$2,000 No-Limit Hold'em: Clash of the Titans

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.

My thanks to those in the poker world who offered words of sympathy and support while I was away during my family crisis. Funerals have a way of putting bad beats back into perspective. When I got back to Las Vegas, I was operating with almost no sleep, was on emotional fumes, and was wondering how I was going to cover a final table just a few hours later. Although I wasn't my usual cheery self, I got my answer when I walked into the tournament room at Binion's and saw the lineup for the final table of the $2,000 no-limit hold'em championship.

Seat – Player – – Chip Count

- 1 – Knox Pressley – $7,700

- 2 – Phil Hellmuth Jr. – $183,900

- 3 – John Farley – $75,200

- 4 – T.J. Cloutier – $102,700

- 5 – Steve Rydel – $31,200

- 6 – Jan Olav Sjavik – $68,200

- 7 – Stan Goldstein – $200,600

- 8 – Layne Flack – $139,000

- 9 – Jeff Stoff – $73,700

What a final table! Hellmuth and Cloutier alone made it worth the price of admission. Each would draw votes as the world's best no-limit hold'em tournament player, and it's hard to imagine that any list of even the top five could leave off either one. But this was no two-man show. Flack is an incredibly talented no-limit and pot-limit tournament specialist, and could have chosen to arrive wearing a gold bracelet, as could the dangerous but short-chipped Rydel. When I added the very tough Los Angeles pro Stan Goldstein in as the chip leader, and the relatively lesser-known but fearless and skilled Stoff into the mix, I knew we were in for something special.

A Rose for His Rose

Hellmuth, who is famous for his late arrivals to tournament first days, also managed to arrive last to the final table, albeit barely on time. The 6-foot-6-inch San Francisco Bay area pro handed a rose to his wife, Kathy, a psychiatrist who had hurriedly flown in to sweat her man and was sitting in the grandstand, sought out and hugged one other spectator, and took his seat. We had 10 minutes left with blinds of $1,000-$2,000 and $500 antes.

The tournament's very first hand altered the balance of power dramatically when everyone folded around to the two blinds, and Goldstein called so that he and Flack could look at a flop, which came down 8 6 4. Goldstein checked, Flack bet $5,000, and Goldstein popped him back for $30,000 more. Flack called, the Q hit the turn, Goldstein moved all in, and Flack called instantly. Goldstein turned over the 5 2, a complete drawing hand that could improve to a straight, flush, or even straight flush, but Flack showed a made hand, Q-8, and a blank on the river doubled the fast-firing Flack through our former chip leader, who'd been crippled in one hand.

A New Chip Leader:

Layne "Action" Flack-Tion

The double up gave Flack the chip lead, and left those who had been observing him in action the day before shaking their heads. Flack's mere arrival at the final table proved something of a miracle, as he had been accumulating both chips and cocktails rather rapidly the day before, and had taken several breaks from the big stack he was accumulating in the tournament to go play high-stakes side action. Youth must have its advantages. Flack is a lean and strong 31, and his body and brain cells proved up to the triple duty he was requiring of them. Now at the final table, he stayed in his seat and drank more conventional beverages.

Stoff removed the impossibly short-chipped Pressley when he raised Pressley's big blind while holding Q-Q. Pressley played his K-3, but didn't hit a king, and we were eighthanded.

Only a couple hands later, Rydel raised it to $6,000 under the gun, and Goldstein, who had lost more than two thirds of his stack on the first hand, raised $20,000 more. Rydel was so short that a call was effectively moving him in, so he went ahead and shoved his last few chips in himself, with Goldstein calling. J-J for Rydel, A-Q for Goldstein, a coin-flip hand, but the flop came J-7-3, chopping Goldstein's stack in half yet again.

Two hands later Rydel mixed it up again, the same $6,000 raise that had worked out so well a few moments earlier, except this time from the button, and Norway's Sjavik moved in. Rydel called and turned over 4-4, while Sjavik showed 6-6. The Q-J-10-3-10 board sent Rydel out eighth, and Goldstein was able to keep a close eye on all of his former chips, with Sjavik sitting on his right and Flack on his left.

All This in 10 Minutes

If it sounds like we were playing kind of fast, you're right, because the clock went off ending the limit. All of this action, including the literal decimation of the initial chip leader, had gone down in 10 minutes. We moved up to $1,500-$3,000 blinds and $700 antes.

We lost Goldstein, whose talented and equally likeable brother Ken had been sitting right behind me, a few minutes later when he raised a pot to $15,000, Hellmuth reraised $30,000 more, easily enough to put Goldstein all in, and he called. A-K for Hellmuth, A-Q for Goldstein, and nothing even resembling a scary card ever hit the 4-3-3-3-2 board, although a few Goldstein friends screamed for a 3 or 4 on the final card that would have split the pot.

Goldstein would have made a few more bucks if his unfortunate sequence had waited just one more hand for its dismal end, because on the next hand, Stoff raised it to $16,000, Farley, a Chicago options trader who thus is used to big swings and big action, moved in. Stoff called quickly. A-10 for Farley, A-K for Stoff, and Farley departed.

The Play Slows and the

Talking Quickens

Farley's departure left us fivehanded and set off a return to normalcy, as the remaining players decided they had no planes to catch, and play settled down into a more conventional no-limit pattern of bet and take it, or bet, get raised, and fold. Chips moved back and forth, but generally in small pots, and the players started chatting it up a bit more.

Flack raised one pot to $9,000 from late position, Hellmuth reraised $25,000 out of the small blind, and Flack folded, prompting Stoff to note, "Phil's not prejudiced, he doesn't need a hand to bet chips," and Cloutier replied, "All of us have the same disease."

The equally diseased all had a pretty good chance at this point, because my rough chip estimate showed:

Hellmuth – $200,000

Cloutier – $120,000

Sjavik – $110,000

Flack – $220,000

Stoff – $230,000

Actually, Hellmuth, while well known for his fast play, had been one of the quieter competitors thus far, but that was about to change. Cloutier raised $10,000 under the gun, and Hellmuth called from the big blind, letting us see a flop of A J 4. Cloutier bet $11,000, and Hellmuth called. The 4 hit the turn, Cloutier led out for $40,000, and Hellmuth folded, showing A-8. Cloutier showed him Q-J, a stone-cold bluff.

"I know he has a small ace," T.J. said, "and I know he's a good enough player to lay it down into that bet." The visible bluff seemed to get Hellmuth moving, and he started playing more hands, although not wildly. He shifted into a more aggressive game, and the increased conversational levels continued. Sjavik raised a pot to $15,000 under the gun, Hellmuth reraised $45,000 more, and Sjavik folded.

Hellmuth showed A-Q, and said, "I'm not going to show you Q-J," to which Cloutier replied with a smile, "We know, you've never bluffed in your life, Phil." Everyone laughed, including Hellmuth, who seemed to relax a bit and started analyzing the laydown to his friend Flack.

Mea Culpa

"I blew it, Layne," Hellmuth said. "I didn't even study him. That's my biggest asset in poker, picking off other people's bluffs, and I didn't even look at him."

While Hellmuth was taking responsibility for the lost hand, he wasn't forgetting about moving chips. He raised it to $9,000 from the button, and Cloutier reraised to $35,000 from the small blind. Sjavik moved all in from the big blind, Hellmuth tossed his hand away, and Cloutier called quickly with Q-Q. Sjavik could only show 4-4, and when the flop came A-8-7, Hellmuth exclaimed, "Gosh!" a pretty clear signal that he had folded an ace, but "Gosh!" probably turned to "Gosh, that was lucky!" on the turn, when another queen hit, sending Sjavik out fifth.

Cloutier consoled the Norwegian as he left, telling him, "Hey, you were just playing poker and ran into a hand," which seemed to mollify the player who had seemed a bit in awe of Cloutier's reputation, but on a break much later, after Sjavik had departed, Cloutier told me the play had been a big mistake.

"Phil raises, I reraise, and he thinks he has the best hand with 4-4?" Cloutier asked rhetorically. "That just can't be right."

The Final Four

With four players left, the chips were remarkably evenly distributed:

Hellmuth – $190,000

Cloutier – $270,000

Flack – $180,000

Stoff – $240,000

"What's wrong with this picture?" asked Stoff, a very strong player but a bit light in the gold jewelry department compared to his famous opponents. "Me and three world champions."

Stoff found out why all three of his opponents are champions shortly thereafter, when Flack raised a pot to $15,000 from the button, Stoff reraised $45,000 more from the small blind, and Flack called immediately. The flop came down J 5 4, Stoff took a look, and moved in for about $150,000. Flack studied the board and his opponent for quite a while, and finally said, "I call."

Before the players could even turn their cards over, Hellmuth asked Flack, "Do you have eights, Layne?" Flack turned over 7-7. Stoff could only show A 4, bottom pair, and wasn't saved by either the turn or the river.

"Great call, Layne," Hellmuth said, as Flack raked in the chips. Stoff wasn't out, but had only about $3,000 left.

"I knew he was weak," Cloutier said later. "Jeff took too long to bet. I might forget a name, but I never forget how a man plays." Well, now you know why a no-limit tournament with 441 entrants had come down to three of the world's finest, as everyone seemed to have been able to figure out that calling $150,000 with something less than top pair was right under the circumstances.

The 80-minute round ended with Stoff having dodged a few bullets, but Flack's nervy call had sent him into the lead:

Hellmuth – $270,000

Cloutier – $220,000

Flack – $360,000

Stoff – $30,000

When we returned from a break, the blinds moved to $2,000-$4,000, with $1,000 antes, and Flack finished off Stoff shortly thereafter, raising from the button with J-J. Stoff decided to call with J-9, and we were left with three awfully familiar faces.

"I kinda thought it might be the three of us when we started here today," Cloutier said.

Flack thought for a moment that it was going to be him and one of the other "two of us," because Hellmuth and Cloutier hooked up in a big pot in which Hellmuth bet $40,000 on the turn into a K-9-6-2 board and got called, and then bet $100,000 when a queen hit on the river, only to see T.J. move in. Hellmuth called quickly, and both players turned over K-Q.

Hellmuth won three small confrontations with Flack, and Cloutier one larger one, to change the chip positions to Hellmuth, $360,000, Cloutier, $310,000, and Flack, $210,000, when we found our final two.

The Beast Undoes

an Alleged Two Kings

Flack raised a pot to $20,000 from the small blind, and Hellmuth called. The flop came Q-6-2, with both players checking. A 9 hit the turn, Flack checked, Hellmuth bet $25,000, and Flack raised $50,000 more. Hellmuth studied for a while, tried to get a read on Flack by asking him how much more he had left, and then called. Another 6 hit on the river, Flack moved in, and Hellmuth called immediately, saying, "I call, I have A-6," as he turned up his hand.

Flack didn't show his hand, but stood up to shake hands with his two competitors, and left. He told me he had two kings, and while you might think he would have shown that strong a hand – how many players can resist showing their bad beats, after all? – it seemed plausible, given the betting. If Flack was telling the truth, Hellmuth had used the Number of the Beast, 6-6-6, to beat two kings.

Clash of the Titans

So here we were, Phil Hellmuth and his six World Series bracelets, all of them in Texas hold'em, against T.J. Cloutier, the WSOP's all-time leading money winner, owner of four bracelets himself, and a four-time visitor to the no-limit hold'em world championship event final table.

"People would pay to see this on television," said Cloutier. "Phil and I have been at a lot of final tables together, but this is the first time we've ever gone heads up for a title."

Thanks to his elimination of Flack, Hellmuth started with the edge, $580,000-$300,000. The two players never stopped to even consider a deal.

Hellmuth took the aggressor's role, chopping away at Cloutier, who kept showing useless hands and folding them. The few times that Cloutier did find something to play back with, Hellmuth showed no interest, and Cloutier kept showing big hands that Hellmuth had dodged. If Hellmuth had indeed "blown it" with his earlier failure to study Cloutier on the A-8 vs. Q-J hand, he seemed to be showing a fine sense of where Cloutier was most of the time, as well as holding most of the cards.

No Rodney Dangerfield

Problems Here

Unlike a lot of no-limit players who like to get most of their money in before the flop, Hellmuth and Cloutier gave each other a great deal of respect, playing cautiously, and limping in and seeing cheap flops much more often than we usually see in heads-up play. They both seemed cautious, much more like boxers than sluggers, each trying to score points with small jabs here and there than risking one big knockout blow.

As Cloutier's stack continued to erode, he realized that he needed to find another gear, whether or not his cards wanted to cooperate. He bet $25,000 at one 10u 8u 8 flop, got called, and fired another $30,000 when the J hit the turn. Hellmuth moved in after only the briefest of hesitations, and in the first major heads-up confrontation, Cloutier decided to throw away K-10. He had $130,000 left.

Cloutier lost another chunk when Hellmuth limped in from the small blind on the button (if you're not familiar with heads-up action, the small blind goes on the button and acts first before the flop, but then the button gets its customary last-to-act advantage after the flop; I'll abbreviate "small blind on the button" as "SBB" here), Cloutier raised it to $15,000 from the big blind, Hellmuth called, the flop came A Q 2, T.J. bet $25,000, and Hellmuth moved in again. T.J. folded, and Hellmuth showed A J.

Want Some Free Information?

Here You Go, Pal!

These two players showed each other more cards "voluntarily and unnecessarily" in two and a half hours of heads-up play than I have "voluntarily and unnecessarily" shown anyone in the last two and a half years. At the Cloutier-Hellmuth level, one finds mind games within mind games within mind games, so this may be an excellent strategy. For us mere mortals, I still think this giving away of free information falls into the "don't try this at home" category.

The A-J hand left T.J. with only $90,000 as the clock went off ending the round, but the players both decided they didn't want or need a break, and we moved right on with $3,000-$6,000 blinds and $1,500 antes.

As a new dealer sporting the name tag "Jesse" came into the box, Cloutier continued his running commentary about his lack of luck by cracking, "You think I'm drawin' bad, I had an ex-mother-in-law named Jesse."

Cloutier edged back up to $140,000, and the players decided to take the short break they had declined earlier. This was just a stretch-your-legs break – never a hint of a deal. While Hellmuth wandered off, Cloutier turned around and spotted Kathy Hellmuth in the crowd. "Hey, honey, did you just get in?" he asked. "No, I've been here," she said. "Then you've been watching your husband eat me alive; he's a good player," Cloutier responded.

Action Heats Up After the Break

On the very first hand after the break, Hellmuth raised it to $14,000 from the SBB, Cloutier moved in, and Hellmuth called instantly. A 5 for Cloutier, 7-7 for Hellmuth.

The flop came K J 9 and the turn brought the 6, leaving Hellmuth one card from victory unless Cloutier could spike a second running spade, or an ace.

The 7 on the river doubled Cloutier to $280,000, almost the exact chip position he'd been in when the long duel had commenced.

"I knew you had to move on me when I raised," Hellmuth said. "That's why I called so fast."

"I had to get some money into a pot," Cloutier said. "You were grinding me out."

Hellmuth has never made any secret of his desire for a big bracelet collection, and his emotional volatility isn't exactly a high clearance item, either. We were about to find out if he could keep his cool with victory snatched from his grasp.

Hellmuth dodged one trap when holding K-8; he declined to bet on the end when Cloutier checked the 9-8-3-7-3 board to him. T.J. showed A-3.

The Decisive Hand

With these chip positions, one big double through could send Cloutier into the lead, so Hellmuth knew that he had to be careful. Still, the hand after the A-3 escape, T.J. made a small raise from the SBB, Phil reraised $35,000 more, and T.J. moved in. Hellmuth called quickly. 6-6 for Cloutier, A K for Hellmuth. Coin toss time.

The dealer burned and turned, and the flop's doorcard was the K, followed by the 8, 2, and 10. Cloutier made a motion to shake Hellmuth's hand, and Phil accepted, saying, "I'll shake your hand anytime, buddy, no matter what this next card is."

The A on the river gave Phil Hellmuth Jr., 35 years old, an unnecessary second pair and his seventh WSOP bracelet, second now all-time to Doyle Brunson's eight. Hellmuth leapt into the air in delight, and went to embrace his wife. When that was done, he came over to his biographer, who had not been present for a Hellmuth tournament win since the pair began working on the book two years earlier, stretched out a hand, and got another long hug back, only fitting, as Phil had startled me a bit when he first entered the final-table arena by hugging me. He knew what I'd been going through the previous few days, and we're good friends, but I hadn't even expected him to acknowledge my presence before the tournament began. He'd barely acknowledged Kathy's presence, aside from presenting her with the rose. I know Phil well enough to know that you don't enter his "zone" when he's getting ready for a final table, but I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised. I've seen him around his own family enough to know that he has a firm grasp of poker's role in the world compared to family.

Although Hellmuth keeps count of bracelets the way Ebenezer Scrooge kept count of the lumps of coal Bob Cratchit used, he doesn't hoard them. He's given every bracelet away to family members, except for his 1989 world championship bracelet. No. 7, he announced, is going to son Phillip, although actual possession of the trinket will probably be transferred only when Phillip is old enough to understand the gift's value, and inasmuch as Phillip is 9, this might be a while.

"Yeah, maybe when he's 21, or getting married," quipped Kathy.

Bracelet No. 7 also has one other unique property. "It's my first non-Walkman win," Hellmuth noted. "I've had the headphones on for all the others, but with the new rule (no headphones, earphones, or electronic devices of any kind at the final table), I had to go music-free."

There might not have been any music, but for the whole two and a half hour Hellmuth-Cloutier concert, neither player missed a beat.

Final Results:

$2,000 no-limit hold'em

Entrants: 441 • Prize pool: $855,540

1. Phil Hellmuth Jr. – $316,550

2. T.J. Cloutier – 162,550

3. Layne Flack – 81,270

4. Jeff Stoff – 51,235

5. Jan Olav Sjavik – 38,500

6. John Farley – 29,945

7. Stan Goldstein – 21,930

8. Steve Rydel – 17,110

9. Knox Pressley – 13,690