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New World Champion… of Rochambeau
Annie Duke has once again shocked the world. First, she won the Tournament of Champions two years ago. Now she has added an even more illustrious title to her resume: World Series of Rochambeau Champion.
The road to the championship was riddled with the bodies of fallen contenders. Phil Gordon, the tournament’s organizer, didn’t even make it out of his bracket, suffering an upset at the hands of a complete unknown. “He got lucky. There is a little bit of randomness in this game. It’s a little unreasonable that I went out in the second round, especially because I was up 3-1, but those things happen. I’ll bounce back and come back next year stronger.”
Gordon’s fellow Tiltboy, Rafe Furst, widely acknowledged as a true genius of the art of Rochambeau, suffered the same fate. He blamed the defeat on his inability to adjust his style and, worse, his own hubris. “I kind of underestimated [Tim Bigley],” he said in the wake of the loss. “Apparently, he’s a pretty accomplished player. He claims to have played in a Rochambeau club in college. I didn’t know anything about him. These guys are coming out of nowhere. They’re playing online and they’re world-championship-quality players. They’ve never played live before, but they’re tactical. They have all the moves.”
Rafe’s loss was Annie Duke’s gain as he could then concentrate on his other occupation, Annie’s coach. Under his tutelage, she began training immediately after getting eliminated in the semifinals last year. “Make no mistake,” he said, “she has a very sophisticated strategy. It’s kind of like a no strategy. You don’t go in there with a set mindset. She knows how to read her opponents better than anybody in the world.”
“It’s about what they threw the last time,” she clarified. “You know what they threw and you know what you threw so you just need to figure out what they’re going to defend against.”
On her way to the championship she took out Steve Diano, Max Pescatori, Matt Kristis, Michael Mizrachi, Tim Bigley, and finally Mark Goodwin. The championship was a bit of an anticlimax as Annie skunked Goodwin. “5-0 in the finals is pretty much unheard of,” Gordon said. “She really had him dialed in. She was in the zone. She was playing her A game and she deserved the bracelet, the $10,000, and the victory. It was a great performance.” Goodwin earned $7,000 for coming in second and donated $1,000 of it to the Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation.
So will there be a book written to commemorate Annie’s stunning performance? “Well,” she said, “it would be about a page.”
