A Bracelet for Vaswani and the Final Table of the Year for Jon Kalmar
Should you have walked into the cardroom in the Orleans Casino during the last month in search of the rarity of a small pot-limit Omaha game, you may well have found around half of your table to be British players, uprooted from the mild UK summer and placed in the strange environment of the Las Vegas Strip for as long as they could take it. The game at The Venetian was overrun with Gutshot Club regulars, making the transition from Clerkenwell, London to Venice, Las Vegas with the smooth insouciance of the slightly degenerate gambler in his own Disneyland. The Rio corridor itself seemed to have a British pro, qualifier, or holidaymaker as every 10th person.
So, it was with confidence that I bet Mike Lacey - player, fellow journalist, festival organiser, and general Irish poker enthusiast - that the UK players would outshine the Irish in the main event (even at 2-to-1, with Andy Black lasting the longest counting as a tie, as he was born in Belfast and has a UK passport). But at the time, we were more than a week from the start of the final table, with its international spread of players competing for the millions at the top, and the American press, I reckon, had yet to enquire his name from Mr. Jon Kalmar, the UK's highest-finishing player.
People who had bet on another big increase in numbers for the main event from last year lost their money; the crackdown by the U.S. government on its citizens' right to play poker online had indeed affected the most famous tournament in the world. Most sites being unable to buy their qualifiers in directly, online satellite winners suddenly found $10,000 in their accounts - which might go some way to explaining the increase in attendance of the smaller events at the same time that the main event retained modest (for Las Vegas) proportions, given the rate of its increase in recent years, attracting a total of 6,358 players.
Many of these players were British; one was day-glo striped Priyan de Mel, who finished 183rd, winning more than $50,000, and was heard at his table discouraging an opponent from studying the prize list on day two, saying, "It's all about the top spots; what are you bothering with that for?" One was 2007 bracelet-winning Ram Vaswani, high-profile Hendon Mob member whose impressive string of results to date were thin on limit hold'em shootout victories, but whose main event didn't run as smoothly. Neil "Bad Beat" Channing ended up in the top 132, while making the later stages after several gruelling days' play were Willie Tann (77th), Julian Gardner (64th), and Richard Harris (54th).
Elsewhere, quietly getting the lot for years with an understated skill that has garnered ubiquitous respect was Conor "Sealey" Tate. His chip count remained just behind that of the man who was to end up the longest-lasting UK player for almost four days, but while he finished in the top 200, his protégé went on to make the final table. Tate had finished 12th in the main event in 2005, and was many British players' tip to go deep this time around, too. But it was Jon "Skalie" Kalmar who stayed ahead of the pack, and while early leaders such as the hyperaggressive Dario Minieri went from a million-chip lead over his nearest opponent on day three to out (in 96th), he stayed focused all the way to the final.
Kalmar almost didn't play the main event; after an unrelentingly unsuccessful Vegas trip to that point, he had investigated changing his flight, but things fell into place at the last minute. "I knew if I could just get my seat, I'd have a good chance," he said, as far back as day two. Having swapped and sold around half of himself, sneaking into the main event via the last supersatellite, it's clear that others shared his self-confidence. As the days wore on, and the restrictions on media without
ESPN emblazoned on some part of their apparel became more stringent by the minute, he happily popped up to relate stories to us railing press, and check on how Conor was doing. "He changed my game," said Skalie of his mentor, and his modest but confident demeanour has made him a popular English ambassador for the game. Certain supporters, in fact, had to be removed by security the day before for being overexcited, intoxicated, perhaps, by the success of their fellow countryman … but the marathon final table was a fairly quiet affair.
The leader going into the last, all-important (and exhausting) 15 hours of play was European Philip Hilm, a Dane, whom for the purposes of this column (and my bet with Mike) I was fully intending to adopt as English, because he currently resides in the UK. But in a surprise turnaround, the leader finished last, eliminated by the man whose name was on the bracelet (and its accompanying $8,250,000) - Jerry Yang. With Lee Watkinson finishing eighth, Lee Childs seventh, and Hevad "Rain" Khan sixth, the press and spectators were treated to some poker played in an unexpected style, as the chip leader Yang extended his thanks to God and his chip stack skyward. He eventually saw off Alexander Kravchenko, Raymond Rahme, and finally Tuan Lam, after a hotly (and slowly) contested shorthanded battle. Fifth-place finisher Kalmar engaged in his final race with A-K against jacks, and was found moments later, and $1,255,069 richer, in the press room with his wife, eating a hamburger. "It's all I've got left after the savers." At least he won me my bet.
Jen Mason is a part of www.blondpoker.com. She is responsible for its live tournament covrage in the UK and abroad.
