Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2005 | 7:09 a.m.
Only two men have won both a World Series of Poker championship and a World Poker Tour title.
Their paths cross this week at the Bellagio, and it's not so much a simple intersection as a convergence of Spaghetti Bowl proportions.
Doyle Brunson became the first to turn the trick when he outlasted a field of 667 players to win the World Poker Tour's Legends of Poker tournament last year at the Bicycle Casino in Southern California. Brunson added that title to his World Series victories in 1976 and 1977.
A couple of months later, Carlos Mortensen, the 2001 World Series champion, joined Brunson by winning a big World Poker Tour event at Bellagio.
Here's where the twists and turns start coming into play.
The tournament Mortensen won was called -- coincidentally, perhaps even ironically -- the Doyle Brunson North American Poker Championship.
Not only that, but Mortensen gave Brunson partial credit for the victory.
You see, after watching Brunson win his WPT tournament, Mortensen said he was inspired to purchase Brunson's classic book "Super/System," the instructional text some call the bible of poker.
"I hadn't read it until Doyle won his tournament at the Bike," Mortensen said. "I finally bought it, and I thought it was fantastic. Everything about poker is in there."
This week Mortensen is back at the Bellagio to defend his title in the second Doyle Brunson North American Poker Championship. The $10,000 buy-in, no-limit Texas hold 'em tournament began Tuesday, with the final table scheduled for Friday. Mortensen earned $1 million for his victory last year.
"He's a very good, very aggressive player," Brunson said of Mortensen. "Obviously he's got some skills. You have to, to win a World Series of Poker and a World Poker Tour championship."
Brunson, 72, knows a thing or two about aggressive poker. His chapters in "Super/System" on no-limit Texas hold 'em outline his strategy for what he calls "power poker," which places a heavy emphasis on relentless raising and reraising to take control of the table.
Mortensen, 33, may not have read the book until last year, but his aggressive style has landed him at several final tables in World Series and WPT competition.
"He's what I call a tournament player, not so much a cash-game player," Brunson said. (In a poker tournament, players pay an entry fee and then compete to win cash prizes by advancing as far as they can. Once they lose all of their chips, or "bust out," they're finished. In a cash game, they can always reach into their pocket and buy more chips.)
That assessment is fine with Mortensen, who said he has achieved even more fame from recent televised tournaments than from his 2001 World Series title, which came a year or so before the poker craze kicked into high gear.
"People ask me for autographs and to take pictures with them a lot," he said. "But they know me more from the Superstars Invitational (a televised tournament) and the World Poker Tour than the World Series of Poker."
Another top poker pro taking aim at the tournament's namesake this week is Freddie Deeb, who's coming off a $1 million victory in the WPT's previous tour stop, the Aruba Classic.
Deeb made his name as a high-limit cash game player but has devoted more energy to tournaments over the past couple of years.
"Before, I didn't really care much about tournaments," Deeb, a Las Vegas player originally from Lebanon, said. "When I did play a tournament, I'd be thinking about what cash game I could get into when I was done.
"Now it's more important to get (tournament) titles than cash because of the endorsements and promotions that come with the TV exposure."
Unlike Mortensen, Deeb said he has never read "Super/System," and has no plans to do so.
"I have played with Doyle in very big cash games since 1990," Deeb said. "I've played with him so much, I feel I've learned all I can just by watching him. I don't need to read his books -- I've learned from how he plays."
Brunson calls Deeb an "exceptional" cash-game player.
"While I respect tournament players, I don't think that tournament play is the real barometer as to how good a poker player someone is," Brunson said. "The true standard for me is how they perform in cash games over time, making their living that way."
Brunson, who can be found online at doylesroom.com, said he feels no extra pressure playing in a tournament named for him, nor does he believe his opponents try any harder than usual to eliminate him.
"They all try to knock me out anyway," he said.
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