Anytime you gather 100 of the most talented people in the world in a single discipline at one place, the result is an exhibition of greatness. On June 24, that is exactly what happened at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. It was day one of the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event, and 148 of the greatest all-around poker players on earth had anted up the large buy-in, creating a $7,104,000 prize pool, with the winner taking home $2,276,832. This event would determine, during rounds of Texas hold'em, Omaha eight-or-better, razz, seven-card stud, and seven-card stud eight-or-better, the mixed-game champion of the world. Railbirds swarmed the cordoned-off tournament area for the historic event, and excitement permeated the air. At a little after high noon, Chip Reese, the 2006 H.O.R.S.E. champion, announced, "Shuffle up and deal."
Changes, and Familiar Faces
There were two things that stood out from the start of the mixed-game championship. First were the changes to the tournament. It had been expanded to five days, and the players all began with $100,000 deep stacks. "We're not going to lose one person," said Mike "The Mouth" Matusow as he warmed up his vocal cords early on day one. Apparently, someone was listening to the players after the debacle of 14-hour days that reigned supreme during last year's event. There was even a two-hour dinner break on the first day, which featured a catered meal for the players. The H.O.R.S.E. event had truly become a players' championship.
The second thing that stood out on day one, even to the most casual of poker observers, was the rich collection of talent in the event. This is expected in this prestigious event, and there were many stacked tables, but one of them was just ridiculous. Table No. 16 started the day with Kirk Morrison in seat No. 1, Ali Eslami in seat No. 2, David Singer in seat No. 3, T.J. Cloutier in seat No. 4, Mike Sexton in seat No. 5, Dewey Tomko in seat No. 6, and Phil Ivey in seat No. 7. Seat No. 8 was empty to start, and for a while, one could draw the conclusion that whoever was to occupy the empty chair might have seen what he was up against and headed to the door. The player who did take seat No. 8 is one who is intimidated by no one: Todd Brunson showed up a little late, but ready to play. With the addition of Brunson, this table was arguably the greatest day-one table in the history of tournament poker.
During the second round of razz, things got interesting in the first huge hand of the tournament. Tuan Le, Eli Elezra, Chad Brown, and David Chiu were involved in a hand that was capped on every single street leading up to the final downcard. After peeking at his, Le bet out, and Elezra called in the dark. Both Brown and Chiu folded their cards, and Elezra turned over a 7-5-4-3-2 low. Le mucked and Elezra raked in a $115,000 pot. Elezra rode the momentum of this massive pot to the day-one chip lead. He finished with $561,000, which was good for a hefty lead, but not a dominating one, as Bruno Fitoussi and David Oppenheim both held more than $300,000 at the end of the day. Despite Matusow's proclamation, a handful of players were lost during the day, including the first to hit the rail, Jeffrey Lisandro. He was joined by Lyle Berman, David Benyamine, David "The Dragon" Pham, Sammy Farha, and Mark Vos.
Day Two - Winner's Tilt
The 127 remaining players returned for day two, and the concentration of poker talent became even more intimidating. Perhaps the best table of the day was table No. 1 late in the day, which featured three world champions and enough gold bracelets to claim a stall at Fort Knox. Phil Hellmuth, Scotty Nguyen, John Hennigan, Huck Seed, Phil Ivey, Elezra, Matt Hawrilenko, and Justin Bonomo ended the day together.
Bonomo ended the day on the rarest form of tilt imaginable. During the final round of seven-card stud, his hand improved from aces up on fourth street to fours full on sixth street, and he then rivered quads. This won him a huge $280,000 pot, but he had to get up from the table and grab a few drinks after the hand. "I'm probably the only [person] on the planet who wins a pot and goes on tilt," said Bonomo. Despite his reaction to the hand, it was responsible for shooting him up the leader board into sixth place at the end of day two. Kenny Tran ($510,000), Allen Cunningham ($526,000), Toto Leonidas ($560,000), and Elezra ($568,000) now stood between Bonomo and day-two chip leader John Hanson ($650,000). Fifty-two players remained, as 75 players had made their exit during the second day, including Doyle Brunson, Gavin Smith, Phil Laak, Ted Forrest, Bill Edler, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Mike Sexton, Howard Lederer, T.J. Cloutier, and Robert Williamson III.
Day Three - A Loaded Deck Plays Down to Blackjack
There are 52 cards in a deck of playing cards. There were 52 players remaining at the start of day three. That is where the similarities between those two numbers end, though, because the players remaining on day three were comprised of more aces and kings than you could find in the decks of a card mechanic, a riverboat cheat, and a shady backroom card dealer combined.
Cyndy Violette, Greg Mascio, David Sklanksy, David Williams, and Scotty Nguyen were eliminated in the early hours of the poker morning. After those exits, the defending champion, Chip Reese, was eliminated in 47th place by Elezra. Reese made an exit amid a round of applause. The 46 players remaining now licked their lips in anticipation that a new champion would be crowned in 2007. On the way down to three tables, many more familiar stars, high-stakes cash-game players, and young guns hit the rail. Erik Seidel, Annie Duke, Ivey, Cunningham, Erick Lindgren, Steve Sung, Isabelle Mercier, Sam Grizzle, Robert Mizrachi, John Juanda, Oppenheim, and Tuan Le were lost during an especially brutal stretch of play before the dinner break. One player who was quite busy during this stretch was Amnon Filippi, who vaulted into the chip lead with more than $1 million.
The field returned from the dinner break, and after the elimination of Mike Wattel in 25th place, they redrew for seats at the final three tables. An interesting mix of players populated the tournament at this juncture. The inaugural year of the H.O.R.S.E. championship, especially the final table, featured a cross between the reincarnation of the Texas road gamblers reunion and the best from the current "big game" roster. This year, the final stages of the tournament featured a better cross section of the poker world. The old guard was present (Dewey Tomko and Gabe Kaplan), while the big game was also well-represented (Barry Greenstein and Freddy Deeb). But, international players (Thor Hansen, Fitoussi, and Max Pescatori) and young guns were present, as well (Bonomo, Filippi, Tim Phan, and Kenny Tran). Throw in two world champions (Phil Hellmuth and Greg Raymer), two larger-than-life personalities (Matusow and Daniel Negreanu), some consistent professionals (David Singer, Toto Leonidas, and Mark Gregorich), and a handful of unknown hopefuls, and you were one partridge in a pear tree away from a total cross section of the game. That partridge would need to be a female, though, because after some gutsy performances by Cyndy Violette and Annie Duke earlier in the day, Isabelle Mercier was the last woman standing when she was eliminated in 31st place.
Hellmuth, Rob Hollink, and Leonidas were the last three players eliminated on day three, and things came to an end with 21 players still in the hunt. Chip leader Filippi had further increased his chip count during the evening to $2,343,000, and Tran trailed him with $1,959,000. Fitoussi also had re-emerged at the top of the leader board with $1,248,000.
Day Four - Bubbles, Both the Money and Final-Table Variety
Action got under way during day four of the tournament and Negreanu was the first to hit the rail; he was busted by the better two pair of Fitoussi. He would be followed by Pat Pezzin in 20th place, and Pescatori in 19th place. Fitoussi then claimed his second victim of the day when he knocked out Bonomo in 18th place. The money bubble now had arrived; the unlucky soul was Noah Jefferson, and two tables of eight players each remained.
Matusow was the first to exit these two tables in 16th place, and then Filippi increased his stack to $2.5 million by eliminating Chris Reslock in 15th place. Big names kept crumbling as the dinner break approached when Raymer was eliminated in 14th place, Phan in 13th place, and Steve Wolff in 12th place. Dinner did not settle too well with Mark Gregorich and Dewey Tomko, who were eliminated in 11th place and 10th place, respectively. The final nine players then became very aware of their surroundings and their opponents' chip stacks. The gravity of making the eighthanded H.O.R.S.E. final table sat squarely on their shoulders, and not one of them wanted to leave on the final-table bubble. Filippi and Tran set up a Pony Express between the two remaining tables and relayed chip counts back and forth. What they saw was that Kaplan was on a short stack and the blinds and antes were eating away at him.
The final hand of the day came during seven-card stud, and it was a hand befitting a finale. Kaplan raised to $100,000 on third street, and both Deeb and Thor Hansen called. On fourth street, Kaplan bet $50,000, Deeb raised to $100,000, and Hansen made the call. Kaplan now faced an all-in decision, and he decided to risk all of his chips. In the battle for the side pot, Deeb and Hansen got involved in a raising war. This, when the dust settled, left Hansen with only $40,000. Deeb turned up his hand and exposed the 6
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for quads. Both Hansen and Kaplan mucked. Hansen was crippled, Deeb had eclipsed the $3 million mark, and Kaplan was eliminated in ninth place. "I just gambled with the two sixes and the five, which is a good connector," said Deeb. "If Gabe had a lot of money, I probably won't play the hand, because I don't want to get jammed in between both of them. Because Gabe had less than $200,000, I thought I'd take a chance." Filippi was once again the chip leader at the end of the day ($4,015,000), but he now had some company at the top in Freddy Deeb ($3,500,000).
Final Table - A Threehanded War for the Ages
The players took their seats on the final day amid the fanfare and chaos that is second only to the main event at the
World Series of Poker. Here is how things looked at the start:
The final table was a long one; it took 341 hands of poker, and a period of more than 14 hours to determine a winner. The champion was really determined during a threehanded battle. On the way to those final three players, Hansen was lost on the very first hand due to his extremely short stack. He was followed to the rail by Greenstein in seventh place and Singer in sixth place. Singer was the only alumnus from the 2006 H.O.R.S.E. final table to make a repeat appearance, and that achievement alone is one of the most historic at this year's WSOP. Tran walked to the rail in fifth place, and he was followed by Filippi.
It was a few minutes past the 11th hour when Filippi was eliminated, and he received resounding applause from the crowd. That left Deeb, Fitoussi, and Hanson to battle for the bracelet. They all dug their feet in, rolled up their sleeves, and got ready for the long run. A battle of wills and aggression, across multiple styles of poker, was waged between these three skilled adversaries. Fitoussi started threehanded action with a Bastille-like structure of chips: He held more than $10 million. His two opponents held close to $2.25 million each. The odds were long and the stacks were more than uneven, but history has taught us many times that even the mightiest fortress can fall.
Deeb scored the first hit on Fitoussi when he scooped a pot during Omaha eight-or-better with a 6-5 low, and a 10-high straight. Fitoussi seemed unable to close the door on either opponent during this stretch. It seemed that some eerie, invisible force was holding him back. Call it fate or lady luck, but whatever it was, the cards were just not there for Fitoussi when he needed them in key pots.
The chip stacks began to even out, but Fitoussi still held the lead with $6.6 million. The wee hours of twilight gave way to morning, and the players continued to battle. Deeb had battled back from being severely short-stacked, and then Hanson tried to reproduce the same achievement. He doubled up twice, but the rising blinds, antes, and limits proved to be impossible to overcome. He fell to Deeb at around 4 a.m. during razz. After his all-in call on sixth street, he showed an 8-7 low. Deeb turned over a 6-5 low, and the relative unknown who had one prior WSOP cash, in this year's $5,000 heads-up event, was eliminated in third place, earning $852,480.
Heads Up
Action was now down to heads up and the tables had turned. Deeb held the chip lead with a stack of $10.8 million. Fitoussi held $4 million, and now had to re-create the comeback that his opponent had just pulled off, or else. Over the course of an hour, and levels of seven-card stud and its eight-or-better variation, a lot can happen, though. The final blows were delivered to Fitoussi in pots in which he called down Deeb's raises all the way to the river, but folded. In both cases, Fitoussi made the correct laydown, but they left him crippled, nonetheless. After the second laydown, Fitoussi was left with only $140,000. He pushed that all in on third street of the next hand, and Deeb made the call. When the dust cleared, Fitoussi had been dealt the 10
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, and Deeb the A
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to win the title.
"It's a great feeling," said Deeb after the victory. "I've never been a player to worry about holding a bracelet, or not, but holding this bracelet is worth 10 other bracelets put together. Because this is an all-around, top-notch …" Deeb's voice trailed off for a second at that point, and a small moment of introspection and realization of what he had accomplished passed over his face. He took home the gold bracelet, the honor and respect of the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. title, and $2,276,832.
Fitoussi was in good spirits after the match: He took home $1,278,720. He was glad that he played hard, and that he never gave up during the grueling final table. "I never lost confidence. I always tried, even when heads up with Freddy. I tell you, when I had $140,000 left, I believed in it," said Fitoussi.
The second dramatic finish of the H.O.R.S.E. event in as many years solidified the event as the most prized title in the game. The main event may be harder to win due to the massive number of players involved, but the H.O.R.S.E. event has become the players' championship, and so much more. Player for player, pound for pound, it has more talent and gamble than any other poker tournament on the planet. The same can be said of the man who won the event this year. Pound for pound, no one player has more heart, or gamble, than the 2007 H.O.R.S.E. champion, Freddy Deeb.
Comments From 2007 H.O.R.S.E. Champion Freddy Deeb
Regarding His Comeback:
"I never gave up … [on] two hands, I stole the blinds, and I just tried to survive until I picked up a big hand."
"I made a couple of real big laydowns, where I might have gone broke if I proceeded with the hand."
"I said [at the final table], 'That's my style of game, take $300,000 and win $15 million.' And as soon as I said that, I proceeded to triple up and triple up back-to-back. I went from $300,000 to $3 million."
Regarding Facing His Friend Bruno Fitoussi Heads Up:
"Well, we're good friends, but you [have] got to play your hand. Fun is fun, and friends are friends. At the table, there is no such thing as friends."
"Every day we were taking a taxi together from Bellagio to the tournament. And then when I beat him, I said, 'Are we going back in the taxi together today?' And he said, 'Yeah, but you're going to pay because you have more money.'"
"I told him that if you're gonna lose your money, you're better off losing it to your friend. At least you might be able to borrow it [laughing]."
Regarding His High-Stakes Advantage:
"Definitely, you have a big edge when you play high-limit a lot. When a tournament goes up to high-limit, a lot of people crack, and they panic, and they don't know how to play their chips anymore."
Regarding the Win:
"The money was nice; $2.3 million makes life a lot easier. I didn't know what kind of impact this tournament had until I started getting reactions from the people. Like at Bellagio or walking around the casinos, where almost nonstop, people [were] just walking up to me and congratulating me. It was crazy; I couldn't believe it."
Regarding the H.O.R.S.E. Legacy:
"This tournament does have the potential of becoming the overall championship. People have a lot more respect for somebody; I can see that, winning this tournament, [more] than just a no-limit tournament. A lot of people are looking at it like, in their opinion, it's the championship - regardless of what anybody says or what the TV says."
"We might play this tournament ten years and you will never see a random guy win it."
Final Thoughts:
"As much as I tried to get fancy, I tell you what, I played the best poker anybody can ever play. For me to win it, I played great. I didn't just get lucky, and you don't just get lucky to win this tournament. You've got to play the best poker anybody knows to be able to win it. And you're going to see some laydowns and some plays that I made, and the way I survived to make me really win this tournament."
Comments From 2007 H.O.R.S.E. Runner-Up Bruno Fitoussi
Regarding the Final Table:
"The final table was great because the structure was very difficult, but not impossible. It wasn't a crapshoot."
"You must never miss a spot to make chips, and you must never lose chips when there is no reason for you to lose chips."
"You had to be very, very serious about the hands you decided to play. And when you were in, you could at any time, on any card, make the wrong or right decisions to win or lose less. You had to play your best on every hand."
"I've got no fear at all playing poker. I'm not suicidal at all, but I've got no fear at all."
"It came down to three of us. There was really two parts to the tournament, before threehanded and after."
"I had big hands and won them - aces, kings, and queens in 30 minutes of hold'em. I pushed these three hands and won them all, so that was my turning point at the final table."
Regarding Balance With Life and Poker:
"Poker is still my passion … I like to play when I can, which is between 10 and 15 tournaments a year. Amazingly, I have results every year, so my percentage of results compared to my tournaments is huge. It's very high, and I still don't understand why."
"When I play, I'm really focused. I cannot play if I'm not. Even when I plan to play a tournament, if I'm not feeling good, I don't play. I play only when I feel like playing, when I feel like winning, when I get rid of my computer and my cellphones."
"Having a balance in everything you do, and the decisions you make, I think helps a lot in being strong inside and being focused in tournaments. I think it's really important, yes, it helps me a lot to have a balanced life."
Regarding the Runner-Up Finish:
"For me, it is a great, great, great accomplishment to finish second. People ask me if I'm disappointed [laughing]; it's funny I should be."
"If anybody would have asked me, or any top poker player, if I would rather win a bracelet in any event except the main one or be second in the H.O.R.S.E. event, what do you think I would choose? I would choose second."
Regarding the H.O.R.S.E. Legacy:
"If you're the best player in the world, you maybe have one chance out of 80, because the second best, the third best, and the fourth best are all there."
"Today, there is nothing more high-ranked with the most important players in the world than this H.O.R.S.E. [tournament], for sure. It's not about the money; the money is only a way to escape having everybody in it, because then it would be like the main event, a little bit [misleading]."
