$2,000 Limit Hold'em: A Balance to the Universe

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.

Be careful what you ask for, you might get it.

Following an extraordinarily long first day of the opening $2,000 limit hold'em event at the World Series of Poker, I was keeping my fingers crossed that we might have a final table that ended before my flight out of Las Vegas to attend my stepfather's funeral.

I wasn't hoping for a final table so short and fast that it became difficult to keep track of player exits if you blinked, but we followed one of the longest first days in Series history with one of the shortest final tables.

I guess Chevy Chase was right in the movie Caddyshack when he told his young caddy, Danny Newnan, "There is a balance to the universe."

When we started play at 4 p.m., the blinds were $5,000-$15,000, playing $15,000-$30,000, and our final table looked like this:

Seat – Player – Chip – Count

1Ralph DiPiero $112,000

2 Ken Shaevel $113,500

3 Nani Dollison $242,000

4 Eli Elezra $80,000

5 Pete Vilandos $119,500

6 Chau Giang $69,500

7 Meng La $87,000

8 Sirous Baghchehsaraie $85,000

9 John Pires $327,500

They added half an hour back onto the clock, so we would have 40 minutes left at this level, with 80-minute rounds to follow – I should say, "round." We only needed one.

Don't Shed TEARS Yet

The "Tex's TEARS" computer system, which inventor Tex Morgan designed to prevent exactly what we had happen on both day No. 1 and day No. 2 – an unusually long or short day – couldn't save us from a day No. 1 where the players decided to play very cautiously in an effort to get to the final table, and a day No. 2 where seven of the nine finalists had a below-par stack. Morgan is on the right track with his efforts, and he's contributed a lot to poker, but no computer formula is ever going to take the human element completely out of the equation.

Perhaps the finalists were unduly pleased with the spiffy leather jackets (an upgrade on last year's jackets) awaiting them at the table, as well as gold cards indicating they had made a 2001 final table. Everyone got some hardware to take home, and after the previous night's duel, everyone deserved it.

Henderson, Nevada's Eli Elezra looked like he would be the first casualty when he raised from late position with A 10, and got three-bet by Chau Giang, another local who already has two bracelets in his trophy case. Elezra called, bet out at the 8 7 4 flop, got called, and never made his flush as both players checked the two blanks on the end. Giang turned over two black tens, and Elezra had two $5,000 chips left.

A short while later, Elezra had to put those chips into an incomplete big blind, and was called only by Nani Dollison, last year's ladies champion, out of the small blind. Both players held A-10, so Elezra got to keep his two chips, forfeiting one of them out of the small blind on the next hand. One measly chip left – little could any of us know how much it would be worth.

Shortly thereafter, Santa Monica's Ken Shaevel raised a pot from middle position, only to see Houston's Pete Vilandos three-bet him from the button, and Giang four-bet it from the small blind. Shaevel thought for quite a while, and decided to call. Vilandos looked at his own short stack and the mountain of money already in the middle, and called as well, putting $195,000 into the pot before the flop, which came down K K 3.

Giang bet out, and Shaevel looked at the $35,000 left in front of him and called. Vilandos looked at the $20,000 left in front of him, and also called, giving us a $240,000 pot. Giang bet $30,000 blind before the dealer dealt the turn card, the 2.

A Ladder Step, or a

Shot at the Title?

Shaevel again considered. A fold meant that for all intents and purposes, he was trying to climb the ladder to perhaps seventh place, and with $441,440 sitting out there for first, he decided to go for it, calling with his last $20,000. Vilandos asked the question to which I'm pretty sure he already knew the answer; if he called with his last $5,000 chip, and lost the pot but his hand beat Shaevel's, would he get eighth or ninth? This rule is well-established: When two players go broke on the same hand, the one who started the hand with more money gets the higher finisher.

Vilandos literally kissed his final chip goodbye, and then Giang turned over A-A. Shaevel sighed and turned over Q-Q, and Vilandos shook his head while turning over J-J. The mountain of chips sent Giang squarely into the fight for first, and produced a pretty big smile from Elezra, who had suddenly jumped two ladder spots worth $10,000 while sitting there with that rotten little chip.

Elezra survived yet another all-in big blind, "doubling up" to two chips, one of which he again forfeited as the small blind. Back to one rotten chip. Why not fold? One raising war had earned him $10,000 cash. Maybe another would do the same.

San Jose, California's John Pires, whom I inaccurately characterized the previous day as always sporting what looks like a three-day growth of beard (I've decided it's either more like two days, or he's one of those guys who looks like he needs a shave 15 minutes after he shaves), started the war that Elezra sought on the very next hand, raising under the gun, only to get three-bet by Scottsdale, Arizona's Ralph DiPiero. Pires called.

The flop came A-9-8, Pires checked, DiPiero bet, and Pires raised with DiPiero calling for his last chips. A-5 for Pires, 10-10 for DiPiero, no miracle tens on the turn or river, and Elezra had himself another $12,000 for that rotten little chip of his.

You'd think he might have learned that patience is a virtue, but Elezra liked his next hand too much and tossed his last chip in. Pires held K-3 in the big blind, and Elezra turned over A-9, but the 10-4-3-7-8 board finished off Elezra in sixth place.

The Journalist's Nightmare Exits

On the very next hand, Torrance, California's Meng La took out his Marina Del Ray neighbor Sirous Baghchehsaraie, a very friendly fellow whose last name makes him the nightmare of writers everywhere, when he raised one off the button with A-10, and Sirous took him on from the button with A-J. The flop came 10-9-9, and the K-7 finish blasted a third player from his seat in three hands. Although Elezra had to be thrilled with his three free ladder steps, he'd been one hand away from a fourth.

Everyone paused for a gulp of oxygen, decided that was a bad idea when they inhaled all the secondhand smoke, and then took a look at the four folks who hadn't yet been voted off the island:

John Pires – $400,000

Nani Dollison – $200,000

Chau Giang – $500,000

Meng La – $100,000

La lost a few chips in a dust-up with Giang, and decided to try to grab the blinds with a raise. Pires wasn't having any of it, raised back, and La called. Pires bet La's final $10,000 in the dark, and when the flop came K-10-6, La stared at it for a while. The other stacks were all simply too big. There weren't any miracle ladder moves available. He tossed the two chips in and turned over J-7. Pires showed A-6, and left La with only four outs when an ace hit the turn. Just for good measure, he made a full house on the end with another ace.

We had three players left, and the buzzer went off, signaling the end of the first 40 minutes of play. The players did not take a break, but Elezra, who had just finished collecting his money, came over to Giang and whispered something to him with a broad smile as he departed, no doubt a thanks for the pocket rockets that moved him up the ladder.

The blinds now went to $10,000-$20,000, playing $20,000-$40,000, so even with stack sizes of $250,000 (Dollison), $400,000 (Giang), and $570,000 (Pires), we were going to be playing fast, with $30,000 in blinds due every three hands.

Two Drawing Hands Sink Giang

Giang couldn't be upset at the thought of fast play; he'd come to the final table in last chip position and was now second, and with two bracelets already to his credit, he wasn't going to get tenuous worrying about picking up his first one. Holding A 8, he got involved in a series of raises and reraises with Dollison, both before and after the 10 3 2 flop. He called another bet on the turn when the 5 hit, and angrily folded to Dollison's river bet when the 6 came off, slamming his cards faceup for everyone to see the missed flush.

An ace would have done the trick, too, because Dollison showed us her two kings, and moved close to the chip lead.

Another drawing hand – or, at least, alleged drawing hand, as we never got to see it – gouged Giang almost immediately. Pires kept leading at the 7 6 3 8 K board, and Giang called until the king hit, when he mucked his hand and said he'd had a straight draw. It seemed unlikely, because either of the straight draws would have given him a pair of eights on the turn, and I think he would have called Pires with a pair on the end, but perhaps not. In any case, his stack had tumbled from $400,000 to $80,000 in a matter of moments, and Pires finished him off shortly thereafter when they exchanged a series of reraises into an A-K-8 flop, putting Giang all in. A-3 for Giang, A-J for Pires, and the 9-4 finish left us twohanded.

At this point, Pires suggested a short break to Dollison, and they counted up the chips: $690,000 for Pires, $545,000 for Dollison. First-place money was $441,440, and second-place money was $226,690. With the limits this high, a deal seemed reasonable, and after the pocket calculators showed that a precise division of the remaining money would give Dollison roughly $294,000, she declined, Pires offered to make it an even $300,000, and we had a deal, playing on with "only" the bracelet's prestige at stake.

I've played a fair amount of $15-$30 with John Pires, as well as battling him at one or two final tables, and one of the things that always made him my focus in any game we were both in at Bay 101 was that he never seemed to lose his focus. He'll smile occasionally, and is sociable enough, but his eyes are always darting around, always seeking information, and I saw the same darting looks now. The money might have been locked away safely, but John Pires wanted this bracelet.

Nani Dollison wanted it every bit as badly.

Both players had earned their big stacks the night before with aggressive play, and neither changed their styles now. Pires probably got even more aggressive, but the Korean-born Dollison, who now makes her home in Lake Coromont, Mississippi, knew how to match Pires' speed, and didn't let his aggressiveness push her off her hands.

Dollison took a pretty big chunk out of Pires' stack when he kept pushing at a 6-5-2-5 board, finally checking on the end, and couldn't beat her Q-2, and grabbed some more on the next hand.

Roosevelt's New Deal

Worked Better

"Maybe we should make a new deal," Dollison said. Too late, with the money already locked up, but Dollison was right, because the chips kept flowing her way. The big hand came after a three-bet preflop and we saw an A-10-3 board. Dollison bet and got called, and a king hit the turn. Dollison bet again, Pires raised, and Dollison called. Another 10 hit the river, Pires checked, Dollison bet, and Pires let it go, which was a good thing, as Dollison turned over A-10 to show us her full house.

Pires tried most of the tricks in his book, and there are a lot of them – he's been a full-time pro for about five years – but none of them worked. He check-raised Dollison on the end of another of their three-bet preflop hands, this one coming down A 10 9 5 7, only to see Dollison reraise, and again he had to release his hand. The end seemed near, with Dollison's stack nearing the million mark.

Pires made a few comebacks, getting back to $300,000, down to $60,000, and back to $300,000, but he could never break through that plateau, and finally, down to his last hundred or so, he raised out of the big blind after Dollison had limp-called from the button. Dollison called, the flop came Q-9-3, the duo exchanged three raises that got Pires all in, and they turned 'em over: Q-6 for Dollison, 10-10 for Pires. A finishing 4 and 7 gave us our champion.

A New All-Time Leading

Ladies Money Winner

Dollison has been playing poker for about seven years, and spent much of that time working as a dealer in Mississippi. She's not sure if she will return to dealing or not; her poker playing is getting pretty profitable. She won $53,200 as the ladies champion last year, and took an event at the World Poker Open in Tunica just before the World Series began. The official $441,440 makes her, in just her second cash, the all-time leading women's money winner at the World Series; Annie Duke, with 16 cashes, had been the prior leader at $391,854.

$300,000 is a lot of money, and I asked her if it was going to change her life. "I don't think so, it is only money," she said. "I don't want to get silly with it. I am going to help out my sister and her niece. We are very close, the only family I have left (she's 47), with both brothers and both parents gone. We have always helped each other out, whoever has had money has helped the other one, so now I help her."

That sounds like an even nicer balance to the universe than a short final table following a long first day. Congratulations to a worthy champion who made her way through a huge field with a heart that it seems she uses as well at the poker table as she does with her family.

Final results:

1. Nani Dollison – $441,440

2. John Pires – $226,690

3. Chau Giang – $113,345

4. Meng La – $71,585

5. Sirous Baghchehsaraie – $53,690

6. Eli Elezra – $41,760

7. Ralph DiPiero – $29,830

8. Ken Shaevel – $23,860

9. Pete Vilandos – $19,090