Brent

On Sunday I was assigned for Tournaments and drew second day of the $2500 No Limit Hold'em Event #13. The event had begun on Saturday with 1397 entries. I believe they played down to the money bubble on Saturday leaving 99 players to restart Sunday evening.

As I arrived there were 9 tables of players remaining. I pushed into a table, dealt for half an hour then got pushed out and went on break, came back and pushed into the end of a row. This time I got three tables in a row to deal without a break. This deal one, break, deal one break is a nice easy pace, but I really only make money when I actually deal. Break doesn't pay much.

Surveying the field I noticed that there just weren't very many big names remaining in the event. No Phil Gordons or Phil Hellmuths. Just a few semi-familiar faces some of whom I remember dealing to earlier either in satellites or in the cash games. When I pushed into Table 47 I saw a familiar face but I couldn't place it. He was in seat four.

He looked at me and said, "Your name tag is Harrison but you go by Buz, don't you?" "...Brent, from Wysteria."

OMG. Back a few years ago when I lived in Ann Arbor I occasionally played in a game at Brent's apartment. I was just learning to play the No Limit game. We had hooked up via the A2Poker group on Yahoo! when he had sent an open invitation to the group. We played No Limit Hold'em with blinds at twenty-five and fifty cents in his dining room. Of course, Brent didn't have a dining room table, he had a poker table in his dining room. I brought the beer.

How cool was this? Here I am dealing at the WSOP and I find at one of my tables a guy I used to play Poker with for quarters.

After a few hours of the tournament, we had gotten down to four or five tables and I pushed into Brent's table. This time he was in seat seven. Play is pretty intense at this point in the tournament. Players have made the money but there is a huge difference between 36th place and the final table payouts. Tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands if a player made the top three. Antes are now $1000 per hand and the blinds are $5,000 and $10,000. Brent is first to act and he calls the $10,000. This is kind of unusual because most players are raising when they enter a pot, hoping to either win the blinds and antes without a fight or get heads up with someone and win a big pot. Also, Brent doesn't have a very large stack, so you would think that he would want to apply maximum pressure by raising, rather than just limping along. Jason Sanders in seat nine raises it to $30,000. All the other players fold and it's back to Brent to decide to fold, call or raise.

Brent said, "Raise. I'm all in."

Jason Sanders has about three times the number of chips Brent has making this a big decision on his part. On the one hand he risks losing a third of his stack, on the other, he could move near the chip lead and eliminate another player if successful.

Jason shook his head saying, "That's an Aces move. It's either Aces or a small pair."

He anguished over it for a full three minutes before making up his mind saying, "All right. I call." As he flips over a pair of Queens.

All eyes on Brent as he turns over, not Aces, but a pair of Fours. He looked at me and said, "Come on Buz, you can do it."

Brent was a 4 to 1 underdog. He needed a Four. And no Queens. Unless he catches a Four, Brent would be eliminated, out of the tournament in 36th place. I burned a card and slid it under a few chips at the edge of the pot then peeled off the three flop cards, face down in front of me. I picked them up and moved them to the center of the table. As I flipped them over to spread them on the board I could see it. The Four of Spades right in the window. The first card you could see. No Queens show up. Brent doubles up and now has enough chips to work with to get to the final table.

After a few more downs dealing, players are eliminated and when there are only two tables left, they only need three dealers and it's my turn to call it a night.

Later that night, after I left, Brent caught a Five to make three-of-a-kind Fives and coasted into the final table sixth in chips out of the nine remaining players.

The next day, Brent busted out in eighth place, good for over $80,000 in his first and only appearance at the World Series of Poker.