The biggest stories in World Series of Poker

A win by the World Series of Poker’s chip leader would rival that of Moneymaker’s breakthrough, but Ivey is also compelling

associated press file

Players who made the final table of the World Series of Poker include, from left, James Akenhead, Jeff Shulman, Phil Ivey, Antoine Saout, Darvin Moon, Joseph Cada, Steven Begleiter, Kevin Schaffel and Eric Buchman. The tournament began in July at the Rio and, after a four-month hiatus, resumes Saturday. Moon is the chip leader.

By Jeff Haney (contact)

Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Jeff Shulman, who finished fifth in the 2009 World Series of Poker, answered questions from Las Vegas Sun readers Monday.

World Series of Poker 2009

Showing Their Cards

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With the final table set, ESPN's Norman Chad and Lon McEachern weigh in on life behind the scenes of the World Series of Poker.

Darvin Moon — 58,930,000
Eric Buchman — 34,800,000
Steven Begleiter — 29,885,000
Jeff Shulman — 19,580,000
Joe Cada — 13,215,000
Kevin Schaffel — 12,390,000
Phil Ivey — 9,765,000
Antoine Saout - 9,500,000
James Akenhead — 6,800,000

What: World Series of Poker final table
When: Play begins at noon Saturday and continues until all but two players are eliminated. Heads-up play begins at 10 p.m. Monday.
Where: Penn & Teller Theater, the Rio
Admission: Free for spectators 21 and older on a first-come, first-served basis
TV: ESPN, 6 p.m. Tuesday

Tournament History

Before the start of the 2003 World Series of Poker, I recall seeing Chris Moneymaker’s name on the list of entrants at the old Binion’s Horseshoe downtown and marveling that someone would have the temerity to compete in the tournament under such an outlandish pseudonym.

When Moneymaker — his real name, of course, as the poker world would soon learn — reached the heads-up portion of the event against veteran Sam Farha, ESPN’s Norman Chad still found it hard to give the unknown player much respect.

“I was rooting for Sammy Farha,” Chad said. “Why? Because I was an idiot. I did not see the effect that a Chris Moneymaker would have.”

Moneymaker’s victory in the main event has been credited with launching what came to be known as the “poker craze,” though it received assists from televised tournaments employing hole-card cameras — then a novel concept — and the explosion in popularity of online poker.

The poker sensation has since leveled off, but the game could undergo another miniboom, Chad said, if Darvin Moon holds on to his chip lead and wins the 2009 World Series main event.

The tournament resumes Saturday at the Rio with nine finalists competing at the final table after a hiatus of nearly four months.

Moon, who controls 30 percent of the chips in play, has much in common with Moneymaker. Moon is an amateur poker player, heretofore a complete unknown. A self-employed logger from rural Maryland, Moon has an everyman aura about him. He’s the consummate underdog: Moon likes to say that of the 6,494 entrants in the $10,000 no-limit Texas hold ’em championship tournament, about 6,300 are better than him at poker.

The Dickensian aspect of his name doesn’t hurt, as Chad sees it.

“It’s not quite as dramatic (as Moneymaker’s victory) but if Darvin Moon wins, there’s something about the name alone,” Chad said. “It’s different than if (fellow finalist) Eric Buchman wins it. It’s just another unbelievable, improbable story. If Darvin can pull it off, I just think it becomes the stuff of storybooks.”

Lon McEachern, Chad’s poker partner at ESPN, likened Moon’s performance to golfer Tze-Chung Chen’s stirring — yet ultimately unsuccessful — run for the title in the 1985 U.S. Open.

“He is the unknown factor,” McEachern said on a conference call previewing the final table. “Yeah, he’s catching a lot of cards. But maybe people won’t give him enough credit for the game he does bring. Obviously he’s going to be the scariest one at the table with the big chip stack.

“Whether Darvin will be like another T.C. Chen, who knows, but he’s a fascinating character.”

Chad expects Moon to continue playing solid poker marked by pushing high-quality starting hands rather than taking the risks associated with a trickier style at the table.

“He’s not going to be reckless,” Chad said. “He’s not going to be the table bully, which sometimes the chip leader does because they know they can push around the smaller stacks. He’s going to do the smart thing from a money standpoint. He’s going to sit around and let the smaller stacks knock each other out. There’s no reason Darvin can’t guarantee himself a top 3 or 4 finish, which is a lot more money than the $1.2 million he’s guaranteed.

“He’s probably the worst player at the table, but he loves to advertise that. He does some things that seem to indicate a higher skill level than he gives himself credit for. I think there’s a little shark in him, a little pool hustler in there.”

If Darvin Moon is the No. 1 story of the final table, then No. 1a is the presence of Phil Ivey, the game’s best player according to a consensus of his fellow professionals — a notoriously argumentative lot who rarely form a consensus on anything.

Ivey, though always dangerous, brings one of the shortest stacks of chips into the final table.

“Poker players can agree on nothing,” Chad said. “If they’re at a crosswalk and the signal says ‘Walk,’ they’ll start arguing about whether they should walk or not. So the fact they do agree on Phil Ivey is a rare circumstance.

“He has a sixth sense like all good poker players do, but he has like a sixth-and-half sense. He has the ability to read situations better than the next person. In poker it’s hard to say anybody’s the best, but yeah, they’re pretty unanimous. Hardly anybody says, ‘Ah, he gets lucky.’ Everyone agrees he is the best.”

Discussion: 13 comments so far…

By GrandmaCrabby

11/4/09 at 6:37 a.m.

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Go, Darvin!

I'm rooting for Darvin. He seems like such a genuinely nice and humble person, Still, it would also be great if Phil Ivey won it. The World Series should be won by the best player every once in a while.

The person I'm hoping bombs out first is Begleiter. The man who was head of coporate strategy for Bear Stearns at the time it collapsed just ought not to rolling in millions of dollars at the time that many people are suffering as the result of his incompetence. A lot of people lost a lot of hard earned savings as a result of his reckless stupidity, and here he is, center stage in Vegas. Booooo!!!
By Ds_Gentle_Master

11/4/09 at 6:48 a.m.

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How do you get a professional poker player off your porch?

You pay him for the pizza.
By Phargo

11/4/09 at 7:02 a.m.

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The game has it all, drama, comedy, happy stories and sad stories. Everything but a dress code. I bet that room smells like yecccccchhhhh!
By PeterGun

11/4/09 at 8:02 a.m.

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"How do you get a professional poker player off your porch?

You pay him for the pizza."

Funny. And there's alot of truth to that. I heard some stories about that Dutch Boyd kid who ESPN made into a big deal in the Poker world. Guy is broke like a joke.

I'm rooting for Darvin Moon also. I think he's a better player than people think he is. He got alot of good cards in this tourney but he played them the right way also and I don't think you can get a read off of him.

I've watched almost all the ESPN coverage and Darvin seems like a very solid player to me.

To make it this far, every one of these guys got alot of good cards along the way. It's just that Darvin is more honest about it.
By GrandmaCrabby

11/4/09 at 8:14 a.m.

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Chris Ferguson, who won the main event about ten years ago, tells another version of the pizza joke:

Q) What's the difference between a professional poker player and a large pepperoni pizza?

A) A large pizza can feed a family of four.
By 7pesos

11/4/09 at 11:10 a.m.

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i'm going with phil ivey.

he's my favorite player.

that guy has balls of steel.
By GrandmaCrabby

11/4/09 at 3:27 p.m.

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I wouldn't call it a bad beat. Kopp never had the better hand. He went all in with the worst hand and he lost.

It was just a bad read. Kopp made the classic mistake of overbetting a weak flush. Kopp only had the 3-5 of diamonds when three diamonds came out on the flop. Kopp should have realized that if anybody else had a flush, they had him beat. Instead, I think he read Moon as having a big pocket pair or a set. His mis-read cost him his tournament.
By environprotector

11/4/09 at 7:38 p.m.

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MAN!! I like the look of that pile of cash!! If I won those stacks, it's off to Maui forever for me with the hottest female god ever placed on this planet!!
By GrandmaCrabby

11/5/09 at 6:06 a.m.

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Note: My comment about the bad beat, above, was in response to another comment which has since mysteriously disappeard. Somebody had posted that Billy Kopp had suffered a terrible bad beat to Darvin Moon on the hand where Kopp had busted out of the tournament. Before that hand, Kopp had been near the chip lead.

I feel bad for Kopp, but he made a mistake that cost him dearly.
By Burrittobandit2

11/5/09 at 12:30 p.m.

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WSOP players are trash, retards have more smarts than they do.
By boogie

11/5/09 at 6:55 p.m.

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Burrittobandit2
Go to the Sahara and have a 3B
By acesbet

11/6/09 at 6:50 a.m.

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ALL IN POKER IS

25% SKILL
25% LUCK
25% CHRISMA
25% BALLS

SKILL IS MATHEMATICS & POSITI0N BOTH ARE REQUIRED IN EVERYDAY LIVING.

LUCK IS GETTING SOMETHING TO PLAY THEN KNOWING WHEN TO HOLD'EM AND WHEN TO FOLD'EM.

CHRISMA IS A NATURAL YOU EITHER HAVE IT OR YOU DON'T. IF YOU DO NOT YOU HAVE TO DEVELOPE IT.
THROUGH APPEARANCE (DRESS) - ACTIONS - SPEACH

BALLS - A CHANCE TAKER ON AND OFF THE TABLE. NEVER REALLY SATISFIED WITH THE HAND YOU WERE DEALT.

YOU WERE BORN TO "MARCH TO A DIFFERENT DRUMMER"

LUCK