Defending the gold
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Lightning strikes all over the place. Sure, elevated areas are more susceptible, but flukes will happen. In poker terms, the right cards can send the right player on the right day to the heights of all heights regardless of skill. That's why so many people regard that second strike as crucial in establishing a player as more than just another player.
This week on ESPN's broadcast of the 2009 World Series of Poker main event (Tuesday, 8 p.m. ET), you're going to see two players who came into this WSOP with something to prove. Peter Eastgate and Dennis Phillips may have emerged as the two biggest stars of last year's November Nine. Eastgate won the world championship, while Phillips played the role of poker ambassador for the four months he held the chip lead. Theirs were the kind of accomplishments that were bound to ensure feature tables and TV exposure and questions of whether that lightning could strike again.
It's a weight on the backs of anyone who thrives in a major spotlight for the first time.
"I knew in the back of my mind that the (2008 finish) wasn't a fluke," said Phillips, freshly arrived in London for his Sunday debut at WSOPE. "Still, you want to prove it to get it over with and move on from those questions. Hopefully people think I can play poker now."
Even in the case of Eastgate, an established presence in online circles, there was something to prove to the masses.
"Once you become a known player, you can have an attitude of not wanting to come across as an idiot," reflected 2004 world champion Greg Raymer, who made a deep run while defending his title. "You have a reputation to uphold. I don't think you can look at a small number of results and say they validate a player. It's still possible a mediocre player ran good twice. The more results you have over the years though, the less likely you're mediocre and the more likely you're a great player. With a lot of results, you can finally say 'He's not a donk'." At the start of Tuesday's episodes, there will be plenty more play for both of the November Nine survivors. Their two stories invariably intertwined by their 2008 accomplishments, their names were paired on lips and poker news sites as they survived the field's whittling down.
"It seemed like on Day 4 or 5, everyone was looking at my survival and linking it with Peter's," remembered Phillips. "One of the statements I made last year was that Peter was a year or two from being a true great. I wasn't picking him to win in '08, but I thought he'd have 3-4 bracelets down the line. I don't think they give him enough credit. He's a truly special player."
Eastgate's run in particular added to the ongoing saga of defending champions trying to legitimize their respective victories. Each year, they're watched by gathered throngs and assembled cameras as we wait to see their seeming invincibility crumble before us. Here's a look at the most successful successions embodied by their number:
Johnny Moss 1971 -- First: The original poker legend, Moss won the first WSOP by the unanimous vote of his peers before the WSOP adopted the freezeout format in 1971. He justified the vote with his second victory before failing to cash in 1972.
Doyle Brunson 1977 - First: Brunson wanted nothing to do with winning the WSOP in its early years, seeing the attention as a massive detriment, but by 1976, he'd decided it was time to go for the gold. He won that year then became the first player to win successive freezeout championships. 1978 wasn't so kind. Not only did he fail to cash in the series, but he lost money on a self-published book about the secrets of poker called Super System.
Bobby Baldwin 1979 - Sixth: Considered by many at the time to be the best no-limit hold 'em player in the world, the 28-year old champion Baldwin was poker's original whiz kid and poker's first book-educated star. After his historic victory over Crandell Addington in 1978, he came back a year later and had the chip lead as the field worked its way into single digits. What came next? A number of horrendously bad beats on one of the first nationally televised WSOP's.
Stuey Ungar 1981 - First: After Ungar won the second live tournament he'd ever played in the 1980 main event. The oddsmakers put him at 25-1 to win in 1981's 75-player field. Despite players like Brunson and Baldwin rated as better than twice as likely to overcome, it was Ungar who survived the field, giving him the two youngest championship victories in history until Phil Hellmuth's win in 1989. Ungar failed to cash in 1982 and did the same 16 years later when he failed to show up to defend his 1997 title.
Bill Smith 1986 - Fifth: T.J. Cloutier says of Smith (who beat Cloutier in the 1985 final), "When he was sober he was too tight, when he was drunk he was too loose, and along the way he was the best player in the world." A true Texas rounder, Smith followed his 1985 championship with a final table finish before failing to cash in '86.
Johnny Chan 1988 - first, 1989 - second: Chan's not just the last repeat champion, he's the last defending champion to make a main event final table. It's been 20 years since Chan came within a hair of going back-to-back-to-back, with his reign as the world's tournament alpha only ended by Hellmuth (who'd fail to cash in 1990). Chan would take that a step further, failing to cash in the entire 1990 WSOP.
Greg Raymer - 2005 25th place: While Joe Hachem was the last champion to follow their win with a cash, Raymer's was truly the most successful title defence of the modern poker era. As the industry blossomed, Raymer's fame was such that he couldn't so much as get to the bathroom through the Rio hallways. While conventional wisdom says the play against defending champions can be awful due to the desire to knock them off on camera, Raymer found that wasn't the case.
"The funny thing is, in the main event in '05, it almost seemed like there was less of a target on my back," the '04 champion recalled. "The main event is so important to everyone that they try their best to win, where in other events, I might push in where no sensible person would think I was bluffing and they would call with hands they knew they should probably fold. When I played the prelims in '05, I saw quite a bit of that."
Raymer was only eliminated when he famously got Aaron Kanter all-in with Raymer better than a 4:1 favorite on the turn only to have Kanter hit his river, but the damage came late enough to cement Raymer's legacy and reputation for years to come.
Gary Wise is a poker columnist for ESPN.com.
