By Pauly
I was sweating all day. I had $2,700 riding on Erick Lindgren. That was the most I had wagered on a single event since March Madness and I couldn't get enough updates. Every few minutes I'd ask Schecky or check Wicked Chops Poker on his progress.
Lindgren was not playing in a poker tournament. Rather, he was on the golf course. Even though the second to last day of the $50K HORSE was running, most of the attention in the Rio Ballroom fell upon the shoulders of a guy who wasn't even in the casino. One of the things I do love about Las Vegas are when degenerate gamblers bet outrageous amounts on trivial things.
I felt I had an edge. I didn't have a lock or feel that the fix was in. But I felt as though I was on the better side of that seemingly impossible bet. Something that Brandon Schaefer told me in Australia resonated while I was making a slew of side bets with friends. Schaefer told me that he gambles for a living and assesses risk. If he was going to set a prop bet, against anyone, they would be the underdog. So when Lindgren made that bet with Gavin Smith and Phil Ivey, I felt strongly about Schaefer's words. Erick Lindgren is a professional gambler and he was a former athlete. Add those two facts together, and the obvious choice was to bet on Lindgren. I found a handful of suckers who pooled together $2,700 and I scored. Big.
Erick Lindgren had to shoot four consecutive rounds of golf at Bear's Best, all under a score of 100, without a cart, and in one single session. He had to carry his own bag but had a caddy to help with distances, replacing divots, and green reads. Gavin Smith, Nordberg, Chris Bell, and Phil Ivey all wagered against Lindgren for a combined amount of $340,000.
"I got a lot of action," said Lindgren.
Guess what? Not only did Lindgren do it... he did it after getting shitfaced drunk the night before and on 90 minutes of sleep while surviving 115 degree temperatures under the sizzling Nevada sun. That's the stuff legends are made of.
His prop bet was a variation of a Huck Seed bet that was done several years ago. It was also similar to the one in the film Lucky You, but since like seven people saw that film, no one would know that the same golf course they shot that scene happened to be the same course Lindgren played four consecutive rounds on.
The first two rounds were a breeze. He struggled with the third round. At the start of the fourth round, a big problem arose. What happened if he shot 100 exactly? Ivey and Lindgren decided to flip a coin to decide the outcome... should they have that issue. Unreal, I thought. My entire wager night be decided on a fuckin' coin flip.
Anyway, Schecky gave me the low down on the final round. Lindgren shot the front 9 at 49. The back 9 is much tougher, but the Las Vegas winds had died down as did the temps. Lindgren had struggled on the back 9 all day in the previous three rounds, yet he prevailed. By the 13th hole, Chris Bell and Gavin Smith took a buy out, but Ivey did not.
Chops sent a RawVegasTV camera man to interview me since I was one of the few people who bet on Lindgren. Fernando was the one who found out the official outcome for me. I indeed won and and if you add up my cash in the WSOP on Sunday, I picked up close to 7.5K in less than five days.
Of course, my bar tab at the Tilted Kilt has reached four figures and if you add up all the money I lost in "throwing things" prop bets over the last four weeks, I'm hovering around almost breaking even. On Day 27, I dropped $80 on a water toss and another $5 on trying to hit one of our interns in the head with a wadded up piece of paper.
Thank God for Lindgren. Now I have enough money to pay my bar tab.
Moving on...
The final table for the $50K Horse final table is set. They will be playing HORSE this year at the final table instead of NL like last year. Too bad the final table will still be a crap shoot with the fucked up structure that all the pros were bitching about.
$50K HORSE Final Table:Mr. Kotter bubbled off the final table in 9th place. The following players busted out on Day 4: Gabe Kaplan, Dewey Tomko, Mark Gregorich, Stephen Wolff, Tim Phan, Greg Raymer, Chris Reslock, Mike Matusow, Noah Jefferson, Max Pescatori, Justin Bonomo, Patrick Pezzin, and Daniel Negreanu.
Seat 1: Kenny Tran - 2.445M
Seat 2: David Singer - 1.33M
Seat 3: Bruno Fitoussi - 895K
Seat 4: John Hanson - 1.995M
Seat 5: Freddy Deeb - 3.5M
Seat 6: Thor Hansen - 40K
Seat 7: Amnon Filippi - 4.015M
Seat 8: Barry Greenstein - 750K
Here are the payouts:
1 - $2,276,832
2 - $1,278,720
3 - $852,480
4 - $586,080
5 - $444,000
6 - $337,440
7 - $259,296
8 - $188,256
Quick Stats:
Entrants: 148
Prize Pool: $7,104,000
Day 1 Chipleader: Eli Elezra
Day 2 Chipleader: John Hanson
Day 3 Chipleader: Amnon Filippi
Day 4 Chipleader: Amnon Filippi
Amnon Filippi maintained his chiplead and enters the final table with $4.05M. He has two cashes in 2007 and four overall. He made two final tables on the WPT and his biggest score to date was winning the Bellagio Cup in 2005. Tobey Maguire also made that final table. His score at the Horse event will push him past $1M in career tournament winnings. He is seeking his first bracelet.
The mystery man left in the field is John Hanson from New York. He cashed in the $5K Heads Up event last week but that's his only WSOP cash. He was the chipleader of HORSE at the end of Day 2. Aside from that, I know nothing about him.
Norway's Thor Hansen come in as the super short stack. He has four cashes at the 2007 WSOP and has over $2.1M in career earnings, including two WSOP bracelets.
Kenny "The Kid" Tran has $420K in career earnings and has three previous WSOP cashes. There were several points during Day 2 and 3 when Tran flirted with the chiplead.
David Singer has $2.1M in career tournament earnings. He's cashed 13 times at the WSOP including 8 final tables (one of which was the WSOP main event in 2004 where he took 9th). He's the only player to return to the final table from last years inaugural Horse event. He's also made two WPT final tables. He has zero bracelets and is one of the best players on the circuit to have never won a bracelet.
Bruno Fitoussi from Paris, France, has four cashes at the WSOP and has won over $670K in tournaments all over the world. This is his third final table at the WSOP. He never won a bracelet and came close in 2005 when he took second place in Razz. He's currently the President of VIP-gaming.
My Main man Freddy Deeb has cashed 21 times at the WSOP. He made 12 final tables and won one bracelet in 1996.
Barry Greenstein is one of the best poker players of all time. Doesn't matter if it is a cash game or tournament, he's going to be one of the best players at the table. He also has the biggest heart in poker and donates 100% of his tournament winnings to charity. Barry cashed three times at the 2007 WSOP and has 31 career WSOP cashes. He's won 2 bracelets and made nine final tables. He's also won two WPT events. He's also won more than $5M in tournaments in his life and God only knows how much more in cash games. Barry Greenstein dedicated his last bracelet to Charlie Tuttle in 2005. Spaceman's best friend was battling cancer and died a day later after hearing what Greenstein had done for him.
This should be an exciting final table. I'm rooting for Barry Greenstein but my darkhorse to win it... is David Singer. Nothing against Amnon... I just can't get anyone to give me good odds on him!
The final table will start at 2pm local time or 5pm for all you New Yorkers. BJ will be doing the hand for hand and I will be doing color commentary at the final table. Click here to follow our live updates of the $50K HORSE event for PokerNews.com.
Don't forget to check out LasVegasVegas for Flipchip's WSOP photos and there's the Poker Prof's cool 2007 WSOP Info page.
And come back at the Tao of Poker for daily recaps and head over at PokerNews for live coverage and updates including chipcounts.
For all you fantasy sports junkies, check out our new site... Fantasy Sports Live.
Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
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