2006 H.O.R.S.E. Tournament, Part 2: How the Living Legend Left the Arena
Right from the get-go in the $50,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. tournament, it didn’t really look like Doyle Brunson was on his game. Maybe he was exhausted from playing such a long session on the second day. It appeared that he tried to run a big bluff early, though I’m not sure because I didn’t see the hand. Whatever happened, he lost about a half of his chips early on. And then he played a K-J against my two nines where he was only an 11-to-10 underdog. That’s the only pot I won that had a decent amount of money in it, and losing it didn’t leave him with anything much.
A lot of people said they didn’t understand Doyle’s final play. In that hand, he had a J-6 offsuit, he had the blinds in there, and he was getting three-way action on the hand. He was going to play a pot where if he got lucky and hit his hand, he could get a hold of some chips while he still could, before he got anted to death. At the end, it looked kinda funny to have that hand in a pot that had been raised, but that’s just the way things go sometimes. At some point, you have to make a stand.
The Internet report read: “David Singer raised to $60K from the cut-off seat and Jim Bechtel made the call from the small blind. Doyle made the call from the BB, leaving him with only 8,000. The flop came Q-8-2. They checked to Singer, who bet $150K, Bechtel raised to $500K, and Doyle called all-in with a J-6 offsuit. Singer folded. Bechtel turned over A-Q.” So why did Brunson call with J-6? Because he only had $8,000 left and it would all go in for the small on the next hand, and he might catch runner-runner to win the hand. He might as well have called because he already was pot-committed.
But why did he call Singer’s original raise to $60K before the flop? Because he figured he had two live cards, and if he hit them, he’d be back in the ball game. He was getting 3-to-1 on his money, plus all the antes. Doyle’s play wasn’t nearly as unusual as it appeared to be to players who didn’t understand the strategy behind it. Like I’ve said in my books, when you’re getting short on chips in a tournament, you’ve gotta make a play to double or triple up while you still have enough chips to make a difference. Suppose he doesn’t play that hand. On the very next deal, he only has about $8,000 left, and he has to ante a lot of it, so it makes sense for him to play it.
In my opinion the best all-around player won the biggest all-around tournament in history. Kudos to Chip Reese. For years people have been talking about how he’s the best all-around player in the world, and now he’s proved it.
Human Interest Story
Just before the Big One began, I flew to Aspen, Colorado, to do a family-teaching gig for the Wiley family. I was there for two days, on the 28th and 29th of July, and I was due to play my first tier at the WSOP on the 30th. They had a little tournament, too, but it was more of a teaching session for four hours on two consecutive days. I was supposed to fly out of Aspen at 7 p.m. the second evening headed to Denver for my connection to Las Vegas. I figured I’d get back to my room at the Rio around midnight and get plenty of rest to start playing my first day of the championship event by noon.
But that’s not how things went. Poker Mountain, the company that I represent, owns a time-share on a jet. They called me to say they were sending the jet to Aspen to pick me up so that I wouldn’t have to get back to Vegas so late at night. The Wiley family and I finished up around 3:00 in the afternoon, the private jet was waiting for me, and I arrived back in Vegas at 3:45. That was pretty nice.
But wait, that’s not all — this story has a real kicker to it. At 6:30 that night I received a call from the airline on my cell phone in Vegas telling me that my flight from Aspen to Denver had been canceled. If I had had to rely on the commercial plane, I never would’ve arrived in time to start playing the next day, as there are only a couple of flights a day out of Aspen that make a connection with planes to Vegas. Nobody knew anything about the cancellation when they sent the jet to me in Aspen, so it was like maybe God had planned it all, you know. I didn’t last very long in the Series, but at least I got the opportunity to play it. I would’ve missed my first WSOP since 1983 if it hadn’t been for that corporate jet.