The '83 Class Reunion at the 2003 World Series of Poker

As this column goes to press, 838 of my closest friends and I are playing in the championship event at the World Series of Poker. Five of them – Rod Peate, Doyle Brunson, Carl McKelvey, Robbie Geers, Donn O'Dea – and I are celebrating a reunion of sorts. We played together at the final table of the WSOP 20 years ago, when Rod and I made history as the first two satellite winners ever to place first and second in the championship event. This year, a record number of players won their seats via satellites at the Horseshoe and poker rooms across the globe. About 50 won satellites sponsored by online casinos – PokerStars.com alone sent 37 players to the Series. Things were a lot different two decades ago.

In 1983 during the WSOP, all of the hotel rooms in Downtown Vegas were fully booked and business was booming. The Horseshoe didn't have its own cardroom at that time. Some of the preliminary events were held downstairs in the Sombrero Room, where the coffee shop is located today. They closed the restaurant and put in poker tables, and they took out some slot machines so they could set up a few tables on the main floor. Because the Shoe didn't have enough room for all of the WSOP action, even though the Series was much smaller then than it is today, it had to use tables from adjacent casinos – the Nugget, Queens, and Fremont all had poker rooms. They didn't just borrow tables – some of the tournament games actually were played in the cardrooms of the rival casinos. We even made jokes about "making the final casino." For example, the limit hold'em tournament had 234 players, and because of the Shoe's lack of space, some of the entrants had to play at the Nugget. As players busted out and a table was broken down, they were transferred to the Horseshoe and simply carried their chips across the street with them. (I think the tournament officials had walkie-talkies to contact each other.) But for the main event, they squeezed 12 ninehanded tables into the Horseshoe.

I used to play all of my cash games ($10-$20) at the Golden Nugget, and many of my colleagues stayed in the gallery throughout the tournament to cheer me on. Lots of them also were rooting for Rod, as we were two of "theirs" who got there, a couple of $10-$20 dark horses they all could identify with, two of their regular friends who just happened to place first and second in the championship event at the World Series.

The third-place finisher was the legendary Doyle Brunson, who already had won back-to-back championships in '76-'77. Then in 1980 against the rookie Stu Ungar, he came in second. With the possible exception of Amarillo Slim, Doyle was the most famous poker player in the world. When we were threehanded, Doyle played a hand against Rod and went broke. Doyle had the J 9 in the small blind. Rod raised from the button with pocket nines. I folded. The flop came 9 high with two diamonds, giving Doyle top pair and a flush draw – which looked pretty good on the surface – but he was up against Rod's set of nines. Doyle checked and Rod bet about $15,000. Doyle moved all in for more than $250,000. He overbet the pot, apparently trying to run over Rod, but Rod had made it something like $9,000 before the flop, and $15,000 to go on the flop, so he wasn't about to relinquish the hand. He called Doyle's all-in bet and sent the legend to the rail.

The fourth-place finisher was Carl McKelvey, a road gambler who travels all over the country playing pot-limit and no-limit games wherever he can find them. He plays a few tournaments and always comes to the WSOP primarily to play the pot-limit side games. Carl had practically no chance to finish any higher than fourth, because by the time it got down to fourhanded, he had only $50,000 in chips while everybody else had $300,000 or more. In fact, I was the leader fourhanded, but when it got to heads up, Rod had a 3-to-2 chip lead on me after busting Doyle.

Robbie Geers, who finished in fifth place, also had won a satellite. He went broke when he finally was dealt a pair of kings and decided to slow-play them against Peate, who had suited connectors. Geers flopped a set and Peate flopped a flush draw. Geers checked, Peate moved in on him, Geers called, and Peate made the flush to beat him.

Donn O'Dea, who was the best player in Ireland at the time, finished in sixth place. He also was the runner-up to me in the limit hold'em event a few days before the championship tournament. Interestingly, after he came in second in the limit hold'em event, it took him 17 years to win a gold bracelet (in pot-limit Omaha) at the WSOP. He said that he blamed me for it taking him so long to win!

I realize how fortunate I was to win, and to make poker history as the first satellite winner. Many years later, Rod Peate jokingly told me that I had parlayed more from my WSOP win than any other player in history, referring to the fact that I have built upon my win by expanding my poker career into writing poker books and magazine columns. Since poker has added so much to my life, that's the least I can do to give something back to the world of poker. As always, I'm hoping to make it to the championship table at the WSOP again, where I hope to meet you sometime soon.

Editor's note: Tom McEvoy is the author of Tournament Poker and the co-author (with Dana Smith) of The Championship Table (at the World Series of Poker, 1970-2002), both of which are available through Card Player. Visit www.pokerbooks.com for complete information.