FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#179 – WSOP #28 – Friends and Enemies, Lovers and Fighters, Part II

Posted by Editor | Filed under Phil Gordon, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Laak, WSOP

THE THREE PHILS

One table over from Phil Hellmuth is Phil Gordon. While Phil Hellmuth sits as tall as he can, making himself as big a presence as possible at the table, Gordon is almost the opposite. He turns his chair backwards and sits low and far back, leaning over his chips from a distance like a preying mantis.

Gordon is in some kind of a row with the table, complaining to one player in particular about the extreme amount of time taken on each hand. He later apologizes to this particular player but he continues to make his point to the table and a floorman.

Phil Hellmuth, meanwhile, takes the next two hands at his table by raising.

Phil raises in early position to 6,000. His nemesis in Seat 8 makes it 12,000. My immediate thought is that such a small raise is not designed to get Phil to fold. And that should be obvious to Phil. On the other hand, it’s easy to call and pass up what obviously seems to me to be a big hand.

I think that Phil Hellmuth is contemplating what he is going to do when suddenly, the player everyone has forgotten, the big blind, moves all-in. Phil folds and Seat 8 calls, showing A-A. The big blind had Q-Q. The aces hold up; Phil’s nemesis wins a pot of about 120,000. Phil supervises the count to make sure the loser is covered by the winner; it’s pretty close. In fact, whenever Phil isn’t in a hand, he supervises the action of the players and the dealers, other than what the players are actually doing with their cards.

Once Mr. Queens exits (making three players busting from this table since I’ve been here, less than 20 minutes), everyone begins talking at once. It’s a feeling of both relief and exhilaration. With everyone dropping, the money seems very close and, for most of them, it’s not THEM who has been shoving and hoping.

1:36 AM – 85 players are left. Hand for hand will begin at 83 players.

I notice Phil Gordon pacing, walking around. Then I notice a bunch of his chips are in the pot, a huge pot, and he has cards in front of him. He is playing the hand, sitting, standing, walking around. There are four cards on the board. Qd-8d-As-Kc. After the Th on the river, Phil, after walking back and forth, leans over the table, not sitting down, and announces, “I’m all in.”

I don’t know whether Phil or his opponent acted first, though Phil has been on the betting lead since the flop. I don’t know the size of the prior bets but Phil has 32,800 left and this is after betting throughout the hand.

The other player calls him and immediately turns over his hand. A-9. Phil Gordon is livid and he mucks his cards. He is trying to remain civilized but he can’t figure out what to do with himself.

“One pair? Are you serious? I can’t believe you called that. That’s a huge call. That’s the sickest call I’ve ever seen. You’re a great player.”

He is dumbfounded. “You deserve to win the tournament. That’s the sickest call I’ve ever seen.” He says the latter about 12 times. He walks over the other player and shakes his hand. The player, Ed Moncada, tries to explain something. Phil says, “Three bullets?”

Gordon keeps telling Moncada that he’s a great player but I’m pretty sure he’s being sarcastic.

Phil Gordon is out at 1:40 AM. He is in 84th place, so they start hand-for-hand. He finishes 3 spots short of the money after trying a huge, audacious bluff that failed. He was probably at his high-water mark (in big blinds as well as total) in chips for the day, since he had 13-15 big blinds most of the day and he had 32,000 after betting through the hand when there were blinds of 1,000-2,000.

Now I see the third Phil talking. Phil Laak is talking with Moncada. He is wearing big earphones but has them above his ears. It gives Laak a vaguely extra-terrestrial look, though I can’t possibly be the first person ever to mention “Phil Laak” and “space alien” in the same sentence.

At 1:51 AM, there is an announcement. “Congratulations, we’re down to 81. You’re all in the money.”

I take a look at Jen Creason. She is very low in chips.

At 1:54 AM, there is another announcement. “Congratulations Phil Hellmuth on his record-setting 60th World Series of Poker cash.”

We’re now down to the last couple minutes of the night and Phil says he’s not going to play another hand, unless someone tries to steal his blind. Of course, there’s only one hand to go and it’s his big blind.

The player in Seat 1 jokes about how he wants to give Phil a bad beat sometime. He then moves all-in for about 25,000. Phil looks at his cards, smiles, and folds. The raiser had Ad-3d.

Hellmuth seems surprisingly clumsy and ignorant with the process of counting and bagging the chips. He doesn’t seem to know quite how to operate the seal on the bags or fill out the form.

At this point I start talking with him and, though I’ve spoken to him in person, on the phone, or by e-mail maybe a total of 40 times over the last 3 years and I have to help him through this …

He has 129,000 chips. I tell him I’m going to be trailing him tomorrow and he makes a big deal of the fact that he remembers my name. Whooppee.

Then he sprints off to talk some gibberish with Humberto Brenes and then he runs out of the room.

What a piece of work that guy is.

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