Plus Wynn-ing your way in Las Vegas' high stakes poker rooms
FOLLOWING UP! In yesterday’s column I was making the point that an experienced professional might under certain circumstances well prefer to do battle with Five-Four as hole cards rather than King-Jack. A pal immediately reminded me of a recent example of a similar action delivering the goods at the Mirage during the World Poker Tour this summer. At the final table leading professional David Williams went up against Steve Frederick’s classic Ace-King with a Nine-Five, managing to pair his Nine on the turn and his Five at the river. When it works it’s very rewarding and David took down thousands of dollars.
A $6,000,000 “CALL” That’s exactly the amount that husband and wife poker pundits Crispin and Jules Leyser are attempting to extract from $12,000,000 WSOP Winner Jamie Gold as previously reported in this poker column. The tussle took a turn for the worse from Jamie’s point of view when a poker-faced Vegas judge for the second time re-stated that the WSOP winner had a case to answer following an appeal by his lawyers. It’s quite common in professional poker circles for a deal on sharing potential winnings to be agreed simply with a handshake. There’s a traditional historic assumption that a gambler’s word is his bond. With a recorded message purporting to have Gold promising to split his winnings with the Leysers for services rendered it looks like Crispin and Jules may be drawing ahead in the upcoming courtroom “heads up”. Watch this space for a result at the Vegas court’s final table.
IN THE WAKE OF THE WORLD SERIES Any visitor to Las Vegas in the weeks following the awesome Super Bowl of poker known as the World Series could be forgiven for thinking it has never really concluded. Everywhere the poker rooms are packed to the ceilings with onliners who have come to pay homage at the spiritual home of gaming and every night millions of dollars are changing hands on the flip of the cards. The interior of the Venetian hotel is an indoor replica of Venice with gondolas delivering twenty stone gambling butter mountains to their canal side burger bars and then onto the poker room to do battle with other sumo sculptured Hold’em heroes. To an outside observer it would seem the odds of one of these characters remaining stuck fast in the boat or drowning with all hands far outweighs any risk to their wallet at the final table. Despite the Venetian being larger and probably more costly to build than Venice itself, the new WYNN hotel could swallow it whole and is the new super magnet for the true high rollers. I rail-birded here a while before joining the fray and believe me you can taste your own fear when you sit down at one of these games. Only the smell of the dollar bills keeps your senses on track. I have to say I felt more comfortable playing online back at my room but every so often you have to physically remind yourself why this game is so big and so wild that only the gross oddity known as Las Vegas can adequately sum it up.
