Craziest Poker Game of my life
I've always enjoyed T.J. Cloutier's and Doyle's tales from the felt, so I thought I would pass along the experience I had at the craziest poker game in which I ever played.
At the Bellagio poker room, on Monday, 08 July 2008, the day that all of the remaining entrants in the World Series of Poker Main Event have as a rest day, I got into the must-move no-limit hold 'em poker cash game with blinds of $25 $50 and an $11 per-person ante. It was noon, and the hero and creator of my craziest poker game, Tom was in that game.
After three hands, my friend, Fran came down from the main game in the high-limit area to the floor where my game was in progress. He came to share his good fortune with me, telling me that the main game was a very good game. I told him my must-move game seemed too good to be true. I had witnessed only three hands since sitting down. In the first two, Tom had put his opponents all-in; in each hand Tom's opponents called him and lost all of the money they had on the table. In both hands, neither opponent had a hand with which it would seem strong enough to call big all-in bets. I remember relaying to Fran that Tom's opponents - my opponents - seemed impossibly bad, especially playing $25 $50 with ante poker. And, my opponents - Tom's opponents - were doing whatever they could to re-load with more money.
On one hand, with possible full houses, flushes and straights possible, Tom's opponent called him with three tens, after betting the river and being raised all-in. I remember my astonishment at seeing Tom's opponent not-too-sheepishly tabling his three-of-a-kind hand. Tom rolled over the winner . . . and although I forget what the winner was, it was not the full house I expected . . . in fact, I don't think it was a flush . . . I think it was a straight. On the third hand, there was betting and raising and on the river, Tom again moved his opponent all in. This time, his opponent folded, and Tom said, do you want to see what I have? He turned over the first card and it was a ten. There was no ten on the board. He then turned over his second card, a trey. Neither card matched any of the board cards or gave Tom a hand . . . he had ten high.
A short while later, he was moved to the main game.
Now, Fran comes back to the must move game to report that the main game is crazy . . . much more crazy than it was earlier.
I am in the must-move and introduce myself to another player who I recognized as being a good player. Evan, or ETizzle, ended up being a great guy and a fun guy to have along to witness some of the craziness that was ahead of us. We are on the crowded main floor and Evan is eating room service. I tell Evan how hungry I am, but since it is so crowded and I am next up on the list to get moved into the main game in the non-crowded high-limit area, and since two players moved from our game into the main game in the last hour, I would just wait to eat when I got into the main game. Hours pass, and I am thinking, how can it be taking this long to get into that game?
Fran comes to my table and reports to me and Etizzle, "buddy, you are never going to believe this game - never." Tom is now raising his hands pre-flop, without looking at them. I check the game to see if anyone is leaving. One guy, a victim of a Tom felting, has a few small denomination chips in front of his place. It seems he has departed the poker game on a casino treasure hunt for more ammunition with which to battle Tom. Knowing he only has an hour and a half, I take comfort in knowing my time for the main game might be a mere hour and a half away.
I order room service.
After eating, I go to the main game to hear that the game is even more insane. Over the next couple of hours, I see spectators crowding the main game, reveling at whatever is happening on the felt.
After more hours, I go up to the main game and see the following hand in progress: There are three players. From behind a mountain of chips, Tom has raised blind pre-flop. It seems like there were a few callers, and now Dan bets what might have been about a thousand dollars into a flop of something like Js 9h 3s. Nice foreign guy says to the the table and the dealer, I put you (Dan) all-in, and throws out about $16,000 in chips. Dan has something like two or three thousand dollars left. The dealer looks at Tom, indicating that it is Tom's turn to act. Astonished, Nice Foreign guy says to the dealer, I didn't realize Tom was in the hand; I only put Dan all in. The dealer explains that once Nice Foreign Guy sprays the pot with $5,000 and $1,000 chips, that bet is in the pot. Tom assesses the situation and ponders. He decides to re-raise Nice Foreign Guy all in for what seems to be a total of about $35,000. Nice Foreign guy, dumbfounded and stunned, unsure of what to do finally calls off all of his remaining money. Tom and Dan both have A, J, and Nice Foreign guy has Ks 9s. Nice Guy finishes last as Dan and Tom rake in their winnings. Nice Guy declares, "keep my seat" and a second treasure hunt begins as an observer hurriedly and joyously prepares to play over Nice Guy's temporarily absent seat.
It is at this time that I noticed that the person who was playing over the initial treasure-hunting absent player has taken the opaque plastic box that one uses to cover the chips of the absent opponent so one can "play over" him off of the table to (likely) conceal that he is a temporary play over player. I know the player and like him, so I confront him without outing him, and inform him that I'm next up, so he better put the playing-over box back so that when the absent player, who has now been gone too long, gets removed from the game, I will get that seat. i tell the floor that absent player is due to be picked up and I get my chips to get into this incredibly good main game.
Its a little after 11:00pm and I hurriedly retrieve my $28,000 in chips from the main game. I am stuck $7,000.00 and can't wait to get it back in this crazy main game. In my first hand, I look down to see the Qd Td. I call a couple of limpers. From out of the blinds, Tom raises and I am the only caller. In my fist pot in the main game, I get a great flop: 9d 6d 4c. *Tom bet the flop and I called. The turn was some low diamond. Tom bet; I thought about my decision for a bit, and then called. The river was a non-board pairing low card that was not a diamond. Tom moved all in. *I thought for a while . . . a crowd gathered . . . Greg Mueller, who had been witnessing the madness of the main game from the table next to it while in his mixed limit game and had seen the crazy way in which Tom was playing asked me if I would show what I had. I showed my Qd Td, thought for another 30 seconds and called. Tom rolled over Ad Jd and raked in another massive pot.
I emptied the last of my Vegas cash game money out of my pocket and into my hand. I remember that it was five $5,000 Wynn chips, two Bellagio flags, and three $1,000.00 Rio chips. Tom agreed to change the chips with the Bellagio ones from his massive stack.
Stuck $35,000 for the day, I replied with the following text to my friend:
"Nice . . . Just set my record of biggest pot lost . . . 56,000 to an insane maniac . . . First hand I played in the main game . . . Crazy crazy stories from thus game"
From this point on, the game is off-the-charts insane. I have never seen anyone play so recklessly and yet crush the game as Tom did . . . Tom would raise to $400 - $500 without looking at his cards 19 out of 20 hands and then he would often but not always bet, raise and call until the the final card was put up on the board, when he would look at his cards for the first time . . . *sometimes, he would bet all streets, including HUGE - $30,000 river bets and at the end of the hand, his opponent would say, "what do you have?" *He would sometimes reply, "Let's find out together" . . . because he still had not seen his cards! * You would never know if on THIS hand, he had looked at his cards in advance of betting.
I won a couple of small to medium hands and then one of the next significant hands I played with him, about a half hour after my big loss hand, the flop was K T 2. *I had Q, J . . . he checked to me and I bet. *He said, we can split what is in the pot right now, or we are going to play a very big pot . . . do you want to take the deal. I said No. He called. *The turn was a 7. He checked to me again, so I bet $7,000.00, knowing that he knew I was sick about losing that much money, and he knew that this was my case money for the trip, and that I was playing very tight and conservative . . . and scared . . . no one had dared to bluff this maniac. * He offered the same deal to me: that I could take back my bet and we could split the pot. He was astonished when I did not take it . . . he said something like, this is all the money you have, and you bet $7,000.00, you must have a very, very strong hand! And he thought about it for about ten seconds and raised me all in. I said, well, I don't like it, but I think I'm pot committed and think I have no choice but to call. He offered me the deal once again - we would take our bets back and split the pot. I instantly took the deal and tabled Q, J. He said something like, you are crazy! I can't believe you wouldn't take the deal earlier in the hand! I asked what he had and he said something like, "well, let's find out together" . . . he turned over his two cards slowly, one at a time, like a child opening a present . . . the first one was a 3; the second one was a 4.
Tom went from 12K to over 100K, back down to about $20K and then back up to over 100K. He ended with less than that, but he ended with a win.
And he won over 18 hours, with every person at the table gunning for him, with every person in the poker room vying for seats in the game to take a shot at him. He took out opponent after opponent. He made huge thin value bets, and correctly called or re-raised bluffs and did this all - at least for the last six hours - by beginning nearly every hand raising blind to $400!
The game was so insane that even seasoned pros like Greg Muller and Johnny Chan were often coming over to witness the craziness of this game. At one point, before the floor noticed (and immediately and professionally rectified the situation), we were playing with Rio chips, Wynn chips, Bellagio chips all the while people were jockying to play over every time someone went broke or took a bathroom or smoke break. It was chaotic, exciting, thrilling to watch, and the craziest game I have witnessed.
Within an hour of my biggest pot - and biggest loss in a pot - another hand develops. In the second big pot, Tom looked at his cards, and raised several callers pre-flop. *I was the only one to call; I had 5h 4h. I think Tom was on the button and I was two seats to his right. * Flop of 2h 3h Tc. *I bet; he raised; I three-bet; he called. *The turn was the beautifully safe and clean nut-producing Ac. *I bet $3,000; he called. *The river was the terrifying Jc. *I checked; he put me all in for $34,475 . . . and I had visions of losing $61,000 in one hour. * Another crowd gathered. I backed up a few feet, took a running start and plunked my call on the table. *Tom had hit a set of Jacks on the river and was making an astute, thin value bet. Fortunately for me, in this instance, it was a little too thin. I raked in the biggest pot of my life: $77,000.00.
These giant pots went on, one after the other, with Tom driving every one of them. A guy paid a player $1,200.00 to play over him for one hour. He bought in for $97,000.00. The guy played over for the hour and lost over $20,000 . . . most of it to Tom. The player who rented his seat returned to the game and lost thousands to Tom as well.
Another player who was in a good $300 $600 limit mixed game next to our game would leave his game every time someone left our game to go to the bathroom - just so he could play a hand or two while the guy was in the bathroom. ETizzle remarked that it was likely that you could rent your seat for $50 or $100 every time you went to the bathroom. After Etizzle got into the game, only a single player was fortunate enough to get into the game until Tom left and the game broke at 6:45 this morning. Eventually, the $300 $600 mixed game player gave up his seat in that game, despite that there was a long list for it, just so he could play over in our game for a while
When Tom announced that he had 45 minutes left and would be going, panic struck the table. He overstayed that limit, but announced again that this time, he really had to go in 15 minutes. When players begged him to stay, he said he would stay for another 45 minutes if we paid him $1000.00. It was so amusing to see all of us scrambling to come up with the extra money. When Froggy refused to pay however, miserable that he had been winning in the must-move, finally got into the crazy main game, and then lost a considerable amount in it, Tom again seized upon his read of the table.
Tom announced that the $1,000.00 was the fee if everybody paid, and if Froggy was not going to pay, then Tom would leave unless he got $2,500. It was too funny to see all of us, me included, imploring Froggy to pay the $125.00 to have Tom stay, with Froggy stewing in his loss, steadfastly refusing. Eventually, after a player at the table tried to say that Froggy had paid, and handed Tom the $1,000.00, Tom diplomatically told him that he realized that Froggy did not pay, and that he would stay 45 more minutes anyway.
All I can say is that in that game, everything you learned about poker went out of the window. Tom dominated the game, putting people to the test in nearly every hand in which he played. Fran and ETizzle are both excellent players, and you can ask either of them how tough it was to play against Tom and how the dynamic of that poker game was nothing like either of them had ever seen in their poker careers.
Tom gorilla stomped this table without ever gloating, without ever lying or being anything less than a polite gentleman. He showed legitimate compassion to the losers of big pots. As occurred every couple of hands, facing a big bet, opponents would ask Tom, "have you looked at your cards?" Tom would always respond truthfully by either informing that he had not (he never lied - other players saw that he had not, and at the end of the hand his cards showed that he had not), or he would simply not reveal whether he had by replying, "well, I just bet $10,000, so it would be wise for me to have looked at my cards" or "it is a distinct possibility that I have looked at my cards."
And, despite having the heart and courage of a warrior, Tom is as nice and mild-mannered as people come. He wore no jewelry, no loud clothes, no big watch, and no big ego. For 18 hours, he was affable, engaging, modest, and never lied or showed any irritability despite every player in the game - and in the poker room - wanting to get a piece of this "crazy maniac." If you had to pick the king of insane poker maniacs of all players in all games in the Bellagio poker room, by appearance only, Tom might be your last pick. And, best of all for us poker players, he is a U.S. Supreme Court appellate attorney superstar, a law professor at Harvard Law School and Stanford Law School - and he is the attorney for the Poker Players Alliance.
Google Tom Goldstein if you want to see this poker maniac's impressive legal career. And if you are looking for the most exciting poker game of your life, sit at his table.
