Another Million-Dollar Month

My latest stops on the tournament trail were Costa Rica, home for a few days, and then off to the Card Player Cruises trip to Mexico to compete in the PartyPoker Million tournament. As usual, the red carpet was rolled out for all of the players in Costa Rica. Nick Gullo, the director general of the poker action for Casinos Europa, was his usual pleasant self. He and his wife, Janine, who helps many players book their Costa Rica trips, made all of the players feel welcome. Casinos Europa is unique, in that the emphasis is on its tournaments, with side games shutting down at around 6 p.m. so that everybody can enjoy a lavish buffet before the 7 p.m. tournaments. David Lamb, ably assisted by Jody Ivner, made sure all the events started on time and proceeded efficiently. The format for the first three tournaments was a $10 buy-in with multiple rebuys for the first five levels. Bonus chips were awarded for the add-ons, and it was easy to run your buy-in tab up to more than $300, which many people did, including yours truly. (I've always been a fish when it comes to getting bonus chips in an add-on.)

I exited the first three tournaments rather early, but in the fourth one, a $100 buy-in event with rebuys, I hit pay dirt. I got off to a great start, accumulated a large stack early, and cruised to the final table with the chip lead. However, sometimes a wheel comes off the cart, especially in no-limit play, and I had to settle for the $13,000 second-place prize. I knocked 14 players out of the tournament, including one whom I called by accident. We were down to about 15 players left and I was in the small blind with Q-8 offsuit. The big blind was a tight player with a short stack, so I grabbed a handful of chips and raised him all in, or so I thought. I was startled to look up and see that another player had quietly put all of his chips in the pot. I was the chip leader, so even if I had lost, I would've been in good shape, but I never would have made the call with Q-8 if I had seen the all-in player's bet. The big blind folded, as I thought would happen, and the all-in player turned over an A-7. I was not a huge underdog in this hand, and sure enough, I paired up and broke him. When you are running well, things like this happen, but my play sure turned a few heads when they saw my "call" with Q-8. (Oh well, I thought, it's probably good for my image if they think I'm a maniac.)

After a few days of rest at home, I began my next jaunt to the PartyPoker Million Mexican Riviera cruise, where I had both good news and bad news. The bad news was that I busted out pretty early on the first day, losing my entire stack in the fourth level of play at the $300-$600 limit. Everyone started with $8,000 in chips and I had carefully inched my way up to around $8,700 when disaster struck. I lost a big pot when I called a raise with A-K from the small blind. The big blind also called the raise with K-10, and you guessed it, the flop came K-10-rag with two spades. Several other players were in the pot, and at least one of them had a flush draw, so there was lots of action. The K-10 flopped top two pair, of course, the other draws didn't get there, and I lost half of my stack on the hand. The good news was that an extra tournament was run that wasn't originally scheduled (a $500 buy-in event), and I was one of the four finalists who divided the prize pool at the final table. Kathy Liebert also was one of the four, and she was on her way to winning the biggest tournament of her career.

To qualify for the PartyPoker Million, you had to either win your seat online, as 100 players did, or buy in for $8,000. I was fortunate to win my seat online, so I got in for a modest investment. Liebert had tried to win an online tournament but failed to do so, so she bought in for the $8,000 to get the chance to win a million bucks. There were 139 entrants, including seven former World Series of Poker champions. It was an extremely tough tournament, with two of the former champs – Chris Ferguson and Phil Hellmuth – making it to the final table. In addition, top pros Kenny "Skyhawk" Flaton and Mel Judah were among the final nine, along with three players who qualified online. The final-table players generously took $30,000 off first place to tip the dealers and staff before they even started play.

In his first-ever tournament with "the big boys," Berj Kacherian battled all the way to the end and got heads up with Liebert. A Los Angeles-area resident, he held the banner for the online qualifiers, and nearly won the tournament. Kacherian and Liebert battled back and forth for more than two hours, with the lead changing hands at least 10 times. Liebert seesawed from more than $900,000 in chips to Kacherian's $200,000 to the reverse position, and then came back to finally win it. I can't say enough good things about the "heart" that both players showed. Together they made poker history, and Liebert became the first woman in the history of tournament poker to win a $1 million first prize. The Travel Channel filmed the entire tournament and will air its documentary later in the year (watch Card Player for the date and time). Qualifying has begun for next year's PartyPoker Million cruise and tournament. Hopefully you and I will qualify online so that we can meet in the winner's circle – if our A-K hands hold up.

Editor's note: Tom McEvoy is the author of Tournament Poker and the co-author, with T.J. Cloutier, of Championship Hold'em, both of which are available through Card Player. Visit www.pokerbooks.com for more details.