November Nine Countdown -- Dennis Phillips SpeaksDown to Earth Account Manager Talks About his WSOP Main Event Final Table Odyssey |
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Dennis Phillips is a 53-year-old account manager for a commercial trucking company who lives in the suburban town of Cottage Hills, Illinois, but he calls St. Louis, Missouri, his home. That, in fact, is where he won a World Series of Poker satellite at Harrah’s Casino that got him into the 2008 main event. He is now one of the nine remaining players waiting for the final table to play out in November. Proir to this, his only major-tournament cash was for $2,368. Phillips is now guaranteed at least $900,670 and will enter the final table as the chip leader. Here he tells CardPlayer.com how he made it to the final table of the WSOP main event.
"Actually, the way I got into the main event was through a satellite tournament in St. Louis at the Harrah’s Casino — $200
buy-in, 100 people at it, pretty much winner takes all — and I won it.
Day 1 of the main event was actually rather uneventful, slowly built up a little bit of a stack, didn’t have any major hands or anything like that on it. Day three was the turn around. On day 3, I got all the way down to 20,000, took two big hits, with only about three hours left of that day, and kind of went nuts. I started getting super-aggressive, I pulled it up to almost 300,000 before the end of that day, and I never stopped from then on.
There were about three different times when the play really got slow and people got super-tight. When we were getting on the bubble for the money, we did the hand-to-hand deal, and nobody would play a hand, I mean it was almost ridiculous. People were folding monster hands ... trying to stay in. Play slowed down, and we spent a couple of hours trying to get those five people out. It was not interesting, let’s put it that way.
I was lucky enough to play with several known celebrities, which was nice. The first day I sat down, I was with Jeff Madsen — great guy ... I got signatures from a lot of the major people out there, every one of them was cooperative and nice, considering the massive amount of people there, they didn’t have to be. The camaraderie, the friendship, everything was just really neat. I played back-to-back, on different tables, with a couple of celebrities where I could see them, not play against them. It was an experience. It was great, I loved it.
I’m a commercial account manager at Broadway Truck Centres in St. Louis — that is what I do for a living. I will continue to do that, I enjoy the job, I have a lot of friends there, I have clients I’ve worked with for years and years. I do not have to deal with the general public. I deal with a select group of clients, and it’s nice. So, I will go back there, I will continue to do that, but we’ll see what the future brings.
Entering the final table with a chip advantage will help — it can’t hurt that’s for sure. I’m in a position where I could take a hit and still be competitive on that. There are a few stacks that if they take a hit early, they’re in trouble. I’m not in that position. So, there’s a definite advantage to that. I don’t have a big enough chip stack that I can play power poker yet on it. Hopefully, I’ll get to that position, where I can shift gears. We’ll see what happens, but I’m in a very comfortable position, I’m happy with it. The final table will be interesting, I’ve got eight competitors, they are all good players, and in my own mind I have them ranked one through eight. I’m not gonna tell you how they’re ranking is, but they play a little bit different, I think I’ve got a fairly good read on them. Unfortunately, they probably have a fairly good read on me. We played for quite a while with the group of us there. Most of the people at the final table were at my table at one time or another in the last three tables. I think we know each other fairly well, we respect each other, and it’s gonna be interesting play.
Oh I don’t know, I’m a big old man. These guys ain’t gonna have grey hair for twenty years. And also, I’m really having fun. These guys — a lot of them do it for a living, they’re young, they’re nervous. I’m out there having fun, and if I finish ninth, I’m not gonna be upset. I’ll dance a jig all the way to the door. I’m gonna be relaxed, I am gonna have fun, and beware, because I’ll throw the ‘dang’ chips in any time I want!"
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