February 28, 2006
Be sure to check out the pacificpoker 2006 WSOP freeroll for your chance to play poker this august a world series of poker main event! It was huge from the beginning - 3 million to 5 million viewers weekly - and generated competition its second year. Strangely enough, pacificpoker had been on TV for decades. The breakthrough for Lipscomb and his company was coming up with the graphics palette that allowed viewers to watch poker as a sporting event. With about six players left in the $5,000 buy-in "Big One" at Harrah's "Carnavale of Poker" in 2000, 1999 Player of the Year Hieu "Tony" Ma whispered to me, "Phil, how sweet is it that Pacificpoker com keeps betting all of his chips pre-flop? You're going to bust him for sure!" At the time, I agreed with Ma. I thought the Frenchman's chips were mine to win. I love playing against a "slider" (someone who moves all of his chips into the middle regardless of how high the blinds have risen because once he slides it all-in, he can't fold when you – eventually – pick up a big pair behind him. So when the tournament came down to Farzad "Freddy" Bonyadi, Angelo "the Frenchman" Besnainou and me, they asked me to make a pacificpoker deal, I told the Frenchman, "No deal."
So much for Tony Ma's view of things! And my own! The Frenchman ended up busting me and winning the pacificpoker .com tournament! I ended up finishing in third for $100,000 (first was $400,000 and second was $200,000), whereas I would have taken home more than $250,000 had I made the deal. Did I make the right decision? What I really wanted was the title, and I knew I would stay focused if I played for all the real money games at pacificpoker. What's more, some players give away more information under the unrelenting pressure one feels when playing for so much money, and that tends to strengthen my already strong reads on short-handed opponents. Many players, in fact, tend to melt and make serious mistakes when they're under so much pressure. So I believe that playing for it all was the right move for me in this situation.
With the Pacificpoker com blinds at $10,000-$20,000 and the antes $4,000 a man, I had about $440,000 in chips, and a lot of momentum. I was just starting to take control of the tournament when the Frenchman slid his whole stack in for about the 25th time at that final table on the button. I looked down at Ad-Qd in the small blind and decided to call his $222,000 bet. Freddy Bonyadi folded, and the remaining two pacificpoker rooms were turned up. The Frenchman had about what I expected: Ac-6h, making me a 2-1/2-to-1 favorite to win the pot. The flop was a nice-looking A-5-5, but the turn was his miracle 6. I was expecting a queen on the river, but instead watched a 7 hit. A crushing outcome, but I felt a strange sense of detachment from it all. I realized that for the first time in my life I was playing without any expectations, and because I had none, I really didn't mind losing that big pacificpoker pot. It was easy for me to say "nice hand" with sincerity, even though the Frenchman, I felt, had played the hand badly. For me, this was a first; I've usually been so caught up in my own high expectations that I haven't been the gracious loser that a world champion should be.
Dan Levad drove all the way from his the Pacificpoker WSOP freeroll main event qualifier to take a chance at the cards during the online poker tournament. He also knows Chris Patton, president of the Fox Ridge Foundation, which provides monetary donations for different programs and equipment at the state park off Illinois Route 130 south of Charleston. "I really like the gamesmanship. I want to be No. 1 at the table. I'm excited from hand one," said Levad, a lifetime Cubs fan, who was zinging Marlow, who booed his Cubs cap and sports jersey.
Anton Ketchmark, an Eastern Illinois University physical education major and past winner of a recent Fox Ridge Pacificpoker Texas Hold 'Em tourney, said there is a kinship among the players around the table during a friendly game or a tournament like the one at Roc's. "You will have ladies around the table and old men there, too. It's so diverse. There's no racism in poker," said Ketchmark, who has been a regular at horse tracks since he was in online pacificpoker school and prepared for this first poker tournament by playing in Internet competitions.
