My Strangest 'Deal' Question

I just returned from the opening evening of The Bicycle Casino's monthlong Legends of Poker tournament, which featured a media/casino charity tag-team event. The Bike went all out with decorations that showed off some of the quality improvements made to the Grand Ballroom (tournament area), a buffet that even Mike Paulle couldn't have demolished single-handedly, and a screening of the preview video for the new World Poker Tour (WPT).

I was left slack-jawed after watching the video. As the video itself says, "This is poker like you've never seen it before," and it's impossible for me to imagine this program not becoming successful and drawing many more people into the poker world. Kudos to Lyle Berman and Steve Lipscomb for their visionary and professional efforts in getting the WPT this far this fast.

Because the WPT is going to be bringing new people into both the brick-and-mortar cardroom world as well as the Internet poker world, it seems appropriate to discuss this rather odd charity tournament and some of the adjustments my teammates and I made to our normal tournament styles while en route to victory, because this tournament certainly had some people who were new to poker playing in it.

The finish was also amongst the more bizarre I've seen, but I'll save discussion of that for … the finish.

The event structure provided for a half hold'em, half seven-card stud game, in alternating 20-minute rounds. Each team could have from three to five members, who had to play in the same "batting order" throughout the event, unless one dropped out, which was acceptable as long as you still had at least three players. No one was supposed to play for more than 20 consecutive minutes before being "tagged" by a teammate.

The Card Player team consisted of Barry Shulman, Mike Caro, Max Shapiro, Marshall Ragir, and me. I was somewhat surprised when Shulman appointed me "team captain" when we were signing up, and had me pick our charity (the Bike was adding $5,000 to this event, which was to go to the winning team's preselected charity; I picked Mothers Against Drunk Driving) as well as determine when substitutions would be made, but I learned why when Shulman played the first five hands of the tournament, added slightly to our stack, and then departed for the evening.

I also would have figured "Captain Caro" as a logical choice: After all, a Mad Genius outranks a Poker Pundit. However, it was Mike's 19th anniversary, and both he and Phyllis were quite understandably less than thrilled about spending the entire evening at a poker tournament, so he departed after about an hour. He later told me he'd done something unprecedented for him: He hadn't entered a single pot.

Nonetheless, it takes skill and discipline to know what hands to throw away, and sometimes you hit a stretch in a tournament where all you can do is limit your losses, so the Mad Genius made his contribution. One thing that so many tournament players fail to recognize is that chips you lose often hurt your chances of victory more than chips you win help it.

That left Max, Marshall, and me to play most of the event. Max didn't want to play stud because his eyes have a hard time tracking the cards if he gets an end seat, so we used him exclusively for hold'em. I must say that as a hold'em player, Max is a terrific humorist. I hadn't known I could hold my breath for 10 consecutive minutes until Max took his turn at the table fairly late in the event.

I'm sure Max will take his revenge in his own column, but I owe him something for the succession of embarrassing ways he has found to introduce me to women. He has such a subtle touch. I've endured his typical all-said-in-one-breath "Hello, Ms. Blank, this is Andy Glazer he's looking for a girlfriend are you interested?" on more than one occasion. I think Max learned finesse from charming Hollywood agents.

Marshall plays all games well, but he mostly played stud for us, leaving me as the swing man who played both games. Marshall said he had heard I was more experienced at going both ways than he was.

Our little collection of misfits played well throughout, and we were never in much trouble except for every time Max sat down. In the early stages, when the real rookies were getting eliminated, we really had to make some adjustments. One time in a multiway pot, I flopped a set of deuces and raised the hell out of it, because two hearts were on the board and I didn't want anyone loitering around. A third heart hit the turn, and one player bet out and another called before it came to me. I raised again, and only the initial bettor called.

Now, a fourth heart hit the river, and he bet out, and I had a hand I'd have thrown away against most players, because not only were there four hearts on the board, there were several high cards that could have made a straight, and more to the point, the bettor seemed very confident. Nonetheless, his name tag made it clear he was from a radio station instead of a casino, and I thought, "This guy might think two pair is a good hand here," so I called and held my breath for the only time all night when Max wasn't playing.

The bettor proudly turned over his two pair, and I started breathing again (by the way, for those of you looking for a tell, sometimes I hold my breath when I have the nuts, too).

Later, when we were down to nine players and were hand for hand (we couldn't have a nine-player final table because we were playing stud as well as hold'em), I was having a lovely time of it and didn't want to knock anyone out, because the other players hadn't adjusted well to the shorthanded game.

Unfortunately, we got into a situation where the big blind was all in for one of the required three chips, and everyone folded around to me in the small blind, so I took one of my two chips back and was thrilled to discover 3-2 offsuit, the very worst heads-up hand in hold'em (yes, it's worse heads up than 7-2; with 7-2, at least you have an overcard if your opponent has a small pair), and even more thrilled to see that it was a dominated hand, because my opponent had 9-2 offsuit. Some days it just doesn't matter; not one but two treys hit the board, and we had a final table.

Once again I had a huge run when we got fourhanded. I was raising about two out of every three pots, and no one seemed inclined to fight back, even though I had to listen to numerous comments about how "one of these times I'm going to wake up with a hand."

I played the entire hold'em round and got it down to a heads-up game with us having about a 2-1 chip lead, and then we realized we'd screwed up, because Max had to play stud for at least three hands. After those three hands, the chips were even, and the captain of the opposing team offered to chop the money.

I've been in plenty of "deal" conversations, and I responded with a question I'd never asked before. Usually my questions go to what the exact chip count is, how much time is left in the round before the limits go up, and other poker-relevant matters. This time, I asked, "What's your charity?" If it was one of those charities that consumes 90 percent of donated funds in its own administration, I would have played on, but when he said "Bikers (as in Bicycle Casino) for Cancer," I said I liked the idea of two charities winning, and we decided to call it a draw, with an even chop of the $5,000 charity money and the roughly $2,000 in team money.

Denny Williams, who does a fine job running tournaments for the Bike, said we couldn't have a draw; we had to have a winner, which would be decided by who had more chips. It turned out that Team Soboba had a few more chips, and I wasn't pleased.

"We made this deal in the spirit that it would be a tie," I said. "I don't think I'd have done it otherwise. That was the spirit, and there's Card Player's honor to be defended." What a jerk. No wonder Shulman made me captain.

"How about this?" I asked. "We play one hand of showdown for the technical title. Otherwise. I'd just as soon play it out." Team Soboba, which consisted of David Wortham (the poker room manager at that Indian casino, located near San Jacinto), James Carrico, a dealer, and Charles Baker, a prop, agreed, and since it was showdown, we let Max "technically" play the final hand. Max was doing double duty, though, as he was also chronicling the event for the Bike, so I turned over our cards, and we won with a pair of kings against a pair of threes.

I told Team Soboba that I didn't like this result much more than I liked it when we were the "official" second-place team, and that I considered it a tie and would say so here. Nonetheless, Max was technically in the chair when we won the tournament.

I've got just one last thing to say, and I must say it all in one breath: "Hi, Mr. or Ms. Reader, this is Max Shapiro he's looking for respect as a poker player are you interested?"