A Chip and a Chair

Like sports and businesses, poker has its own unique language, expressions, and clichés that reflect technical as well as street wisdom. One of my favorites is, "All you need is a chip and a chair." Even the most desperate situation of having a chip stack too small to threaten anyone in a tournament has the ominous name "crippled." It's been proven over and over again that you can make a comeback with a very short stack of chips, and even just one chip. In fact, a most memorable comeback was achieved in the 2005 World Series of Poker main event by the reigning champion, Greg Raymer. On day one, he was "down to the felt" and had been rumored to have been knocked out, but when I saw him at the dinner break, he was back in contention with plenty of chips. In fact, very late in the tournament he had accumulated enough chips to be a contender to win first place again! With his chips and a chair and a great comeback, he finished deep in the money with a six-figure payout.



This year, I was playing in the WSOP $5,000 no-limit hold'em event when I got involved in the last hand before the break. I raised preflop with a big pair and got one caller with about the same chip-stack size as mine. While my table emptied for the break, I got lucky and flopped top set. I was pretty pleased that my opponent led out with a bet. I moved all in, and he called with an open-end straight draw. In two prior WSOP events in which I had been in similar situations, I had been outdrawn and knocked out in level one of play. So, I held my breath and hoped that I wouldn't be making another early exit. My set held up, and I doubled through my opponent. He was left with $350, and we took our break.



When we returned from the break, to my surprise, there was nobody sitting behind the $350. One of the other players said that he was not coming back. Apparently, the player had completely given up hope. It turned out that this was a very wealthy person who probably wasn't as interested in the prize money as he was in winning a treasured WSOP bracelet. I can't imagine any better way to win a poker tournament and WSOP bracelet than with a great comeback story behind it. Apparently, no one ever told him that all you need is a chip and a chair.



Earlier this year, my wife, Olga, was playing in a supersatellite at the Borgata Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. The top eight places won $10,000 buy-ins to the main event at the Borgata, and ninth place won $1,000. Somehow, Olga had four black chips ($400) when they got down to 10-handed. At this point, the blinds and antes increased. The antes became $500, which in some sense meant that she had less than a chip, since the minimum denomination at the table was now going to be $500. In the old days, under these circumstances, Olga would have been at risk of being knocked out of the tournament by the chip race.



However, the rules were recently revised, and no one could be knocked out of a tournament through the chip race, so she got one purple $500 chip. To make a long story short, she stood up (no more chair), tripled up on that hand, doubled up on the next hand, watched one player get knocked out on the bubble, watched another player get knocked out in ninth place, and won a $10,000 buy-in.



So, it turns out that it takes less than a chip and a chair to win a poker tournament!



Robert is the 2002 World Series of Poker champion, and you can play poker with him online by signing up at www.interpoker.com/rob, which is offering up to a $121 limited-time bonus.