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#357 – NBC Heads-Up Championship #8 – The Second Worst Seat in the House
I thought I’d get right in on the action by sitting in the front row and bring you inside stuff like I did last year. I believe they moved the tables closer to the center by several feet so you can’t hear or see what you could last year. Either that or I’ve aged markedly in the last year because it didn’t seem much different than the cheap seats in the bleachers where I sat for the hearts bracket. Luckily, there was still some interesting stuff going on.
I’m actually writing this sitting in my room, between the end of the Diamonds bracket and the start of the Clubs bracket. I see two notes scrawled on the notepad Caesars provides complimentary next to the telephone.
From yesterday: “NASCAR in town. Hundreds of thousand line LV Blvd for the trailer parade. The tooth-to-tattoo ratio is dangerously low.”
From this morning: “Wake up call – ‘Hail noble guest. This is your wake-up call.’”
Before the Diamond bracket’s first round, I introduced myself to Jason Alexander, who was playing Huckleberry “Huckles” Seed. Actually, I reintroduced myself because we met briefly in the green room of some TV poker show in November 2006. (It was actually the same day I had lunch with Penn Jillette and dinner with Jimmy Carter.)
Jason Alexander is such a cool guy. I told him that Robin Leach was circulating Hollywood with a pitch for a TV movie about the high-stakes poker games between Andy Beal and the pros. Because of my role in writing about and arranging the games, I’m a character and Leach was suggesting Alexander to play me. I started kidding about how I hugely overrepresented this in my blog when Jason said, “I’m your man. That’s my role!”
We talked a few moments more and it was time for him to go play. I wished him luck. He said, “I have a reputation to uphold – YOURS!”
I decided to sit in the front row in the corner by the Howard Lederer/Barry Greenstein match. Jennifer Harman was playing David Benyamine at the adjoining table so I thought that would be a nice one to follow as well.
There is a very nice couple sitting next to me and I think the guy knows me from Full Tilt. (At least, thank goodness, he’s not talking some time when we played and I sucked and/or got lucky. Jon, a Full Tilt player who lives in Scottsdale who I had lunch with recently, is in town with his friend Steve and said hello to me between rounds. I was talking with Andy Bloch at the time so I introduced them. Jon was wearing an “I busted a pro” tee shirt so Andy asked him who he busted. Jon pointed to me and they all had a big laugh.) I started telling them how bad I am at remembering names when I realized their names were Tommy and Gina. It was all I could do to stop from breaking into “Living on a Prayer.” If I can find favorite songs with the names of all the people I meet, I can finally be better at remaining names. They were very nice and let me wedge into a seat next to them so I could get as close as possible, but not really close enough, to the action.
When Lederer and Greenstein approach the table, they are friendly, chatting. At the start, they are talking about the structure. Howard says, “All a really bad player had to do is fold for a half hour.” They joke about a couple unusual TV hand, including one Howard describes that’s on YouTube. They actually discuss strategy for several hands, talking about the right way to play a very deep-stack tournament with small blinds against an opponent who says, “I’m moving all-in every hand.”
Perhaps this isn’t the death match I was hoping for. Naturally, these two are consummate professionals, respectful of all the other has achieved. But I also know somewhere in there … fires are burning.
Cards were in the air at 2:22. At 2:35, Lederer fills Barry in on some recent legislative development involving poker. I figure that signals the end of the conversation, the last step before the game faces get irrevocably affixed.
I notice that it is really COLD in here. (Someone tells me that’s for the TV cameras.) Jennifer is fighting to keep warm so, between hands, I offer her (seriously) my sweatshirt. It’s an Ed Hardy hoodie with a bunch of Hardy tattoo designs as stickers, a gambling-themed logo on the back, and roses and skulls along the arms.
Jennifer says, “No, I’m fine. Plus it’s got those flowers on it.”
“Hey,” I say defensively, “There are skulls too. This is cool. It’s tough.”
She whispers, “I’m kidding” as she goes on to play her next hand, the audience around me chuckling.
My information on the Lederer-Greenstein match is very incomplete, even though I am sitting right next to them. But it seems like Barry is the more aggressive player and he’s taking the blinds most hands.
A few minutes later, they play a giant pot. Barry, characteristic of the match, has the betting lead throughout. He bets 2,000 on the turn – it’s possible it was 4,000 – and Howard thinks it over and calls. He bets 6,000 on the river and Howard, after thinking and fidgeting for a few minutes, finally calls. Barry shows a pair of queens to go with one on the board and make a full house. Howard mucks his cards. This gives Barry a commanding lead, big enough that Howard is soon playing the all-in game.
The big hand between Howard and Barry was at 2:42 PM. By 2:50, I notice not another word has been exchanged. All 8 matches are still going – 2 were finished by this time last round – though Doyle has moved all-in at least twice already against Sam Farha.
In fact, just after 2:50, Doyle moves all-in and Sam calls. It was Doyle’s FIFTH all-in of the match. Doyle has K-Q. Sam Farha, however, has A-Q. But Doyle catches a king on the turn and eliminates Sammy, who now seems cursed in this event.
At 2:55, Howard, with about 5,000, calls Barry’s all-in from the button. It takes a long time to get the cameras over, during which time Jason Alexander moves all-in against Huck Seed. During the delay, he jokes loudly about having to wait. “I’ve got a goiter and a kidney stone and I have to go to the bathroom. I don’t want to wait.”
Lederer has K-K against Greenstein’s A-4 and doubles up. Joe Sebok, sitting next to me, says after the cards are turned over, “I folded an ace. It seems like people always say that in tournaments and then you know an ace is going to come.” But it didn’t work this time.
Just as the cameras are about to gather around Alexander and Seed, Daniel Negreanu announces from the feature table that he’s all-in against Michael Mizrachi. Jason runs over. “You’ll have to wait!” As he walks back to his table, Daniel calls out, “Good luck.” Jason says, “I know that comes from the heart.”
Jordan, the announcer, says, “We’re going to the feature table first ….” And Jason Alexander howls, “WHAAAAAT????”
It was either a good joke or a great performance by Alexander, maybe both.
Alexander has 7-7, Seed has Ad-Jd (and the chip lead). During the dramatic pause before the dealer shows the board, Jason says, “I caught my flight already.”
Bad news for Jason Alexander. The flop brings an ace and a jack and he is eliminated. Huckleberry Seed moves on to the second round for the fourth straight year. The only positive is that Jason Alexander lasted about 10 extra minutes because of all the delays between the action and the final result.
As soon as that’s finished, at 3:07, Daniel turns out to be dominated in his short-stacked all-in against Michael Mizrachi, Q-4 to Q-T. The flop brings a 4 and a ten, and Mizrachi moves on.
At 3:19, Barry raised, Howard moved all-in, and Barry called. They both have A-K. Barry has the king of diamonds and hits 3 diamonds on the flop. The 4th diamond never appears and they split the pot.
At 3:31, Clonie Gowen defeats Jennifer Tilly to move on to the second round. As the crowd around the table breaks up, I walk over to congratulate Clonie. Thinking about all the time and support she gave Shannon last year – and how difficult that must have been, being excited about someone else’s conspicuous success after your own early exit – I whispered, “Maybe it’s your year.” She responded, “It’s been my year for 36 years. But maybe I’ll win this tournament this time.”
At 3:34, Brian Townsend eliminates David Pham. I didn’t get the details of the final hand but it was one of those bizarre boards where both players thought they had superpowerful hands – the kind of hand in an online tournament that people say “proves” that online poker is rigged.
A minute later, Howard flops top pair and gets it all-in against Barry, who has an overpair. Lederer does not improve and Greenstein moves on. I feel frustrated by my inability, even though I was physically close, to get more of a sense of the match. Certainly, after Barry won the hand with the full house – getting paid on your monsters being a pretty important skill – Greenstein’s arsenal expanded and Lederer’s contracted. It certainly LOOKED like an excellent performance from Barry, who usually tells me, at most half-kidding, that my treatment of him in SUICIDE KING has wrongly convinced the world there’s something wrong with his heads-up skills. I don’t think that’s the proper inference, or that the book (except for one detail I think I got corrected in the paperback) states anything materially incorrect. Furthermore, even if I marshaled all my resources to attack any aspect of Barry Greenstein’s poker skills, I don’t think I’d get very far or be very persuasive. (Not to mention that I think he’s undoubtedly one of the best poker players in the world.)
So good job Barry. Impressive win. Does that make us square?
In the end, David Benyamine pressed his chip advantage against Jennifer Harman and eliminated her, and Erick Lindgren did the same in his match against Eli Elezra, eliminating him in the longest match of the bracket.
As the Lindgren-Elezra match was finishing, I rushed out to the food court to grab a bite. It was between meal times and the cavernous area was nearly empty. There were about 20 people in the whole complex of food stations. I counted 8 who were wearing Ed Hardy.
Maybe Jennifer Harman was right about those flowers. I rush upstairs for a half hour nap, never fall asleep, and return for the Clubs bracket wearing a different sweatshirt.
