#386 - The Erik & Ted Show

Even though I am 3000 miles from the action, I’ll feel like I’m part of the final table at the WPT Foxwoods Poker Classic when they finish the tournament on Wednesday. On Tuesday, Erik Seidel emerged as the chip leader at the final table, with Ted Forrest in second.

This could be a treat.

With the WPT trying to provide more play at the final table, the broadcast could show some really great poker. When they played down to the final table - all my info is from Card Player’s website - blinds had just risen to 15,000-30,000 with a 4,000 ante. Erik has over 100 BB, Ted about 80. Adam Katz is close to Forrest in chips with 2.3 million. Andrew Barta has 1.5 million. Robert Richardson has 500,000 and Frank Cieri has 400,000. (I’m rounding.) Naturally, one of the other players could play his heart out or be in the right place at the right time. But what I’m really hoping for is a Seidel-Forrest highlight show.

I know both men, Ted better than Erik. I have fascinating stories about both.

For instance, one of the my favorite Ted Forrest stories from Suicide King features Erik Seidel in a cameo role. Several years ago, Ted got stuck $65,000 in a game and then it broke up. For a reason he couldn’t even describe, he became obsessed with the idea that he couldn’t leave the poker room until he recovered his losses.

That’s when he realized it was early in the morning and the biggest game in the room was $15-$30 Stud. But an obsession is an obsession so he sat down. He got hit by the deck and won a couple thousand dollars over the next few hours.

In walked Erik Seidel. Forrest talked Seidel into starting a high-stakes Hold ‘Em game. (It didn’t take much convincing on Ted’s part. Ted’s perceived skill in Limit Hold ‘Em at the time was such that they woke up Howard Lederer, who cross-booked 100% of Ted’s action, effectively doubling the stakes. A few more hours later, the game started filling up so Forrest and Lederer ended the cross-booking. But Ted won enough that he was within hailing distance of breaking even. He continued thumping the full table game until he recovered the loss and even had a small profit.

I don’t know Erik as well as I know Ted so I don’t have as many stories about him. I know Seidel looks “normal”. Probably drives an Audi or a Lexus that’s never been won or lost in a poker game. Probably never ran a marathon in the desert heat and accused his girlfriend of abandoning him without water. But the Seidel stories are out there.

Erik Seidel, like the other great players (including Howard Lederer, Dan Harrington, Jason Lester, Steve Zolotow, Noli Francisco, and Jay Heimowitz) to come out of the Mayfair Club at the end of the Eighties, was a consummate games player. They had to be all-around gamesmen; it was primarily a backgammon club and there was usually just one poker game going - but what a game, huh? - and that began in 1984 when some guys started playing Hold ‘Em with backgrammon checkers as chips. Almost all the best players in the game were originally backgammon, bridge, gin, or chess players. Most were quite good at multiple games.

Seidel came to the club for backgammon and got in on the first wave of poker. (Heimowitz already had a pair of bracelets and Mickey Appleman, who sometimes visited the Mayfair, had also won at the Series. Howard had just become the youngest player ever to make the final table of the Main Event.) A big winner in the Mayfair games leading up to the 1988 Series, the Main Event would be his first poker tournament. He decided to play some $1,000 single-table satellites.

Erik Seidel played eight single-table satellites and made it through none of them. Dispirited, he took the $2,000 he had left for his Main Event entry and rounded up  $8,000 from investors. He didn’t even seek (or get) a premium, selling 80% of himself for $8,000. So when his maiden effort in the Main Event ended in a phenomenal runner-up finish to Johnny Chan, he received only a tiny portion of the $280,000 prize.

I think that’s a great story about Erik, though my favorites are stories that tie players together. I have two more about Seidel and Forrest. The first is about the first time I saw Erik and Ted, by coincidence, together.

I initially met Erik - also by coincidence - at Howard Lederer’s house. I was scheduled to interview him but he forgot that he invited Erik over to watch the 2004 WSOP Razz final table debuting on ESPN that night (which Howard watched while simultaneously playing and chatting on Full Tilt, which had just recently gone live for real-money).

So I barely knew Seidel when I accompanied Ted Forrest to Clark County Detention Center to visit Mike Matusow in early 2005. When we checked in, Ted didn’t follow any of the procedures, and making a jail visit is all about procedures. I took over at the information desk but Ted referred to the inmate not by ID # as required but as “Mike the Mouth! I’m sure everybody knows who he is by now.” He also didn’t have a state-issued ID, also required.

It appeared to be a moot point, however, because Matusow was allowed just two (non-family, non-lawyer) visits per week and someone else had signed up for the same evening, so only one of us could see him. A few moments later, as we walked into the large (depressing-looking) waiting area, Ted said, “Hey, Mike, doesn’t that guy over there look a lot of Erik Seidel?”

I have no idea why Ted - who can guess someone’s weight within a couple pounds - thought it was a coincidence that someone else was scheduled to visit Matusow and the 6′7″ skinny guy with the prominent nose was somebody other than Erik Seidel.

The coolest part of the story, though, occurred when Erik and I walked to our video booth at the appointed time to share our half hour. Despite not having ID and being the third-person in a two-person-maximum visitation, Forrest followed us over and plopped down along with us in the tiny booth.

And they just let him. CCDC is so security conscious that if they move an inmate right before a scheduled visit, even if their website shows his old location and visitation hours, a visit is not allowed. It is so security conscious that you can’t visit an inmate in person, even on the other side of plexiglass; you have to use a phone/monitor set-up while the inmate is in another part of the jail.

But not Ted Forrest. He just does what he wants and the world gets out of the way.

My last Forrest-Seidel story is about The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide - Tournament Edition. In early 2006, it appeared both were going to be surprise collaborators. Both were considered amazing poker minds. But neither had shown any interest in publishing or commentary or instruction. Seidel, I seem to remember at the time, was considering skipping televised events because he didn’t want anyone seeing his hole cards.

But Erik knew the project was good for Full Tilt and Ted, though his relationship with Full Tilt isn’t as firm as Erik’s (though Forrest has frequently worn the Full Tilt colors and is wearing them at the Foxwoods final table), is a good friend.

As I’ve mentioned previously in this Blog and as should be obvious to a reader of the Strategy Guide, Erik Seidel is not one of the contributors. He was very cooperative about setting up an interview and very polite during the interview. He gave me all the time I wanted.

But he gave me practically no usable material. Trying to pin him down on anything was like grabbing at wisps of smoke.

There is, however, one quote from Erik in the book. You have to look pretty hard to find it.

It’s at the beginning of Ted Forrest’s Stud Eight-or-Better chapter:
“Whatever chapter Ted Forrest writes will be the first chapter I read.”

So I think we may be looking at a very special final table on Wednesday at Foxwoods.