Commerce and Remembering Bruce Parker

I spent the past few days and nights at the Commerce. I haven’t been there in quite some time, but always feel a certain comfort amidst the massive poker environment. I will be missing my good friend Bruce Parker who many of you may know always played the big no limit holdem game sitting in the 1 seat everyday. He passed away a couple of weeks ago, he will be missed. I recall watching him play a monstrous hand in Bobby’s room at the Bellagio when many of his regular Commerce game came to the Bellagio for a fight weekend about a year ago. All the players at the table were either well known for there poker skills like Kenny Tran, or their massive bank rolls. There were well-known movie and record producers in the game as well. I had come in just as the hand began and there was a pre-flop raise by Bruce in early position of about $1,500 and he got too callers. One of them a young player who was relatively short stacked with about $50,000 in front of him and the other a record producer with somewhere around $300,000 in cash and chips. The flop came A Q 7 with 2 spades. The producer opened with a pot sized 5k bet, Bruce raised to 15k, the kid moved all in for his 50k. The producer thought for a minute and called and when it was Bruce’s turn to act he moved all in. The producer thought again for a bit and eventually called. They then talked about how many times to run it and showed their hands. The kid had A 8 with the ace of spades, the producer had something like J 8 of spades and Bruce shows A Q. He got up from the table after the decision to run it only once was made. Bruce faced away from the table and put his head on my shoulder saying, “Roy, I can’t watch, this is the biggest hand I have ever played.” The turn brought a queen, and I said “Bruce, one is drawing dead and the other to a chop, oh looks like you take it all” as the river brings a blank. He was an institution at the Commerce and will be missed.

I am taking the next week off from live play, but will still play a little online. My next live event will be my first EPT. I am headed to Prague next week and will then decide between the five diamond, at Bellagio and a circuit event in Atlantic City. Jack at the Bellagio has made some solid improvements in the tournament schedule, adding some other games besides no limit holdem and reducing the buy-ins of many of the preliminary events to a more reasonable level. I would have liked to see the main event buy-in back at the 10k mark from the current 15k level.