma, Washington

Seat No. 2: Pouya Pouyamajd, $37,000; Neu-Isenburg, Germany

Seat No. 3: John Morgan, $43,000; Wolverhampton, England

Seat No. 4: Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, $67,500; Pacific Palisades, California

Seat No. 5: Dolph Arnold, $69,000; Houston, Texas

Seat No. 6: Dan Heimiller, $27,000; Las Vegas, Nevada

Seat No. 7: Daniel Negreanu, $73,500; Toronto, Canada

Seat No. 8: Myron Rosenbaum, $37,500; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Seat No. 9: Dominic Bourke, $88,500; London, England

So, as you can see, I came to the final table second in chips behind Dominic Bourke the chip leader. I knew very little about Dominic, but my friend Rob Gingras had played a lot with him and warned me that he was a tricky player, and very tough. Rob proved to be right on the money with his description.

I had position on Dan Heimiller, as well as a little more knowledge as to what I could expect from him, but he was eliminated right away when his pocket fives couldn't outrun aces.

Somehow, things just weren't clicking for me early on. I played very few hands, and whenever I did play a hand, I got reraised and couldn't call.

Then, I caught a break after my stack had fallen to about $23,000 after not winning a pot for a while. Everybody folded to me on the button, and I picked up two kings. I made it $5,000 and Dominic, the aggressive chip leader, moved me all in with the K 8. Luckily for me, my kings held up.

Shortly thereafter, it was my turn to take on a short stack in Lee Markholt. Lee moved all in and I happily called him with those same two kings. I flopped a set, and Lee was out.

Now, even though I had beaten Dominic with the two kings, he was the player I feared most. He was playing great – aggressively, but not like a maniac. Every move he made seemed to make sense, and the other players were having trouble figuring him out, as was I.

It had taken more than four hours to get down to the final three players. By that time, I was the chip leader, with Dominic a close second and Myron Rosenbaum short-stacked in third place. Myron finally made his last stand, and Dominic and I both called and checked the hand down. Thanks to the free cards, I hit a miracle runner-runner straight and Myron missed his open-end straight draw.

So, there I was heads up at the WSOP; how the hell did that happen? A day earlier, I was praying that I would make a flush when I was all in for my last $100, and now I was guaranteed at least $87,000. I'd never even seen that much money at that point in my life. The whole experience was mind-boggling for me, to say the least. Win or lose, I felt like a winner.

Sweating me all the way that day were Jennifer Harman, Greg Pappas, and David Feder. You should know who Jennifer and Greg are by now from previous columns, and David was another friend I'd met in L.A. earlier in the year. He is also a great player and another good guy.

It was nice to have them there for moral support, as I really didn't know too many people in Vegas at that time. I knew Jennifer because she had beaten me out of all of my money earlier in the year at the Rio. We actually became very good friends after that, though; I guess she felt sorry for me – kidding, of course. She is a great person and I learned a lot from her by watching her play and from her giving me advice on certain things – from poker to life.

Greg Pappas? He was probably one of the only friends I met that year who didn't want to borrow money from me!

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, back to the action. I was heads up with the guy I had hoped would go broke every hand he played – not because I didn't like him, but because he was playing fabulous poker and I wanted him out!

When we got heads up, I started with $293,000 to his $165,000. Slowly but surely, though, Dominic chipped away at me. He stole more pots and got away from me when I had a hand. It really didn't look good, and the little voice of fear in my head kept saying, "You can't beat this guy, he knows what you have all the time. When you bluff, he calls; when he bluffs, you fold. Just shove it all in and let's get out of here." That little voice hadn't helped me up to that point, so I decided that I wasn't going to listen to it anymore. Dominic was raising, and I was calling. Dominic was betting, and I was folding. What a pushover I must have been!

Finally, Dominic pulled exactly even with me; we each had $229,000. Dominic made it $12,000 to go on the button. I looked down at the A Q and decided to reraise. I couldn't just keep calling and "hope" to flop a pair. I reraised the pot, another $36,000. Dominic called.

The flop came perfect for me, Q J 3. I had flopped what I had wanted to flop and decided to take the pot right there. I bet the pot, $108,000. Dominic quickly pushed his whole stack in and said, "OK, Danny, let's play." I think that's what he said; it's a little fuzzy now, but it was something like that.

So, he had raised me $47,000. At that point, I thought I was beat, but how could I fold? With only $47,000 left, I'd be doomed, so I felt forced to call and look at his set or whatever he had.

Dominic turned over the J 10 for a pair of jacks and a flush draw. Wow, I still had the best hand, but he had a ton of outs to win the hand. I found out later that, in fact, I didn't have the best hand, as Dominic's hand was a small favorite after the flop (about 50.72 percent or 1.03-to-1).

So, basically, it all came down to a coin flip. If I won, I got $170,000 and a bracelet in my first attempt; if I lost, I got $87,000 and could actually play $20-$40 with an adequate bankroll, for once!

Either way, it wouldn't be the end of the world. The way Dominic was playing, and the fact that I'd never played pot-limit hold'em until the day before, made the situation even more favorable for me. I just wasn't going to beat Dominic that day without getting lucky.

The turn brought the 5. The crowd roared, as they weren't sure if it was a club or a spade. The river brought another black card, a 6 this time.

I was in such a daze at that point that I couldn't tell if it was a club or a spade – I really couldn't. I knew, though, when I looked over at my friends and they'd raised their arms in the air that it was a spade.

I dropped to my knees and almost fainted. It was such an overwhelming moment for me that it's difficult to describe.

I got a call immediately from Todd Brunson, congratulating me. I thanked him for taking a piece of me. After all, if he hadn't bought 25 percent of my action, I never would have played in the event. I would have been back in that $20-$40 Omaha high-low game, in all likelihood learning that 6-7-8-9 isn't a very good hand as I went broke once again.

I didn't win any more tournaments during that WSOP, but I did get to play in the main event, which was another big thrill. I made it to the second day with $11,400, then was quickly dispatched by a great European player named Jimmy Magee.

I haven't missed the main event since, and don't ever plan to. The closest I've gotten was my disappointing 11th-place finish this year. I say disappointing because unlike '98, I really thought I was going to win it. Oh well, as much as I learned from winning a bracelet in '98, I probably learned more from my near miss in the main event this year.

I was starting to doubt whether I was capable of winning the main event, so my 11th-place finish helped me realize that I have a shot, much like the confidence boosters I got from both Todd Brunson and Men "The Master" did for me back in '98.

Anyway, writing this column brought back a lot of great memories, and I'm glad that I could share them with you. Thanks for listening, or I guess I should say, thanks for reading.