I nearly fell off my seat when the seniors made the money. I’ve never heard a bunch of old folk make so much noise - it was like they’d just announced the return of Last of the Summer Wine to the BBC! Tournament director Charlie Ciresi urged the remaining 324 players to stand up before whittling them down to the oldest. Some of them didn’t have a clue what day it was and one guy remained standing throughout, despite looking about 60. In the end, it was a tie between three 80-year old gentleman, of whom received a rapturous round of applause for not being dead.
Some will say I’m being inconsistent by supporting this event after criticising the women’s, but I think there’s a vital difference. In sports/games like tennis, football and so on, women are at a distinct physical disadvantage, but in poker, there is no reason why they can’t compete on an equal footing. Seniors, however, won’t be as mentally sharp as other players due to age, so they will inevitably be at a disadvantage. Of course, you will find veterans like Thor Hansen, Hoyt Corkins and Eddie Scharf who are as sharp as a butcher’s knife, but, on the whole, the combination of long hours, continually analysing hands, and having to eat the crap in the Poker Kitchen make it more difficult for seniors to participate on a level playing field in open events, thus suggesting there is a strong element of justification for staging this event.
I do agree that, like the ladies’, this event seems to be of high value to those who are both experienced and eligible to enter. If I was Neil Channing, I’d be staking as many 50 plus pros as I could into this, whether it be Jeff Duvall, Surinder Sunar or whoever, There’s plenty of money to be made in what is undoubtedly a weaker-than-usual field, as Tom Schneider seems to be finding out.
What I love about this event is that it entices the old-school characters back into the Rio. One of those is Paul ‘Cigar’ McKinney who won the event in 2005 to surpass Johnny Moss as the oldest player to win a bracelet. With his grizzled looks and giant cigar, McKinney is a throwback to a bygone era in which poker was played by thugs and gangsters in the back rooms of bars and tobacco was chewed and spat into an empty bucket.
Hailing from Princeton, West Virginia, McKinney picked up the game whilst serving for the the Royal Navy during the war. Despite earning a tidy sum, McKinney never turned pro and didn’t play in a casino until 1994 and only made his first trip to Vegas two years later. At the ripe old age of 85, McKinney is back this year, his face slightly more weathered than before, but his enthusiasm for the game as vibrant as it’s ever been. How can you not admire a man who once listed his hobbies as: “Moonsihine, big cigars, and young women.”
Unlike McKinney, there are several ‘old school’ figures who roam the Rio throughout the entire Series. They’re here every year and have made their presence a tradition. One man who will forever stick in my mind is John Cutter. With a cowboy hat, neckerchief, saddle-shaped bag, and cane with a horse’s head carved into the handle, Cutter is about as close to a real life cowboy as the Series will ever see. He even lives on a ranch, likely riding horses and lassoing beer bottles!
image courtesy of Anne Laymond
Wherever Cutter goes, you’ll see Blue, a stunning Australian Shepherd who follows his every move. If Cutter is playing a tournament, Blue will be there, sat patiently under his seat or slumped in a comfy corner. Blue is so docile that I sometimes wonder if he’s been drugged. Because Blue has these striking, perhaps wonky blue eyes and is, well, a dog in a poker room (!), I originally thought he was blind, and that Cutter was a guide man, if such a thing exists. It later emerged that Blue wasn’t blind at all and I was just being an idiot. Still, I’m convinced guide men do exist.
image courtesy of Anne Laymond
One day, I asked Cutter how long he’d been playing the World Series. “Fifty years, boy,” he answered in a thick accent and with a slight smirk, which although is technically impossible, signifies that he is one of the few players in the building to have predated the World Series. Something tells me that both him and Blue would have a few stories to tell.
Someone who has definitely witnessed his fair share of WSOPs is Jay Heimowitz, who holds the record for attendance at the World Series having played in 35 of the last 36 years. Even the one he missed was a result of his wife being involved in a car crash, otherwise he’d hold the record for the most consecutive too (which, incidentally, is currently held by Howard ‘Tahoe’ Andrew).
What is most remarkable about Heimowitz is that barely anyone in the room will recognise him. They certainly wouldn’t be aware that he is the holder of no fewer than six bracelets! The blogs rarely mention his name, he evades the gleam of the cameras, and supposedly knowledgeable WSOP fans will brush past him unwittingly as they hunt down Tom Dwan’s autograph. Even if I showed you his bracelets you probably wouldn’t believe me.
Originally from New York, Heimowitz found affluence from the alcohol industry, and was widely responsible for the distribution of Budweiser over a 25-year period. Like McKinney, he’s never been a pro, but developed a fixation with the World Series ever since his first bracelet win back in ’75. Since then, he’s gone on to earn in excess of $2.1 million in tournaments winnings including $120,000 for a Poker After Dark episode. I covered him in the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha event earlier in the Series and he seemed in fine fettle, thus suggesting that bracelet number seven isn’t an impossibility. It would certainly make a good story.
These stories are what I love about poker (remember Eric Drache versus Freddie Ellis from last year?), not the ones where yet another young hotshot storms the field like a silent assassin. What kind of story does that tell? It’s perhaps the emergence of some of the ‘old-school’ players that remains the saving grace of covering a Seven-Card Stud High-Low event. I blogged this tournament last week and feel obliged to reveal my disdain for it.
On Day One, reporting a hand just seems pointless, as for the audience to analyse a hand (which can be the only purpose of reporting a hand), you have to report the action from as early as possible, which in this game is nigh on impossible as you’re never sure if it will be a big hand until a later street. Even if a pot does escalate, there’s a good chance it will be split. There are more chops than the Karate Kid trilogy in this event, and it drives you potty when you’re tired and desperate for the field to thin.
I think the most tilting aspect is that there are so many bloomin' cards. I’ve started dreaming of seven-card hands now, I’ve seen so many. If it’s a three-way pot, it’s a nightmare to note down all the hands, as when it comes to reveal the face-down cards, players either muck after a quick flash, or slide them around the felt to form a high and a low. Even when you think you’ve got the hand, you return to base only to find a duplicated card on your notepad, which, of course, can fuck up the whole report.
But despite my hatred for the game (in terms of blogging, that is), I was pleased to see the event return to this year’s Series. As expected, it attracted few runners, but it has a rich history in poker and is an interesting game to play. It also keeps the ol’ timers coming, and if they’re armed with tales of yesteryear, then that can only be a good thing. The day the Rio is filled with 21-year olds with nothing to say is the day the World Series breathes its last breath.
Previous Blog Entries:
May 23: My Old School Teacher
May 31: Welcome to America; Let the Institutionalising Begin
June 1: Pleasure & Pain
June 5: 100% British Beef
June 9: Alphabetti Spaghetti & Giant Meatballs
June 13: Colour Me Up
June 14: The Crying Game
WSOP Reports:
Employee of the Month
Fairytale Endings
Must Be Nice
Make Mine a Double
Blonde on Blonde
Summer of Sam
Sites/blogs I read:
blonde Poker 'Feed Your Wild Side' Thread
Hard Boiled Poker
Pokerati
Pot Committed
Riding the F Train
Tao of Poker
Wicked Chops Poker
Sites/blogs I would read if they weren't in a foreign language:
Las Vegas, Off the Record