Posted by Steve Rosenbloom
LAS VEGAS -- Joe Hachem, the unknown from Australia who swept to the World Series of Poker main event title and $7.5 million after a 14-hour final table last year, reraised all-in with aces as Saturday turned into Sunday.
Hachem was doing what you're supposed to do with aces: get heads-up, especially with a stack well below average.
Good news for the champ: He was a monster favorite over the A-Q held by the original raiser with an even shorter stack.
Bad news for the champ: A third player called Hachem's stack.
The last player had pocket jacks. As if jacks aren't hard enough to play against an initial raise, now here's a player calling a reraise with them. A lot of players will conclude that an initial raiser with a short stack likely has a pocket pair or ace-something. But being that you need a better hand to call a raise than to make a raise in the first place, the second all-in reraise is probably aces, kings or A-K. Maybe queens. Maybe.
So why fool around with jacks, a hand where you easily could be a 4-1 dog?
Because this is the 2006 WSOP main event, where much of what you used to know about poker almost seems like it doesn't count, where the land mines are more widespread, where the playing style has shifted in near-tectonic fashion.
Which means you know what's coming on this hand, right?
Right: A jack on the flop, no case ace for Hachem, the king is dead.
And so, the defending champion from Down Under went down under for the last time in what has been a murderous World Series main event for brand names.
The signs were there early when 10-time bracelet winners Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth busted seemingly as soon as they got their chips.
Gone early, as well, were the likes of T.J. Cloutier, Erik Seidel, Michael "The Grinder'' Mizrachi, Erick Lindgren, Mark Seif, Howard Lederer and Scott Fischman.
Right down to the bubble, the carnage continued: 2000 champ Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, 2001 champ Carlos Mortensen, 2004 champ Greg Raymer, Phil Ivey, Layne Flack, Josh Arieh, Freddy Deeb and David Grey were eliminated just short of the money.
Even after they got into the money, out of the event were the likes of Darrell "Gigabet'' Dicken, Tony Ma, John Gale, Tony Bloom, David "The Dragon'' Pham, and Kevin McBride, the '98 runner-up to Scotty Nguyen.
Wearing the badge of getting into Day 4 -- there ought to be some kind of award for it, some kind of lovely parting gift -- but not getting out of it were Daniel Negreanu, Cyndy Violette, Kathy Liebert and Hoyt Corkins.
Just what in the name of Amarillo Slim is going on here?
"I'm seeing things I've never seen before,'' Fischman said.
The people who write the books can't figure out the people who read them.
"A guy raises preflop and gets called,'' said Fischman, author of the new "Online Ace.'' "The flop comes K-9-2, rainbow. The first guy bets out $500 and gets called. The turn comes. It's a blank. The first guy bets $200. Gets called. The river comes. Nothing. The first guy bets $100 on the river, gets called, and showed A-K.
"In all my poker experience online and live, I've never seen anyone bet progressively less on each street with a relatively strong hand.''
Other players have seen other strange and amazing moves.
"I had one hand where there was an early raiser and a call,'' well-known pro Bill Gazes said. "I reraised all-in with jacks in position -- and I got called by A-J offsuit. He had three outs. Of course, he hit one.''
But even before the all-in calls, there were some mind-boggling opening raises.
"The big blind was $500 and people were raising to $4,500 or $5,000,'' said David Williams, who finished second to Raymer in the 2004 main event and won his first bracelet this year. "They never heard of raising three times or four times the blind.''
Raising three or four times the big blind is the standard opening move. Or, at least, it used to be.
"One time it was folded around to me in middle position and I raised three times the big blind,'' Andy Bloch said, "and a guy was so confused about what my raise meant. He didn't know what I was doing.''
We are seeing, it seems, a new style of poker being played in the biggest field ever. Hyper-aggressive would be understating it. Warp speed would be more like it.
"They're more willing to gamble this year,'' Liebert said. "Every time I made a normal raise, people reraised me and tried to take the pot away, especially with me because cameras were around me and maybe people want to get on TV.''
The poker math and deductive logic that used to apply? Sorry, no, not here, not now. This is an online tournament played live.
"There ought to be a 'fold' or 'raise' button on the table,'' said Melissa Hayden, a longtime player and photographer for Getty Images. She's also tenth on the all-time WSOP women's money list.
"When I came up, it was routine to fold queens. Now they won't lay down any pair.''
Better start printing those strategy books in pencil.
"I thought it was a particularly soft field because there was way too much gamble when it didn't matter,'' said Barry Shulman, head honcho of Card Player and a tournament regular. "Over and over again, I'd see people jeopardizing their stack on a coin flip.
"You need $88 million in chips to win this thing, so why does it matter on Day 4 whether you have $600,000 or $400,000 or even $140,000?''
"I was check-raised so many times that I never knew where I was at,'' said Barry's son, Jeff Shulman, Card Player's publisher and also a tournament regular.
"I made a substantial raise with aces and I got called in eight spots. Usually I'd get called in one or two spots. It was more like a California game than a Las Vegas game.''
The field of 8,773 entrants has played far faster than anyone thought, especially the Harrah's folks running this thing. Anticipating a field of this size, Harrah's officials booked two weeks for the main event from start to finish, but with only 135 players coming back for Day 5 Sunday, they could easily get it over sooner if not for TV schedules.
Heck, it's playing so fast, they expect a second day off the day before the final table Thursday.
The speed with which this field has been decimated is yet another sign of the unknowns -- amateurs, Internet players, thrill seekers -- playing by their own rules. Their own new rules, perhaps.
"Internet players are used to calling whatever amount,'' said Mark Gregorich, a cash game player and tournament regular who was ousted earlier. "You can bet for value a little more, even with second pair because people think you're bluffing. But you have to know who those people are and who the people are who are afraid to bet their hands.''
Betting for value is a key tactic for players who have been seen on television, because that face time gives them almost no bluffing equity. Opponents appear willing to make a bad mathematical move against a famous player's bet, apparently figuring they would either win a big pot or go home with a good story.
But if the trend was that players were afraid to bet their hands, it was also true that they weren't afraid to call just about anything.
Jeff Shulman experienced the pain of thinking he was betting for value when he was really betting an opponent's hand because that opponent was afraid to bet it himself.
"There were so many times when I flipped over what I thought was the best hand and I got beat,'' he said.
His solution to getting a handle on whatever the new poker rules are?
"Next year,'' Shulman said, "I'm going to play a lot of $5 events online just to get used to it.''
"I'll tell you something else that's different,'' Barry Shulman added. "There has been a lot less bad sportsmanship -- whooping and hollering [when a player hits a miracle card or wins a big pot].
"It's still disgusting. I think it should be penalized. But it's not like a couple years ago, when Internet players were new and were yelling and jumping around. Now there's more decorum.''
Just one more thing that no one saw coming in a remarkably unpredictable main event.
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