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Five-Card Studs Posted: Tuesday May 14, 2002 5:52 PM
So when the 73-year-old Slim tells you he can win the World Series of Poker championship event one last time, you might want to start making out the $1.5 million first-place check. "If I tell you a goose can pull a plow," he says, "hitch him up." Care to bet against him? This is the gambler who won $1,000 stepping over a live alligator's back; won a golf match with a bow and arrow instead of clubs and a ball; won a $30,000 bet by producing a fella who could eat 30 quail in 30 days. (The "fella" happened to be identical twins.) True, Slim hasn't won the World Series since 1972, but that makes no never mind. He says he can win because everybody else entered is so dumb. "Some of these boys couldn't track an elephant in four feet of snow," he says. Them's fightin' words, especially when you realize there's never been a better lineup of pot rakers than there is for this year's World Series main event, which begins Monday at the place where it started, Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas. For instance, the most feared player in the world isn't the 6'3" Slim but a player who happens to go about 5'4", 100 pounds -- and is expecting a baby in December. Her name is Jennifer Harman, and lately nobody has won more money at the biggest limit-poker game in the world, Bellagio's, than she has. That's got to be a burr under Slim's saddle, because he once said that if a certain woman won the World Series, "you can cut my throat with a dull knife." Harman may have one ready. The other night at Bellagio, she was on her way to cash out when some dandruff said, "Hey, Sweetie, where'd you get all those chips?" Harman batted her eyes and dripped, "Oh, my boyfriend gave them to me!" "No reason a woman can't win it this year," she says. "It doesn't take a lot of muscles to lift the cards." One of the hottest tournament poker players in the world happens to be black. Three weeks into this five-week chipathon Phil Ivey, 25, from Atlantic City, had already won three two-day tournaments, not to mention made it to two other final tables. He'd be the first black to win the five-day championship event. He's climbed bigger hills, though. He used to sell policeman's ball tickets over the phone. If that's not enough, Doyle Brunson, the world's greatest living poker player, is back after a four-year feud with the Horseshoe. He and Jack Binion put the World Series on the map 32 years ago (when Jack's father, Benny, invented it), although some people think Brunson invented poker. Hell, Brunson, 68, is poker. He's seen four guys drop dead in front of him at poker tables. He once played five days and five nights straight in a game in Texas. He's cleaned people out, then taken their cars, watches, rings, shoes -- even pants (Brunson returned them the next day). During breaks in the filming of Casino, Joe Pesci spent hours at the Mirage just watching him work. Somebody's writing a movie script about his life. But it isn't over yet. "Would I like to win the World Series again for the old guys?" says Brunson. "Nah. I'd like to win it for ol' Doyle." My Lord, there will be so many more great players among the 600-plus tanless rounders: the unquenchable Johnny Chan, the unshakable Brit Dave (Devilfish) Ulliott and the unbearable Phil Hellmuth Jr. "I want to be the greatest poker player who ever lived," says Hellmuth, who, in a 30-minute interview referred to himself as the "Jack Nicklaus of poker," the "Tiger Woods of poker" and the "Mozart of poker." Says Slim, "He's one of the most egotistical, self-important, least popular sumbitches I ever met, but he's all right." Sadly, all that talent means Slim probably has about as much chance as a soggy matchstick. The other night, in a one-day Omaha Hi-Lo Split tournament, a goateed little pup named Dan Negreanu busted him three straight hands, knocking him out for good on the third. Did it mean anything special to you, Dan, breaking Picasso's brushes in half like that? "Nah," he said. "Just another knockout." "Ahh," huffs Slim, "I'll knock 'em all off like a dead limb. These folks is soft butter to me. Remember, seldom do the lambs slaughter the butcher." Dang. Don't you hope he's not bluffing? Issue date: May 20, 2002 Don't miss The Life of Reilly (Total/SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, $22.95) -- a best-of compilation of Rick Reilly's columns and features, with a foreword written by Charles Barkley, available now at bookstores everywhere.
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