Tribulation, Triumph, and Tribute

Most serious poker players remember the high drama at the 2000 World Series of Poker when T.J. Cloutier moved all of his chips into the center with A-Q against Chris Ferguson's A-9 in the final hand of the championship event. When Ferguson responded to the all-in raise by shoving in his mountain of chips, the gallery rose to its feet in unison. With $1 million and the gold bracelet up for grabs, you literally could hear the audience gasp when a 9 fell at the river to give Ferguson the thrill of victory and Cloutier the agony of defeat. But few of us recall T.J.'s first, less dramatic, second-place finish in the WSOP championship in 1985, when his close friend Bill Smith, who plied his trade on the Southern poker circuit in the '70s and '80s, won the championship.

"I had just won a pot with something like the 5u 4u," T.J. told me, "and then I looked down at an ace. Bill raised and I moved my whole stack in. I didn't even look at the second card, because there was a chance I could win it with a raise; if not, I figured I probably had the best hand, anyway. Bill called my all-in bet and turned over a pair of threes. I looked at my kicker for the first time - it was a 3! The flop came 10-5-4, so I could've caught a deuce to make a straight, or an ace to win it with an overpair. But that didn't happen, and Bill won the title." Berry Johnston, who won the title the very next year, placed third, and three-time winner Johnny Moss came in seventh. Hamid Dastmalchi, who went on to win the title in 1992, placed fifth. It wasn't an easy final table.

The final table in 1998 wasn't an easy one, either, when T.J. came in third to champion Scotty Nguyen. After folding pocket jacks twice against second-place finisher Kevin McBride's pocket kings, T.J. was sweating out a run of second-best cards in three-way action. Finally, he caught a hand that he could play. "On the final hand that I played," he recounted, "Kevin raised from the small blind and I reraised him with K-Q from the big blind. I knew I had the best hand. He called that big raise with the J 9. The flop came with two spades, but instead, he caught a jack and I was gone." Just another final table, another tribulation for my writing partner.

This past year was certainly one of tribulations for T.J. until his triumph at Bellagio's Five Diamond Poker Classic, where he picked up his first championship in 20 at-bats at the final table. After Card Player Publisher Barry Shulman went out in third place in the $1,500 pot-limit Omaha event, T.J. found himself heads up against 1989 World Champion Phil Hellmuth Jr. "The only other time that Phil and I were heads up was at the World Series, and he won that one, but now we're one and one," T. J. commented, referring to the $2,000 no-limit hold'em event in 2001, when he finished second to Hellmuth and Layne Flack came third.

Yes, tribulation and triumph - two of the ups and downs in tournament poker - played dramatic roles in T.J.'s 2002 poker script.

Now, I'd like to pay tribute. For the last five years, I have been fortunate to work with T.J. in writing our "Championship" series of poker books, starting with Championship No-Limit and Pot-Limit Hold'em in 1997, followed by Championship Omaha and Championship Hold'em. With the guidance and expertise of Dana Smith, our publisher, we currently are putting the finishing touches on Championship Tournament Practice Hands - and who could be better than T.J. in describing and analyzing what it takes to win a major poker tournament? It is with respect and admiration (and just a touch of envy) that I pay tribute to my writing partner, T.J. Cloutier, Card Player's 2002 Player of the Year.

Note: Visit www.pokerbooks.com for more information on the "Championship" series of poker books by Tom McEvoy and T.J. Cloutier, all of which are available through Card Player.