Tag: world series of poker

In the fifth of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School recalls how a young Phil Hellmuth stopped “The Orient Express” in his tracks

The 1989 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event was meant to be the remarkable story of how Johnny Chan, aka “The Orient Express”, powered his way to an unbeatable third championship title in a row.
He might have got away with it, too, were it not for that pesky kid, Phil Hellmuth…

Who is Phil Hellmuth?

Do you even have to ask? With his gift for self-promotion, backed up by a natural talent sharpened by three decades of playing at the highest levels, Phil Hellmuth might just be the most famous of all poker players – perhaps matched only by Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey.
Where would poker be without Phil Hellmuth? In an age in which so many pros are quiet, reserved maths obsessives, Hellmuth is a uniquely colourful figure. His live reads are so well honed that he calls his intuitive style of play “White Magic”. His brashness earned him the nickname “Poker Brat”, one he has embraced as the title of his new autobiography. He has earned more WSOP bracelets than any other player (14 and counting). Nor is he shy of reminding players of that fact: in 2009 he arrived at the WSOP dressed as a Roman Emperor, carried aloft by muscular men and attended by a bevy of beauties.

The 1989 WSOP Main Event

And it all began at the 1989 World Series of Poker. The poker world was preparing to celebrate the incredible “three-peat” victory of Johnny Chan, who was gunning for his third championship title after winning back-to-back Main Events in 1987 and 1988. Instead, The Orient Express hit the buffers and Hellmuth became, at 24, the youngest ever poker world champion.
Phil Hellmuth had knocked out two players in a single hand to get heads-up with Johnny Chan, and so held about twice as many chips as the defending champion. It didn’t last long. Holding pocket 9s, Hellmuth made a sudden outsized bet, moving all-in pre-flop. Johnny Chan barely hesitated before calling the young upstart, and found himself a clear underdog with A7.
It was a victory no one could have predicted – except, strangely, the two finalists themselves. Only a year and half earlier Phil Hellmuth had reassessed his directionless life, and written down a list of goals. They included “Win the Main Event”. Before the tournament, he left a message on his answerphone saying, “You’re talking to the 1989 world champion of poker”.
As for Chan, he had said of Phil Hellmuth in an Esquire interview earlier that year, “That kid, when he learns to rein it in, he’s going to win the Main Event.” This is one time where Chan can’t have been happy to have been proved right.

Who is Phil Hellmuth? Poker player profile

  • Born in 1964, Phil Hellmuth was the youngest ever winner of the WSOP Main Event, in 1989, and holds a record 14 bracelets
  • Nicknamed “the Poker Brat” for his outbursts when he suffers a bad beat
  • Author of three influential books on poker strategy, and a new autobiography, Poker Brat: the Story of the World’s Greatest Poker Player
  • Famous for saying “If there was no luck I’d win every hand”
  • Phil Hellmuth’s grand entrances to the World Series of Poker include dressing as a US general, a Roman emperor, and a mixed martial arts fighter

Read the 4th part of our WSOP series about a winning Main Event hand from Johnny Chan that was immortalised in the movie Rounders.
Or come back tomorrow to check out the next part which profiles the only woman to reach the final table at the World Series of Poker.

In the fourth of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School looks at a winning Main Event hand that was immortalised in the movie Rounders

One of the best loved and most authentic movies about poker is Rounders (1998). In the final hand, the young poker prodigy (played by Matt Damon) flops a straight, and decides to slow-play it. His bullying Russian opponent (John Malkovich) falls right into his trap, shoving all-in on the river. Matt Damon snap-calls with a smile.
“That son of beech!” explodes the Russian, slamming his cards down on the table. “He trap me!”
What you may not know is that the hand is based on Johnny Chan’s famous winning hand in the World Series of Poker (WSOP), ten years before.

Who is Johnny Chan?

Born in China in 1957, Johnny Chan emigrated with his parents to America in 1968. His parents expected him to follow them into the restaurant business, but he dropped out of studying hotel and restaurant management at 21 to move to Las Vegas with just $300 to his name.
In 1981, Johnny Chan earned the nickname “the Orient Express” for defeating all nine players at the final table of the 1981 America Cup poker tournament in under an hour. He became respected as one of the very finest players of the 1980s, and is still playing today. He is second equal in WSOP bracelets, with 10, and has cashed at the WSOP 45 times. 

Johnny Chan defends his WSOP title in 1988

Johnny Chan won the WSOP Main Event in 1987. For most players that would be accolade enough, but Chan was determined to repeat the feat in 1988.
On the final table, Chan ended up heads-up against Erik Seidel. Seidel is himself an excellent player who seems only to improve with age: he has won eight WSOP bracelets. But Chan’s strategy was to use his rival’s self-confidence and aggression against him, and he laid the perfect trap.
Holding J-9 suited, Chan flopped a straight. Seidel had no more than top pair with a weak kicker. Yet when Chan bet, Seidel re-raised. Resisting the temptation to raise again, Chan simply called, with a show of reluctance.
The turn card was a blank. Both men checked, Chan still trapping Seidel into a false sense of security. In those days, the hole cards were not shown to viewers until the turn. The commentator summed up the excitement at the reveal: “Erik Seidel cannot win this hand, and yet he doesn’t know it! Chan is trying to sucker him in!”
When the river card was also a blank, Seidel shoved all-in. Chan snap-called with the absolute nuts, and the rest is both poker and film history.
Amazingly, Johnny Chan ended up heads-up in the WSOP Main Event the next year as well. But the real star of that story is a 24-year-old Phil Hellmuth, who features in the next part in our series…

Who is Johnny Chan? Poker player profile

  • Born in China in 1957, Johnny Chan moved to America in 1968
  • Nicknamed “The Orient Express” after he demolished the final table of the 1981 America Cup poker tournament in under an hour
  • Along with Doyle Brunson and Phil Ivey, Johnny Chan holds 10 WSOP bracelets
  • His victory over Erik Seidel in the 1988 WSOP Main Event was immortalised in the film Rounders (1998), in which he also had a cameo role
  • Johnny Chan is famous for keeping an orange beside him at the poker table, supposedly to combat the smell of cigarettes

Read part 3 of our 10 part series on the greatest moment in WSOP history. The third part in our series explores how the tournament phrase “a chip and a chair” was born.
Come back tomorrow to find out how a young Phil Hellmuth stopped “The Orient Express” in his tracks.

In the third of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School explores how the tournament phrase “a chip and a chair” was born

You may have heard the poker expression, “as long as you’ve got a chip and a chair…” It means that no matter how few chips you have left in a poker tournament, you always have a chance. But you may not know that this saying was born at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in 1982.
It’s not just the greatest underdog story in poker, but it’s hard to think of a bigger comeback in any sport. It all starts with Jack “Treetop” Straus…

Who was Jack “Treetop” Straus?

Jack Straus, nicknamed “Treetop” due to his imposing 6’6″ frame, was one of the old-school “road gamblers” who would criss-cross Texas in search of a good game. With a fearlessly aggressive playing style, his speciality was heads-up poker, and when he played full ring he was never scared to get all his chips in.
Straus is known for one of the greatest bluffs in poker, during a high-stakes Texas Hold ‘Em cash game. Despite being dealt the worst starting hand in poker, 7-2, he bet out, and was rewarded with a flop of 7-3-3 for top pair. Of course he bet again, but his opponent re-raised him: surely a larger pocket pair.
Straus called anyway, and the turn was a 2. Three pair of course is not a poker hand, so this was no help to Straus, but nevertheless he fired out a huge bet. His opponent tanked. What could such a big bet mean? Trips? A house? Now came the speechplay.
“I’ll show you whichever one of my cards you choose if you give me $25,” said Straus.
His opponent couldn’t see the harm in gaining more information, and tossed over a $25 chip. He selected a card, and Straus turned it over: a 2. The genius of this move was that, whichever card his opponent selected, he would think that hole card was paired for a full house. After all, Straus couldn’t be betting big with just two pair, could he? The higher pocket pair reluctantly folded.

The 1982 WSOP Main Event

At the 1982 WSOP Main Event, Jack Straus put his creativity and aggression to good use. On day two, after he’d lost a big hand, he seemed to have been knocked out. But as he was standing up from the table he noticed a single 500 chip hidden under a napkin. It had not been included in Straus’s shove, and he hadn’t announced “all-in”, so he was allowed to sit back down and play.
The next hand was folded round to his big blind. He then doubled up his increased stack. Before long, he had the most chips at the table.
By the end of day two, Jack Straus had 90,000 chips. By the end of day three, he was chip leader with 341,500. Before long, Straus had single-handedly eliminated most of the final table until only he and Dewey Tomko were left.
Their heads-up contest lasted just ten minutes. Straus got it in good with A-10 against Tomko’s A-4. Tomko hit the 4 on the flop, but Straus triumphed when the 10 hit on the river, winning a then record payout of $520,000. And all from a single chip and a chair.

Who was Jack “Treetop” Straus? Poker player profile

  • In 1982, Jack Straus came back from a single chip to win the World Series of Poker, giving birth to the saying “a chip and a chair”
  • He was nicknamed “Treetop” on account of being six and half foot tall
  • One of the old-school “road gamblers”, Jack Straus once said: “If they had wanted you to hold on to money they’d have made it with handles”
  • A keen big-game hunter, Jack Straus wore a lion’s paw inscribed with the motto: “Better a day as a lion than one hundred years as a lamb”
  • In 1988, aged 58, Jack Straus died as he had lived, sitting at a high-stakes cash table, having suffered an aortic aneurysm

Read part 2 of our 10 part World Series of Poker mini series and discover how 10-2 or the ‘Doyle Brunson Hand’ got it’s name.
Or come back tomorrow for Johnny Chan’s winning hand that was immortalised in the movie ‘Rounders’.

In the second of a 10-part series, the Paul Phua Poker School recalls how 10-2 became the luckiest hand in World Series of Poker history

With the sheer number of hands that have been played during all the successive World Series of Poker (WSOP) tournaments, you would think that anything could happen. But of all the unlikely strokes of fortune over nearly 50 years of the WSOP, there cannot be anything to rival Doyle Brunson taking down the championship two years running – with the very same lucky hand!

Who is Doyle Brunson?

Doyle Brunson, nicknamed “Texas Dolly” or “The Godfather of Poker”, is one of the last of the old poker greats still standing – or at least sitting, since you’ll often see him in a motorised chair these days. He’s 83 years old, and has been plagued for most of that time by the bad knee that ended his youthful dream of becoming a professional basketball player.
Basketball’s loss is poker’s gain. Brunson has won 10 WSOP bracelets, and his poker strategy book Super/System, originally self-published in 1978, became the bible for a whole generation of poker players. In 2006, after Super/System 2 was published, Brunson was voted by Bluff Magazine the most influential force in the world of poker.

1976: Doyle Brunson wins the WSOP Main Event

In the 1976 WSOP Main Event, Doyle Brunson was heads-up with a player called Jesse Alto. Unlike Brunson, Alto was a keen amateur rather than a professional: his day job was as a car dealer. As a result, he had not fully learned to keep cool in tight spots, and Brunson said he was looking to exploit that weakness.
Jesse Alto bet out with A-J, an excellent starting hand when heads-up. Brunson called with 10-2 suited. The flop came A-J-10, giving Alto two pair. Brunson went all-in with the weaker hand, Alto of course called.
The story of the 1976 WSOP could have been about how an amateur car dealer bested the world’s top pros… but the poker gods decided otherwise. In one of the worst bad beats in Main Event history, Brunson caught runner-runner 2s on the turn and river to make a full house!

1977: Doyle Brunson wins the WSOP Main Event again – with the same hand!

They say lightning never strikes twice. Perhaps it does in Texas. The very next year, Doyle Brunson was defending his title heads-up against Gary “Bones” Berland when he looked down at 10-2 – again. Berland was dealt 8-5.
Yet again Brunson found himself behind when the flop of 10-8-5 gave him a pair, and his opponent two pair. Yet again, the 2 hit on the turn to give Brunson two pair, and this time he was ahead. When Berland pushed all-in, Brunson gladly called. Incredibly, Brunson yet again made a full house on the river when a 10 hit, and he was crowned world champion for the second year in a row.

The “Doyle Brunson hand”

There are many colourful names for different poker hands. Aces are nicknamed “bullets” or “pocket rockets”; pocket Kings are nicknamed “cowboys”; J-5 is known as “Jackson Five” or just “Motown”.
To this day, if you show 10-2, another player around the table is likely to nod wisely and say, “Ah, the ‘Doyle Brunson hand’”.

Who is Doyle Brunson? Poker player profile

  • Born in 1933, Doyle Brunson is nicknamed “Texas Dolly” or “the Godfather of Poker”
  • He is second equal in WSOP bracelets, with 10
  • He won back-to-back WSOP Main Events in 1976 and 1977
  • Doyle Brunson is the author of several books on poker including Super/System and Super/System 2

Read the first blog in our World Series of Poker mini series on how the World Series of Poker was born, and how “the Grand Old Man of Poker” earned his name.

Or come back tomorrow and read about how the tournament phrase “a chip and a chair” was born at the WSOP.

In the first of a 10-part series, the Paul Phua Poker School looks at how the world’s biggest poker tournament began

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) has witnessed extraordinary dramas and created huge stars. In a 10-part mini-series, the Paul Phua Poker School picks 10 key events from the WSOP’s rich history, from Phil Hellmuth becoming world champion aged 24 to internet poker coming of age. We start with the humble origins of the WSOP, and how “the Grand Old Man of Poker” earned his name.

1970: the very first World Series of Poker

When you see the palatial ballrooms of the Rio casino in Las Vegas filled with hundreds of poker tables, and hear the constant clatter of chips filling the air, it’s hard to picture the World Series of Poker’s humble beginnings back in 1970. In those days, Binion’s Horseshoe Casino didn’t even have a poker room. But its publicity-savvy owner, Jack Binion, scented an opportunity when he saw the top poker players of the age gathered at a Texas Gamblers’ Reunion in 1969.
The next year, he invited them to play at Binion’s. Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson was there, along with Jack “Treetop” Straus, “Amarillo Slim” Preston, “Titanic” Thompson and “Puggy” Pearson. But there was no tournament, just several days of mixed cash games, after which they were all invited to choose the best all-round player. Legend has it that each man voted for himself! So Binion then asked them to vote for whoever they thought was second only to themselves: Johnny Moss was crowned champion.

Who was Johnny Moss?

Born in 1907, Johnny Moss had been gambling since he was a boy, and as a teenager was hired by a saloon in his hometown of Dallas, Texas to spot anyone trying to cheat. His legendary five-month heads-up poker marathon against Nick the Greek in 1949 – legendary, in that Moss told the story, but it has not been fully substantiated – was thrillingly documented in Al Alvarez’s classic book The Biggest Game in Town. It was no surprise that Johnny Moss could command the respect of his peers.

1971: the first World Series of Poker tournament

In 1971, after a Los Angeles Times reporter told Jack Binion that he needed more of a competition if he wanted press coverage, the World Series of Poker took on the format we would recognise today: a freezeout tournament. Seven players paid the $5,000 buy-in. Though the individual hands have not been documented, it is known that after two days Johnny Moss won fair and square.
“It does show we voted for the right guy,” said Doyle Brunson later.

The Grand Old Man of Poker

Earning the nickname “The Grand Old Man of Poker”, Moss played at every WSOP until the year of his death in 1995, aged 88, winning nine bracelets in all. In one of his final interviews, at a poker table in Binion’s that year, he said: “I’ve been playing since I was 10 years old. I guess I know what I’m doing by now.”

Who was Johnny Moss? Key facts

  • Born in 1907, Johnny Moss learned to gamble as a boy
  • Beat Nick the Greek for a rumoured $2m in a five-month heads-up poker marathon
  • Nicknamed “the Grand Old Man of Poker”
  • First World Series of Poker champion, and winner of nine WSOP bracelets

Come back tomorrow to read part 2 in our 10 part series on the World Series of Poker. Tomorrow we will revealing how the “Doyle Brunson hand” got its name.

With poker millionaires Charlie Carrel and “Xavi666” making headlines for their big wins, Paul Phua explains why it can take years to become an overnight success.

Two players deserve particular congratulations this week. One is a player from Panama known by his online name of “Xavi666”, who has just won over a million dollars in the PokerStars Guaranteed Sunday Million tournament. He is the 200th poker millionaire created on the online poker site.
The other is the personable young player Charlie Carrel. He proved a good ambassador for the game of poker when he was interviewed on a Channel 4 series in the UK called How’d You Get So Rich? It’s not often poker stories cross over to the mainstream media, but many national papers reported on the TV programme’s featurette on how Charlie Carrel turned his initial online stake of just £10 into £3 million.

The reason these stories have attracted so much attention is that they feed into a common dream about poker: that it’s an easy way to get rich quick.

The most famous example in poker history is when humble accountant Chris Moneymaker turned a $39 investment on PokerStars into $2.5 million in 2003. He entered a $39 satellite tournament, which got him into a $600 satellite, which won him a seat in the Main Event at the World Series of Poker – at which this gifted amateur won the whole thing.
But the truth is, all these players have put in a lot of work behind the scenes that you don’t see. I touched on this subject before in my blog on The Iceberg Illusion. Take young Charlie Carrel. He told the TV presenter Katherine Ryan that he started off at very low stakes, playing for 16 hours a day to improve his game, while living with his grandmother. Having studied Maths, Further Maths and Physics at A-Level, he made a detailed study of all the odds. He applied sensible bankroll management, only moving up to a new blind level when he was sure he had mastered the one he was on.
As to Xavi666, after winning his PokerStars million he said that “finally everything came together”. In other words, he had been working and playing hard to reach this point.
There’s a couple of old sayings that I find very insightful. One is, “It takes years to become an overnight success.” The other is, “The harder I work, the luckier I seem to get.”
What they both mean is that every time you see an actor, musician or poker player suddenly become famous, or seemingly “get lucky”, the chances are they have been perfecting their craft, unnoticed by the general public, for many years before that. When opportunity knocks, they are ready for it.
Certainly when I started at poker, I treated it as a challenge, something to work at. I had fun, of course, as I love the game, but I also had the desire to learn and improve. I regularly sat down to marathon high-stakes cash games with some of the world’s top poker pros, not because I felt I would “get lucky” against them, but so that I could learn from their strategy. That was nearly a decade ago, and I still analyse every big hand at the end of a big poker session to see if I could play it better if faced with a similar situation in the future.
So think about it. Are you going to play poker just for fun, staying in more pots than you should do with poor odds of success, in the hopes of getting lucky? Or are you going to play for fun and for profit, improving your game and learning new strategies over time so that, when you do get your shot at a big tournament, you have the skill and experience to become the next “overnight success”?
If it’s the latter, there is good news: some of the poker pros I often play with have kindly agreed to share their top tips and strategy advice with you, my loyal Paul Phua Poker School followers. There’s quite a line-up to my new video series. We have two big Dans (Cates and Colman), as well as Phil Ivey. Discover the full list of names and watch the trailer here.
So if you do dream of becoming the next Xavi666 or Charlie Carrel, a good first step is to go to the Paul Phua Poker YouTube channel and subscribe, so you don’t miss any Paul Phua Poker School videos. It’s free!