The World Series of Poker $10,000, No-Limit Hold'em Championship: The Six Million Dollar Man

When the pride of Madrid, Spain, 29-year-old Carlos Mortensen, got heads up with 54-year-old American Dewey Tomko at 6:50 p.m. on Friday, May 18, at the end of the 2001 World Series of Poker no-limit hold'em championship, I knew I'd soon be seeing stories that played off Mortensen's roots by saying that the final man-to-man duel was "mano a mano."

That's not how "mano a mano" actually translates, though. It means "hand to hand," not "man to man," but most Americans figure that if you put an "o" on the end of an English word, an Italian or a Spaniard will be able to understand you.

Ironically, the mistaken translation turns out to be exactly right for this situation, because our final duel was indeed poker hand for poker hand, 49 times, before poker history repeated itself one last time in a World Series where it has repeated itself again and again.

First the End, and Then the Beginning

On hand No. 206, Mortensen sat in the big blind, holding a chip lead of about $4.1 million to about $2 million for Tomko, who limped into the pot from the small blind on the button. Mortensen, as had been his practice for most of the duel, took an aggressive posture and raised the pot to $100,000, with Tomko calling.

The flop came J 10 3, and Mortensen again took the initiative, betting another $100,000. Tomko raised him another $400,000, and Mortensen indicated he was moving all in.

I'd known the $400,000 raise meant Tomko had a big hand, and when he called almost instantly, we got to see it: A A, the best starting hand in Texas hold'em. By limping in and then merely calling Mortensen's raise, Tomko had set a perfect trap for his young opponent.

The trap didn't look so perfect when Mortensen turned over K Q, about as big a drawing hand as you could want, because it meant Mortensen could win with any club, 9, or ace. The two aces sitting in Tomko's hand weren't available, so that meant Mortensen had 13 outs: nine clubs, three nines (we've already counted the 9), and one ace (we've already counted the A).

The Trap Becomes a Coin Flip

With two chances to lose to one of 13 winning cards, Tomko's trapping hand had suddenly turned into a virtual coin flip. The 3 hit the turn, which left Mortensen a 3-1 underdog with one card to come, but the 9 on the river gave him a straight, all of the $6.13 million in chips on the table, the $1.5 million first prize, and a place in poker history.

The mountain of chips in front of Mortensen made him the Six Million Dollar Man, and indeed Mortensen played this final table like he had a bionic implant in his raising arm and a powerful human heart beating in his chest.

As for history repeating itself, even if you're relatively new to poker, you probably know the story of how the 2000 World Series of Poker no-limit championship event ended when the 9 fell as the final card to give Chris "Jesus" Ferguson the title, and once again, a red 9 had ended the championship.

We've Been Here Before, Before

If you dig a little further back into poker history, we had even more repetition here, because when Tomko finished second to Jack Straus in Straus' legendary "chip and a chair" 1982 comeback year, he and Straus were just about dead even in chips and playing one pot for all the marbles. Tomko was leading the hand until Straus won on the final card. It was the 10 that time, but either way, Tomko has now lost this tournament twice on the final card. He would have had only a 2-1 chip lead if his aces had held up, no sure thing, but most of the people watching would have liked his chances.

So, how did we get into position for history to repeat itself?

A total of 613 players began this event five days earlier, shattering the record of 512 that was set last year; 387 of them made it to day No. 2, but our defending champion, Ferguson, wasn't among them. Another 141 made it through day No. 2, and then 45 lived on at the end of day No. 3. When we started the final table, the seats and chip positions were:

Seat – Player Chip Count

1 – Phil Gordon – $681,000

2 – Henry Nowakowski – $1,076,000

3 – John Inashima – $328,000

4 – Carlos Mortensen – $873,000

5 – Stan Schrier – $672,000

6 – Mike Matusow – $767,000

7 – Phil Hellmuth Jr. – $859,000

8 – Dewey Tomko – $467,000

9 – Steve Riehle – $407,000

Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and this group learned from history. In the 2000 finale, four of the six finalists (Binion's Horseshoe decided to expand the televised final table from six to nine this year, a move I liked, as it let three more players share the glory) played like they were in a hurry to catch a plane, and were gone within 45 minutes.

Finalists Learn From 2000 WSOP

This year, the finalists realized there wasn't any need to start shoving all their chips in on every hand, and almost everyone began cautiously, with 24 minutes left on the clock, $5,000-$10,000 blinds, and $2,000 antes, meaning it would cost $33,000 to sit out a round (or, for the more aggressive-minded players, that there would be $33,000 in dead money each hand available for stealing with an uncontested raise).

I said "almost" everyone because Phil Gordon, the thin, charismatic, 6-foot-9-inch resident of South Lake Tahoe, jumped into the first three pots, and then realizing that he might have a bit too much adrenaline flowing, said, "All right, that's three in a row, deal me out for a while."

With more than a few players taking their time to make important decisions (another lesson learned from last year), we managed only one round at the $5,000-$10,000 level before the clock went off and we moved to $5,000-$15,000 blinds and $3,000 antes, meaning it would cost $47,000 to sit out a round.

Repeat After Me:

"Gordon Moves All In on Hellmuth …"

Gordon's adrenaline got going again on the first hand of the new level when Hellmuth, who merely by arriving at this final table had more or less ensured the unofficial title of "best overall player at the 2001 Series" with a win, a second, a sixth, a ninth (in a stud event, so it wasn't a final table), and two other cashes before the "big one" even began, opened a pot for $45,000, and Gordon moved all in on him.

Remember that phrase, you'll hear it a few more times.

Hellmuth mucked his hand, and Gordon showed him a pretty serious bluff: Q-2 offsuit. Hellmuth, who's known for his outbursts, didn't deliver any lectures, but I could see him covering his mouth to hide some laughter, a sure sign that he thought Gordon would try this same move again in the wrong spot.

Ten hands later, Gordon made the same move when Riehle, an electrician originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, who got into the tournament via a supersatellite win, and who in his Harley Davidson cap and "Beer House" T-shirt was clearly this year's version of Jim McManus or Kevin McBride (the player whose appearance inspires everyone else in the poker world to think, "If he can get there, I can get there"), opened for $30,000.

Blessed be thy Blinds

Gordon pushed all in from the small blind, and as everyone folded, said with a smile, "The blinds at this end of the table are sacred."

One hand in poker can have a residual effect on a player's mental state in later hands, and after Mortensen reraised a Hellmuth opening raise on hand No. 21, Hellmuth said, "Man, what's going on, you guys have come over the top of me three times already." This feeling might have led to the trouble Hellmuth ran into on hand No. 26, when he opened for $40,000 on the button, and Tomko moved his remaining $329,000 all in from the small blind.

Hellmuth called, turning over A Q, and Tomko turned over A K. The board didn't save Hellmuth, and he had to ship $294,000 to Tomko.

We hit the first break after hand No. 39, with the chips now:

Gordon – $900,000

Nowakowski – $1,100,000

Inashima – $190,000

Mortensen – $1,200,000

Schrier – $815,000

Matusow – $525,000

Hellmuth – $520,000

Tomko – $600,000

Riehle – $280,000

In the 2000 finale, we had only two players left after 45 minutes then, and we still had a full table at the first break now. Mortensen had been playing very steady poker, not getting involved in too many big pots, just staying aggressive and picking up more than his fair share of the dead money.

The limits didn't change at the break; we were only halfway through the round, but with the extra time the media had kept the players in their seats at the start, and the 24 minutes left over from the previous limit, they decided to give the players 15 minutes to stretch their legs halfway through the level.

Inashima Makes his Move

Inashima, true to his reputation, had mostly been staying on the sidelines, rarely getting involved, and on those few times when he did bet, he didn't get any callers. At $47,000 a round, he wasn't picking up enough pots to keep pace, and with his stack shrinking, he decided to make a play on hand No. 58, when he moved all in for his last $140,000 from the button. Mortensen called pretty quickly from the small blind, and the "tight guy" had been caught red-handed with the 10 5.

Mortensen turned over the A 9, and we got an interesting two-way flop of J 5 3, giving Inashima a pair but giving Mortensen outs not only to his overcards, but also to a spade. The 3 didn't help on the turn, but the 9 hit the river. A-9, 9 on the river, a player exits. I could have sworn I'd seen this somewhere before.

Usually, players at a final table are glad to see a player get knocked out, because it means a step up the pay ladder, but I don't think many players were happy to see Mortensen get Inashima's chips. He'd been one of the aggressors already, and a big stack was going to give him more room to maneuver.

Sauces for the Goose

After seeing 57 varieties of not much action, we'd finally lost a player on hand No. 58, and now that the ketchup was finally flowing out of the bottle, the game got tastier. On the very next hand, Gordon opened for $30,000. Nowakowski, a pleasant, engaging, stocky German businessman, made it $100,000 to go, Matusow moved all in, Gordon lost interest, and Nowakowski called. K-K for Matusow, J-J for Nowakowski, and when nary a facecard could be found anywhere on the board, Matusow yelled, "Yes, yes, yes!" and had doubled through, with Nowakowski shipping $350,000 on over to him.

Riehle (pronounced "really") exited only six hands later, when Schrier opened for $30,000, Riehle moved all in for about $200,000, and Schrier called him with the A K. Riehle turned over J-J, and felt pretty good about the 10 9 4 flop, but the 3 hit the turn and the 5 the river, two running spades for a backdoor flush, and at 3:15 p.m., nearly three hours after we'd started, we were sevenhanded.

After hand No. 68 the blinds moved up to $10,000-$20,000, with $4,000 antes, meaning it would cost $58,000 to sit out a round, and now a round would take only seven hands to complete.

Matusow Targets Mortensen, but Overlooks Someone

Mortensen continued his controlled aggression, and just after I'd made a margin note that it was going to be hard to stop him now, with his stack and table dominance growing, Matusow decided to do just that.

Nowakowski limped in, Mortensen raised it to $80,000, and Matusow reraised an additional $300,000 from the small blind. "Take that, Carlos, you can't just run over us," the raise seemed to say (Matusow didn't say anything).

It wasn't Carlos whom Matusow had to be worried about.

Nowakowski moved all in, and after Mortensen folded, and they had dragged $380,000 each from Matusow and Nowakowski into the middle of the table, Matusow saw that he had to call only another $65,000. With $868,000 already in the pot, Matusow had to call with any two cards, and "any two cards" was exactly what he did call with: 7-2 offsuit.

Nowakowski turned over K-K, and when no miracles saved Matusow, he was left with about $320,000. Matusow was the most animated player at the table that day, by a pretty good margin, and he said, "I knew you had nothing, Carlos. We're here to play poker, boys, back to work. Now you guys are never going to know what I have when I move in. All I have to do is get a few chips back, and we can have a little party."

Where's Apollo Creed When you Need Him?

I caught Nowakowski's eye a few moments later. We'd become friends at the Poker Million, and I gave him one of those "How's it going?" looks. He made an up and down motion with his hand, to indicate that his stack had been rising and falling more often than Sylvester Stallone in any of his fights in any of the Rocky movies.

Gordon was another guy who hadn't been shy about slinging his chips around, and when Matusow raised ($60,000) for the third time in 10 hands after his 7-2 debacle, Gordon popped him back for another $200,000. Matusow moved all in, and as it wasn't too much of a raise, Gordon was committed. A 10u for Matusow, A 7 for Gordon, who was now probably regretting showing the Q-2 when he moved in on Hellmuth.

The first four cards off the deck were A-10-2-10, and Matusow whooped, "Boys, it's time to have some fun again."

Give a Little Action, Get a Little Action

Advertising does sometimes reap rewards instead of disasters, though. Two hands later, Gordon opened it for $65,000, and Nowakowski made it $140,000, with Gordon calling what turned out to be a too-small raise.

The flop came 9 5 7, Gordon checked, Nowakowski bet $100,000, and Gordon moved all in, a raise of $234,000. Nowakowski thought about it for a while, and called with the A K. Gordon flipped over the 9 7, top two pair, and wound up dragging in nearly a million bucks.

Just two hands later, Nowakowski opened for $90,000, Hellmuth moved all in, and Nowakowski called. "Just jacks, Henry," Phil said as he turned his hand over, but Nowakowski had 7-7, and the board didn't save him. Hellmuth got Nowakowski's last $300,000, and one of the nicer gentlemen in poker exited seventh at 4:05 p.m.

While I do indeed consider Nowakowski a gentleman, he did say something uncalled for to Daniel Negreanu when we were down to two tables. He called him "an American idiot," which was a double insult because Daniel is Canadian. The remark seemed out of character from what I know about him and have observed of him.

Nowakowski probably didn't know about the American/Canadian thing, but I was sorry to see the pressure of the event cause this "introduction." I have a feeling that if these two guys had gotten to know one another under different circumstances, they'd have different opinions of each other than they probably do now.

Sixhanded it was costing $54,000 to watch for six hands, but the watching had mostly ended when Inashima's exit seemed to break the ice, and the chips now stood at:

Gordon – $875,000

Mortensen – $1,900,000

Schrier – $750,000

Matusow – $900,000

Hellmuth – $1,020,000

Tomko – $685,000

Schrier and Tomko had by far been playing the fewest pots of the surviving six players, and Schrier used this tight image to his crafty advantage four hands later, when Matusow opened a pot for $70,000, with Schrier, an Omaha, Nebraska, native who now calls Las Vegas home, calling from the big blind. The flop came 10 4 5, Schrier bet out $100,000, Matusow raised $140,000 more, and Schrier called.

"Now We're All Playing the Game!"

When the J hit the turn, there was a possible flush on the board, and Schrier moved all in. Matusow tossed his hand away, and then Schrier decided to show everyone that he had a little pizzazz in his game, too: He turned over the 10 8, and Gordon repeated Matusow's earlier refrain in honor of the older man's move: "Now we're all playing the game!"

Matusow "played the game" himself, without comment, four hands later, when he limped in, with Tomko also limping from the small blind and Gordon from the big. The flop came K K Q, Tomko checked, Gordon bet $40,000, and Matusow called. Both players checked when the 10 hit the turn, and when the 6 hit the river, Gordon bet $200,000.

Matusow made what I thought was an absolutely perfect raise of $200,000, just enough to allow Gordon to think Matusow might be trying to buy it, and just enough to get him to call if he had something like A-Q. Gordon did call, Matusow flipped over K J, and Gordon mucked.

After two more hands, we hit the break with the chip counts now:

Gordon – $650,000

Mortensen – $1,850,000

Schrier – $920,000

Matusow – $1,260,000

Hellmuth – $1,100,000

Tomko – $350,000

Four hands after the break, Hellmuth took his turn at catching Gordon moving too fast. Gordon had come over Hellmuth a couple of other times since that initial Q-2 move, and Hellmuth had each time tossed his hand away, but on hand No. 102, Hellmuth opened for $70,000, Gordon moved all in, and Hellmuth called instantly.

Two Black Nines, Redux

Gordon turned over 6-6, and Hellmuth turned over two black nines, the same hand that had won him the 1989 World Series of Poker when he was heads up with Johnny Chan. Hellmuth had waited for the right moment, and if the nines, a 4.5-1 favorite, held up this time, Gordon was out, and Hellmuth would be virtually tied with Mortensen for the chip lead.

The flop came K-8-6, and instead of closing in on the lead, Hellmuth was now a short stack.

The crowd seemed to hold its collective breath, waiting for some kind of outburst from Hellmuth, but he just sat there like a stone, and aside from Gordon's attempt to be gracious with, "I was a 5-1 underdog to a world champion and I got lucky," no one said much of anything for about 10 hands. It had been a brutal beat, and I think we were "not" listening to a combination of respect for Hellmuth's misfortune and a desire not to be the one to set off the explosion everyone had expected but never saw or heard.

Mortensen Picks Off a Bluff

Gordon bluffed off two-thirds of the chips he'd taken from Hellmuth six hands later, when Mortensen opened a pot for $70,000, and Gordon raised it to $220,000 from the big blind, with Mortensen calling. The flop came K 9 4, Gordon bet $200,000, and Mortensen called again. Both players checked on the 5 turn and the 5 river, so Gordon had to turn his hand over first: 10 6 – nothing.

Mortensen turned over 10-9, and his pair took the $900,000 pot. I could see Hellmuth looking at Mortensen's stack, and the chips that Gordon had flopped now residing there. It reminded me of one of those picks in the NFL draft where they announce that the choice belongs to "Atlanta, via Kansas City from Dallas." Here, the chips belonged to "Mortensen, via Gordon from Hellmuth."

Thirteen hands later, on hand No. 121, Matusow opened for $60,000, and the now heavily armed Mortensen raised another $150,000 from the big blind. Matusow muscled up and reraised an additional $350,000, and Mortensen moved all in.

Not Only Can he Catch Them, he Can Make Them, Too

Matusow threw his hand away, and then went into shock as Mortensen showed a monster bluff: Q-8 offsuit. The crowd roared as Mortensen stood and pumped his arms in triumph, his multicolored mountain of chips now looming over the table like the Sword of Damocles.

Showing the hand was a bit of a payback, I think, because late in the action the day before, Matusow had made a huge bet that pushed Mortensen off his A-J top pair/top kicker, and after Mortensen showed that he was mucking, Matusow showed J-10, top pair/weak kicker.

Gordon tried to make a joke about having such a big stack have position on him, and asked, "Anyone want a seat change?"

We'd played 19 hands since Gordon's 6-6 had doubled through Hellmuth's 9-9, and Hellmuth hadn't said a word the entire time, but it became clear that he was merely controlling the emotion, not forgetting it, when he replied, "Oh, you're not happy with that seat where you sucked out (poker slang for getting lucky as an underdog) for a million two?"

Gordon showed good sense by not saying anything, and the potentially tense moment passed.

Mortensen Tries to Club Hellmuth into Submission

Three hands later, Mortensen opened yet another pot for $70,000, and Hellmuth moved all in, a raise of $384,000. Mortensen thought briefly about it, and decided to call, turning over A 10. Hellmuth turned over A K, but had to hold his breath after the K 8 7 flop gave Mortensen a flush draw.

The flush draw didn't get there, and this call was the only really questionable move I saw Mortensen make the whole day. Yes, he had a giant stack, and yes, it was no doubt tempting to try to eliminate Hellmuth, who hadn't come unraveled in the face of the bad beat, but instead he'd doubled him up and gotten him back into the game, and Mortensen slammed the table with his open hand, angry at his error.

Five hands later, on hand No. 129, Tomko opened for $70,000, and Matusow moved all in. Tomko called, and turned over K-K. Matusow had 10-10, and had to send a total (including the opening $70,000) of $413,000 to Tomko. This left Matusow, a high-stakes pro from nearby Henderson, as the short man with about $240,000.

Rock Beats Scissors, Kings Beat Eights

When you're short and the blinds and antes are high, and you're thinking about winning the tournament and not just trying to survive for a ladder step, you gotta move. Just two hands later, Matusow found a hand he was willing to try, 8-8, and he moved all in from the button. Hellmuth called immediately from the small blind, and Matusow found that he'd run into pocket kings twice in three hands. He couldn't "pull a Gordon," and exited in sixth place.

He left the room without speaking to the TV people, although he returned about a half-hour later. "I had to get out of here for a while," he said later. "I cried for a while, and I'll probably cry more later." I made a futile attempt to console him by telling him what a feat it was to get through so many players just to make it to the final table, and he said he knew it was a tremendous and difficult accomplishment, and that's why he was so upset.

A Chance of a Lifetime?

"I can play great poker for the next 20 years," Matusow said, "and I still might never get back to the final table of this tournament. It's that hard to get here. That's why it's so hard to go out when you get so close. This might have been my chance for my lifetime, and I couldn't get it."

Three hands later, the blinds moved up to $15,000-$30,000, and the antes to $6,000. Fivehanded, it was costing $75,000 a round to sit out.

Fourteen hands after we moved up, we managed to combine comedy, drama, triumph, and disaster in one hand, No. 149.

With Gordon on the button, Hellmuth limped in, Gordon limped in, and both Mortensen and Schrier limped in from the blinds, giving us four-way action. The flop came Q 9 4, both blinds checked, Hellmuth bet $60,000, Gordon folded, and Mortensen raised $200,000.

Earth to Stan, Come In, Stan

Schrier sat back in his chair and thought a long time. At least two minutes passed, maybe more, and I started wondering if anyone was going to call for a clock on him. Eventually, Schrier cried out in embarrassment when he realized everyone had been waiting on him. He'd been mentally done with the hand on the flop, and with his lucky stone frog covering most of his cards, he hadn't realized the action was on him. He folded the moment he realized his error.

Hellmuth had been sitting there the whole time looking at both Schrier and Mortensen, and no doubt trying to figure out what part of the flop Schrier had, to be thinking that long. When Schrier finally made it very clear that he hadn't had any part of the flop, and had just spaced out, Hellmuth took another 10 seconds or so, and then said, "I'm all in."

Mortensen called, and turned over Q-J. Hellmuth isn't fond of committing all of his chips without some kind of premium hand – he'll make lots of raises with medium holdings, but rarely commits everything – so I assumed he was in the lead, perhaps by a lot.

An Out-of-Character Move for Hellmuth

Hellmuth turned over Q-10, and was in big trouble. A jack hit the turn, giving Mortensen two pair that he didn't need or want, because the card also gave Hellmuth an open-end straight draw. An 8 or a king could rescue him now, but when the A fell on the river, Hellmuth was gone, and his million or so in chips now resided in Mortensen's Mountain.

"I thought he might have Q-10," Mortensen said afterward. "I didn't think he would limp in with K-Q or A-Q."

I hadn't entered this tournament myself, because I knew I was too tired for a five-day event. No-limit is a great game, but a very tough game, because one false move, out of thousands of plays, and you can be gone. I knew I didn't have five days worth of no false moves in me.

Hellmuth had made one here, either in his choice of hands or in reading Mortensen for being on a draw (with something like J-10 or spades), and with it went his dreams of an eighth bracelet and second world championship. He didn't explode. I think it was more of an implosion. He left the room, fairly quickly, and didn't return. As for me, I'd been running on adrenaline alone for the previous three days, and if I'm to be honest, I have to admit that my own energy level dropped pretty far at that moment, too, feeling my friend's pain.

The Show Must Go On

But I try to be a professional, even when it's hard, and although the show I'd wanted to see was over, there was still a show the rest of the world wanted to see going on, so I counted everyone's chips during this pause in the action:

Gordon – $1,000,000

Mortensen – $3,910,000

Schrier – $520,000

Tomko – $700,000

Mortensen raised the next two pots to $100,000. On the first one, Schrier moved all in, and Mortensen let it go. On the second, Tomko moved all in, and Mortensen decided to call; A 10 for Tomko, K Q for Mortensen. The 9 7 6 5 3 board doubled Tomko right back into this tournament. Mortensen had given chips to the one guy left who had enough experience at this sort of thing to be able to use them.

The "Tall Phil" Exits

Eleven hands later, No. 162, Gordon's run ended in fourth place when he took A 6 up against Mortensen's Q Q, Mortensen making an unnecessary flush on the end when the board came 5 5 4 7 (a scary moment, as now Gordon had outs to an ace, 3, or 8) K.

Schrier was now the short man, and when Tomko made it $170,000 to go from the button on hand No. 167, Schrier decided Tomko was trying to grab his big blind, and moved all in with Q-10. Tomko called immediately with K-K, and Schrier's great run ended when the board came A J 8 6 4.

We were heads up, hand to hand if you prefer the English to mano a mano, at 6:53 p.m. Tomko had $2 million and Mortensen had the rest, a little more than $4 million. We took a break while they brought out the $1.5 million in cash in "the traditional cardboard box" and placed it on the table, and while it makes for great theatre, the second-place finisher wasn't exactly going home broke, with the large field making second worth $1,098,925.

Mortensen Creates Most of the Action

With Amarillo Slim Preston taking over the microphone duties from Tournament Director Bob Thompson, the duel commenced. In a limit event, a 2-1 chip lead is pretty formidable, but in no-limit, things can turn around in a hurry, and it didn't take too long for a pattern to emerge.

Mortensen went on offense, raising a substantial majority of the pots to $100,000 (although on hand No. 175, Tomko limped in, and Mortensen moved all in; as Tomko briefly debated a call, Slim told the crowd in that drawl of his, "He has been raised … considerably"), with Tomko letting most of them go. Every once in a while, Tomko would play back, and Mortensen would let his hand go. Mortensen was winning the little pots, and Tomko was winning the big pots.

Even though the chip count remained roughly constant throughout, I was starting to like Tomko's side of things, because Mortensen was creating so much action that Tomko didn't have to push. If he could just hang in and resteal occasionally, sooner or later, Mortensen was going to push when Tomko could push back harder.

As you already know, that's pretty much how it ended, too, although Mortensen didn't push a ton of chips forward until he'd flopped his huge draw.

Beware the Red 9

I wasn't exactly the only person in the room to recall that the tournament had ended with a red 9 again, and Card Player Cruises' Linda Johnson, who was handling one of the two Internet audio broadcasts of the final (the first-ever Internet broadcast of the WSOP was held in 1999 on my old clunker of a cell phone, which I almost tossed out when I got my new tiny one, until I realized it was a piece of poker history), asked Chris Ferguson if the card looked familiar.

"Yes," Chris said, "but Carlos had a lot more outs than I did."

Mortensen's English, although a heck of a lot better than my Spanish, is still rather limited, and between that and the difficulty I had getting past the army of cameramen and TV people, I couldn't get much out of him beyond his expressions of joy, and technical explanations of hands: The English he knows best, as you'd expect, is poker English.

He's been playing poker for about 10 years, professionally for five, and although Madrid is home, there isn't a lot of live poker action in Spain, so he spends most of his time in the United States now. Although he'd have entered anyway, he won his seat in the "big one" by winning the Shooting Stars tournament at Bay 101.

7-2 Came Back to Haunt Matusow

I asked him about the big bluff on Matusow, when he made the all-in raise with Q-8. "The 7-2 hand was in my mind," Mortensen said. "I knew he was capable of making a big raise based on position, instead of a strong hand, and I had enough chips to play at him."

Tomko had nothing but kind things to say about the victor. "He's a gentleman, and he played well all day," said Tomko. "A lot of the other players were talking a lot, and I'm not sure how they can do that and concentrate on the game at the same time, but this young man stayed out of that and stayed focused, and he earned his win."

Our champion is a handsome, charismatic fellow, and he has a lot of money now, but sorry, ladies, he's taken. His wife Cecilia rooted him on throughout, and seemed every bit as thrilled as her husband.

As for the 32nd World Series of Poker, with gentlemen from Europe now having taken the crown in two of the last three years, I think that unlike the baseball championship bearing the same older name, we now truly have a World Series. It was an honor and a pleasure reporting it to you, even if the circumstances were very trying for me at the start, and then difficult again at the end.

I expect to get back into the action and play again next year. After all, the World Series of Poker is the place where dreams come true, and where history gets made. Without dreams, there is no future, and without history, there is no past. Staying in the present is awfully important, but I like my time continuums with all three, and in the poker universe, the World Series gives us two of them.

Final Official Results

- 1. Carlos Mortensen – $1,500,000

- 2. Dewey Tomko – $1,098,925

- 3. Stan Schrier – $699,315

- 4. Phil Gordon – $399,610

- 5. Phil Hellmuth Jr. – $303,705

- 6. Mike Matusow – $239,765

- 7. Henry Nowakowski – $179,825

- 8. Steve Riehle – $119,855

- 9. John Inashima – $91,910

10th-12th – $63,940 each: Arturo Diaz, Daniel Negreanu, Charles Glorioso

13th-15th – $55,945 each: Tony D, Steve Gulbelson, Don Barton

16th-18th – $47,955 each: John Farley, Rich Korbin, Larry Wood

19th-27th – $39,960 each: Mel Weiner, Kevin Song, Salim Batshon, Aaron Katz, Jim Bechtel, Alex Brenes, Kevin Keller, John Esposito, Allen Cunningham

28th-36th – $30,000 each: Mike May, Mike Sexton, Chris Bjorin, Carl McKelvey, Scott O'Bryan, Gustavo Echeverri, Barney Boatman, Peter Kaufman, Patrick Bueno

37th-45th – $20,000 each: Billy Baxter, Alexander Dietrich, Michael Magee, Eugene Malatesta, Dan Alspach, Bill Gazes, Harry Thomas Jr., David Pham, William Strouther.