Chan vs. Hellmuth - Again!

In 1989, the amazing Johnny Chan and I played heads up for the World Series of Poker (WSOP) championship and a first prize of $755,000. At the time, I was a young, up-and-coming professional poker player pursuing my dream of winning the WSOP. I beat Johnny to claim that world championship, and became the youngest world champion ever at the tender age of 24. Johnny also was playing for history, because he had a chance to win the WSOP three years in a row. What a feat that would have been! My hat's off to Johnny for winning the WSOP two years in a row and finishing second the third year. In fact, Johnny's back-to-back wins in 1987 and 1988, and second-place finish in 1989 is one of the greatest feats in the history of poker.

A few months later in 1989, in a heads-up match-play event at the Bicycle Club, Johnny and I won our first three matches, so we met again in the semifinals. This time, the game was limit hold'em and we had quite a crowd watching us. I remember that I had Johnny way down in chips and he came back to beat me. In 1998 at the Carnivale of Poker, Johnny and I beat the rest of the field (more than 300 players) in a limit hold'em event to face off heads up yet again. This time, we played for more than an hour to a standoff, and at 5 a.m. we agreed to split the prize money (and didn't even play it out) so that we could get some sleep for the next day's no-limit hold'em event. By the way, I was very impressed when I walked by the final table the next day at 5 a.m. and saw Johnny there with a ton of chips, despite the fact that he hadn't had that much time to sleep.

In the recent WSOP gold bracelet match-play event, I won four matches to make the finals and square off against … Johnny Chan. Now, this time around, Johnny was the all-time leader in money won at the WSOP with more than $3 million, and I was third on the list (I started the 2002 WSOP first on the list) with about $2.8 million (T.J. Cloutier was about $60,000 ahead of me). In this event, I had a chance to win my eighth gold bracelet and tie Doyle Brunson and Johnny Moss for the all-time WSOP lead in this category. And Johnny had a chance to win his seventh and tie me for second place.

With a ton of history, but not too much money, at stake, we each began the no-limit hold'em match with $40,000 in chips and the blinds at $100-$200. With more than 200 spectators watching and TV cameras recording the match, Johnny came out swinging as I knew he would. I was happy to let him dictate the pace as I waited for him to overplay his hands when I was strong. And that's exactly what happened. Johnny stole a multitude of pots, but I kept nailing him in the bigger pots. Finally, about 40 minutes into the match, we were even and he changed strategies. He started to play a lot less aggressively.

Up until this point, I had been playing my best game, but now I began to lose control. I believe this happened because I had been eliminated the day before (day No. 3) from the championship, and I hadn't slept much in the previous four days (no one sleeps well during the championship event, if they sleep at all). I just didn't play my "A" game, but be that as it may, Johnny was playing great and might have crushed my "A" game anyway. Johnny made four final tables at the 2002 WSOP, and was definitely on his "A" game.

I hadn't been doing any bluffing in any of my heads-up matches up until this point, but now I tried to bluff Johnny in a big way. I called Johnny's $500 raise with 10 6. The flop came down A Q 7 and I checked. Johnny bet out $1,000. I was reading opponents pretty well after five weeks of playing poker, and I smelled some weakness. I thought Johnny didn't have an ace, and if he didn't have an ace, I could take the pot from him. Bluffing after the flop really isn't my style, but I decided to take this pot away from him. I raised Johnny's bet $2,000. He studied me awhile and called the bet. When the 2 made the board A Q 7 2, I decided not to dog it and bluffed out $6,000. After a moment, Johnny called the $6,000. When the last card was an ace, for a board of A Q 7 2 A, I fired out one more time (only $4,000 this time, though) in case Johnny had nothing (such as a straight and a flush draw, like J 10 or K 10). Johnny said, "All right, I call." I said, "You got it," and he flipped up his K-K. I was right – he was weak! He didn't have an ace, but he had called me down anyway. Although I had read him well, he also had read me well. I had forgotten the cardinal rule of poker: "Don't bluff the great players." Just because you correctly read that someone is weak doesn't mean you will get him to fold his hand, especially in the case of Johnny Chan. (Erik Seidel is also great at smelling weakness.) Johnny said, "I thought you had a pair of sevens and a flush draw." I said, "Nope; actually, I had the J 10. Where was the king so that we could end this thing?" Although I never lie outside of poker, lying about what I just had in a poker hand is part of bluffing to me. Why give someone a free read on my play?

I was now down to $28,000, but I wasn't worried. I still thought I would win. I knew that I wouldn't try to bluff Johnny again, but now I thought he owed me at least $100,000 worth of calls when I had the best hand. My bluff had set him up to call me down when I had a strong hand. Whenever someone makes a call like that on me, I always beat him for lots of chips later on. I guess it's because that one bluff sticks in a person's mind.

Now that Johnny was playing less aggressively, it was time to test his nonaggressive game. I made up my mind to switch gears and start raising and reraising a lot. (I never play like that heads up, but I now believed I knew what Johnny was holding every hand. Also, I wanted to mess with his head a bit and get him used to calling big bets with weak hands both before and after the flop.)

Then, the following hand came up: I opened with a raise for $700 from the button with J-9, and Johnny reraised $1,500 more. I called, in the spirit of "it's time to play/outplay" this guy. It turned out that calling here was a fatal mistake. First of all, it's not my style to play these kinds of hands, but I was going to mess with him a bit. The flop was K-J-9 rainbow, and Johnny bet out $2,000. Now, I mulled over my options. I knew that he would play all in with me with K-Q, K-10, A-K, A-A, or maybe even Q-Q. I studied him, but he kept still and quiet, so I had no read on him yet. Should I smooth-call his $2,000 or raise? I was pondering what to do. He couldn't have reraised me preflop with K-J, K-9, or Q-10, I was pretty sure of that. Unless he had trips, I believed I had him. Finally, I raised $6,000, making it $8,000 to go. Johnny looked me right in the eyes and I saw "the nuts" in his eyes as clearly as I had seen it in Humberto Brenes' eyes when he had two aces before the flop in Tunica and I mucked my 6-6 for his raise. I saw it as clearly as I had at Commerce Casino when Steve "Country" Riehle had K-K and I mucked my 10-10 for a single preflop raise.

What a mistake I made when I called Johnny within two seconds of his statement, "I'm all in." If I had just thought for a minute and acted on my read, I might have been able to save my last $18,000 to battle on. I guess that when I raised $6,000, in my mind I committed myself to the hand. In any case, it was a difficult hand to get away from, and it would have required a strong read before I raised $6,000 in order to lose the minimum, which I could have done, because the board came 5-5, for K-J-9-5-5. If I had just called the $2,000, I might have gotten a strong read on Johnny on fourth street and saved some money. Although I don't think I could have folded my hand on fourth street when a 5 came off, I could have folded on the end after the second 5 hit, because then I couldn't beat even Q-Q. Was I unlucky to flop two pair when Johnny flopped a set of kings? Oh, yeah, there's no doubt about that. However, I could have folded preflop or even on the flop for the reraise (which, by the way, would have been some kind of laydown), or just called on the flop and on the turn.

All I know is that my worst two poker days of the year fell back-to-back when I lost with A K to Q10 all in before the flop for $220,000 in the championship event, and then lost with J-9 on the K-J-9 flop to Johnny's pocket kings. After those two losses, having my head shaved in public on ESPN the next day was fun by comparison! I hope you enjoyed this Hand of the Week. Good luck playing your hands this week.

Editor's note: You can find Phil Hellmuth playing $4-$8 limit hold'em online at UltimateBet.com, table "PhilHellmuth." To read more Hand of the Week columns or to learn more about Phil, go to PhilHellmuth.com.