#594 – World Series Final Table #7 – Craig Marquis Oozes Class

It’s a few minutes before 4 PM and there’s an hour left in the 150k-300k/40k level and seven players left. It’s been a bad day at Tilt rock, with Craig Marquis going out in 9th and Kelly Kim, soon after, in 8th. I just now conducted a short interview with Craig and want to pass along some information … before I do the same with Kelly Kim and whatever else goes on here.

Craig Marquis is such a cool guy. Even if he’s devastated on the inside (which I kinda don’t think he is), he has been more friendly and cooperative than you could imagine. He tookas much time as all the interviewers wanted after he busted, shook all the hands, hugged everyone who wanted a hug, and then met with me and Jeremiah Smith with an attitude like the rest of today was going to be the best day of his life.

I have been so impressed by his poise and his attitude that, frankly, I’m going to have to listen to the audio to tell you what he said. It’s so hard to be positive at this point, but Craig was just so cool. He ask how upset could he be, making the final table and winning $900,000? I guarantee you, most players would not be looking at the glass as half full after busting in ninth.

To Craig’s credit, both as a skilled player and for his psyche, he should have no regrets. He played every playable hand exactly has he should have, got short because his big aces were missing flops and getting too much action, and he had to put all his chips on 7-7. That it was heartbreaking to have a coinflip against Scott Montgomery’s A-Q, actually hit a seven on the flop, and then watched his opponent make a double-runner double-inside straight seems not to have bothered Craig at all.

I asked him 2 things in the interview: (1) What did he do to prepare for the final table? (2) What’s he going to do in the future?

Craig told me, frankly, “I didn’t really do anything.” He talked over situations with David Benefield and Tom Dwan but felt comfortable with his style and his knowledge of percentages, odds, and outs. I was curious whether he got together a group to run a simulation of the the final table or the first few levels of the final table – something Andy Bloch suggested that he’d do if he made the final table – but he didn’t. Not that it would have made any difference.

As for the future, Marquis is going to think about it some, but it’s most likely that he’ll keep “grinding it out in the cash games on Full Tilt.” He allowed that he might play a few more tournaments, if there’s a big tournament at a location he wants to visit, but he is still fundamentally a cash-game player.

Except for the World Series. Without a doubt, he’ll be back, playing a lot of events just like he was this year.

And that’s good news for all of us. I told him that I just talked with Howard Lederer. (Howard hadn’t seen my e-mail so he didn’t sell me a piece of his FTOPS action, then lost with KK to AA in the first ten minutes.) I told Howard – and I really meant this, even more after talking again with Craig in what could arguably be an awfully deflating moment – that I hope Full Tilt has a long future with Craig Marquis. Because Craig has a long future in poker. Good things are going to happen for him, and just about everyone is going to feel good about it.

Unfortunately, due to no fault of his, today just wasn’t one of those days.

[Apologies for mixing up the names "Craig" and "Scott" in paragraphs 4-6, though it has now been corrected. Thank you to the reader who pointed it out. -- MC]

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