The Biggest And Most Prestigious Poker Game

No-Limit Hold'em (NLH):
Of the 10 most prestigious poker tournaments today, six are NLH. There is a list of the 50 most prestigious events in poker in Appendix 3. The biggest two—the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and the Poker Million—each pay roughly $1.5 million for first place!

Imagine the scene in 2001 at the World Series of Poker when we were down to six players left in the tournament. I was still playing. The Travel Channel had a battery of cameras covering the table and the surrounding standing-room-only crowd. (Most of the crowd had to watch the action on television monitors set up throughout the room.) Two live Internet broadcasts were going on, one at my site (philhellmuth and one at Mark and Tina Napolitano's site (PokerPages). With a first-place prize of $1.5 million and $6,130,000 in tournament chips lying on the table, we engaged in some pretty spectacular clashes that day.

In one hand, I opened the pot for $90,000 on the button with J3-[V] (exactly the same two cards that I won the WSOP with in 1989!) and Phil Gordon moved all-in in the big blind for about $550,000 total. I called his $450,000 raise so quickly that I freaked out everyone at the table! I just knew that he was going to move all-in with a weak hand, and I was ready for him. It turned out that he had 6-6, which made me a 4!/2-to-l favorite to win the $1.1 million pot and bust him (I still had $500,000 in chips left if he won).

Unfortunately for me, the flop was 6-8-K, and his three sixes wound up winning the pot. If I had won this pot, then I would have had at least $1.6 million in chips and perhaps would have won my second "big one." My friend Andy, reading this book in draft, remarked that there's very little "perhaps" to it, although he was extraordinarily impressed with Dewey Tomko's play at the final table (Tomko finished second). Oh, well, either way, it was an exciting hand to be a part of! The two black nines lost the $1.1 million pot, but in 1989 they had held up for a $1.2 million pot and given me the WSOP title. So, 0-[V] is still my favorite hand, and I'd had a really good chance to immortalize it that day. Winning the most prestigious NLH event in the world is the best way to achieve poker immortality!

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