And yet another NY Times article

[BS Yee]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/sp...gewanted=print


July 11, 2005
In Poker World Series, a Novice Flirts With Glory
By JOE DRAPE
LAS VEGAS, July 10 - Last March, Josh Baer sat before a glowing computer screen in his apartment in Bloomfield, N.J., and let tears roll down his cheeks. For a $160 buy-in, and after three hours of carefully calculated mouse clicks, Mr. Baer, then a theater major at Montclair State University, had achieved a dream: He had defeated 80 other online players in no-limit Texas Hold'em, earning a trip here and a seat worth $10,000 in the main event of the 36th World Series of Poker.

As Mr. Baer, 26, shuffled into the Rio Hotel and Casino on Saturday morning with the headphones of his iPod draped around his neck and a backpack loaded with Gummy Worms and Raisinets, he was focused on his mission to play smart, survive 15 hours of poker and advance out of the first round. It was too early to think about reaching the tournament's final table on Friday, with its $1 million guarantee and $7.5 million first-place check.

As he took his seat at Table 142 amid a symphony of riffling chips, however, Mr. Baer was thunderstruck by the odds he faced even before a single card had hit the felt. He was one of 5,600 players hoping to rake in a life-changing pot this weekend and wear the coveted gold bracelet given to the winner.

"I feel so small," he said.

He was not alone. Into Sunday morning, Mr. Baer and his rivals would see their chips ebb and flow as their imagined fortunes rose and fell at the turn of a single card.

While 300 players in this record-breaking field were professionals, the rest looked like a cross-section of America. They included the celebrated - like the actors Tobey Maguire and Jennifer Tilly and the golfer Rocco Mediate - and the everyday people - truck drivers, housewives and college students.

Like Mr. Baer, nearly half had won their seats for far less than the $10,000 buy-in at tournaments on Internet poker sites, which last year surpassed more than $1 billion in revenue.

Every player has visions of becoming the next Greg Raymer, the Connecticut patent lawyer who won the 2004 championship and the $5 million that came with it after gaining entry into the World Series by winning the same online tournament as Mr. Baer.

Their patron saint, however, is Chris Moneymaker, 29, who in 2003 was an accountant and amateur poker player who parlayed a $40 online entry fee into a $2.5 million windfall.

"I am the poster child for online poker," said Mr. Moneymaker, who was eliminated in the second round Sunday. "Amateurs and people who never even played the game watched me on television and figured, 'Hey, I can do that.' And they're right."

Mr. Moneymaker is widely credited with transforming a nearly two-century-old pastime played from frontier saloons to modern kitchen tables into a recent cultural phenomenon. Mr. Moneymaker, a young Tennessean in mirrored sunglasses who bluffed and bulldozed seasoned gamblers like Johnny Chan and Sam Farha, entranced viewers who watched the World Series on ESPN.

In 2003, Mr. Moneymaker faced a comparatively compact field of 839 players, and televised poker was not ubiquitous like it is now, with hundreds of hours shown on network and cable television. Among those watching the 2003 tournament was Mr. Baer, who was studying at Montclair State (he graduated in May) and spending an increasing number of hours online learning the nuances of no-limit Texas Hold'em, a game in which each player receives two cards and then bets progressively over the next five common cards on the table: three cards known as "the flop," a fourth known as "the turn" and the fifth, "the river."

Watching Mr. Moneymaker, Baer decided to set his sights on the World Series of Poker, and he began spending up to 10 hours a day online, playing millions of hands and using computer programs to analyze and explain the mathematical probabilities that can determine a winning hand.

It was hardly a delusional ambition, especially in large tournament play, because luck and nerve often offset skill when cards are landing in front of the nine players at every table. Sports bookies here, known for their handicapping acumen, made Phil Ivey, considered among the best professional players in the world, the tournament favorite - but at tepid odds of 400-1.

If poker's runaway popularity has a downside, it is felt most by the professionals who make their living around a card table. Bobby Baldwin won the 1978 World Series no-limit Texas Hold'em title by besting 41 other card sharks who anted up their own $10,000.

As chief executive officer of Mirage Resorts, however, Mr. Baldwin said he understood that what was good for the industry was tough on his friends.

"There are very, very good amateur players," Mr. Baldwin said. "And when you have 6,000 players, the odds for the pros get watered down. When you're playing a hand, you have to make all sorts of assumptions on very little information. Over a course of a week, facing wave after wave of new faces, it gets tough to be right all the time."

Mr. Mediate, for example, is ranked 32nd on the PGA Tour but rates himself no better than a "14 handicap" in no-limit Texas Hold'em, which he started playing just eight months ago. Still, before play began Sunday, he was in the top third of the players, with $33,825 in chips.

"It's conceivable that I can run through this field of the very best players in the world and win the whole thing," Mr. Mediate said. "But in golf, I could take one of these guys out on the Sunday round of the U.S. Open, and they would have absolutely no chance. I have control of my golf game. They do not. And that's what makes the tournament here so appealing."

Richard Baer, Josh's father, understands, or at least hopes, that a seat at the World Series of Poker is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. A dentist from New Jersey, Dr. Baer is wary of his son's immersion in poker; he tolerated it when Josh was working toward his college degree, even taking him out for a celebratory dinner when he earned his way into the tournament.

"I regard it as a hobby, not a potential occupation," Richard Baer said in a telephone interview. "I want him to keep it in perspective and enjoy the experience. I really admire his focus, but after this is all over, I want him to use that focus to find a regular line of work."

In the days before Josh Baer sat down at the tournament table, his father would have been proud of his son. He was focused on and enjoying his trip to the World Series. Mr. Baer was determined not to be "dead money," the term pros bestow on weak players. Most nights, he was in bed early in his hotel room at Treasure Island, which he shared with his brother, Matt, and four friends. Mr. Baer's room was free because he had agreed to wear a shirt promoting PokerStars.com, the Internet site where he won his $10,000 buy-in and another $1,000 in traveling money.

If there are any sure-fire winners at the World Series of Poker in recent years, it has been the Internet poker sites. Mr. Raymer and Mr. Moneymaker emerged from PokerStars.com tournaments, and the odds are favorable that this year's champion will be wearing the company's logo. It provided the buy-in fee and accommodations for 1,116 participants, or nearly 20 percent of the field.

But the company had already provided Mr. Baer with another transcendent moment: a 10-minute conversation with Mr. Raymer and Mr. Moneymaker at a pretournament reception.

"They were nice and encouraging," he said. "I even got my picture taken with them on my cellphone. Unfortunately, I snapped it shut before I stored the photograph."

For nearly nine hours, Mr. Baer played "tight poker." He folded hand after unsuitable hand, attacked when he had winning cards and kept his stack of chips in the $9,000 to $13,000 range. As the clock approached 9 p.m. on Saturday, he was dealt two hands in the span of 15 minutes that the probabilities, his competitors' body language and his guts told him were unbeatable.

In the first, he was holding an Ace and a King against a tablemate's Ace and Queen. With the flop came another Ace, and what the probabilities said was an 87 percent chance for Mr. Baer to win. He had $7,000 worth of chips in the post when, on the turn, a queen hit the table. It was the only card that could beat him.

On the next hand, he pushed his entire stack of chips into the middle of the table. The dealer called out, "All-in," which is a spine-tingling moment for every no-limit Texas Hold'em player and a clarion call for the television cameras and spectators to pay attention. On cue, the ESPN crew arrived at table 142 just in case Mr. Baer made it to the finals and turned out to be the next Greg Raymer or Chris Moneymaker.

Mr. Baer was holding a pair of Queens against what he guessed correctly was a King and a Queen. Again, the probabilities said he had a 70 percent chance of success. But the dealer then turned over a King and two 9's, giving Mr. Baer and his opponent two pairs. Unfortunately, his rival's Kings outranked his Queens.

Josh Baer's World Series was over. He was in good company - the former champions Doyle Brunson and Phil Hellmuth and a raft of other professionals had also been eliminated. Mr. Baer shook hands with everyone at the table, and this time the tears welling up inside him were not from joy. It took him until Sunday to put poker and the big-time tournament in perspective.

"I'll definitely be back," he said. "But I also know it's time to look for a job."