By Gerald Hanks | Published on November 11, 2009

WSOP Main Event 2009: The Aftermath

In the last forty years, the World Series of Poker has grown from a group of Texas road gamblers voting on the “second-best” player in the world, to an event of over fifty tournaments, with thousands of players representing nearly every country on Earth, playing for millions of dollars. Baseball caps, usually with a sponsor’s logo stitched on them, far outnumbered cowboy hats at this year’s Main Event, and online pros see more hands in a week than Doyle, Puggy and Slim saw in a year back in their heyday. But who and what really stood out in this year’s Main Event?

Best Player – (tie) Jeffrey Lisandro and Phil Ivey

Lisandro’s Seven-Card Stud bracelet hat trick (Hi, Hi/Lo, and Razz) may eventually resurrect a game that had been all but buried during the hold’em craze of the last six years. Ivey’s two bracelets came in the $2,500 combined Omaha Hi/Lo / 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo event and the $2500 buy-in No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball tournament. How many people on the planet still play No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball? To top it off, he also has to deal with the major media coverage that goes with making his first Main Event final table.

Worst Player – Darvin Moon

Most poker players associate bad play with loose play. For the most part, Moon played tighter than the lid on a jar of pickles. He came within two hands of becoming the worst Main Event champion ever. Yes, that includes Jamie Gold, Jerry Yang and Robert Varkonyi. If he hadn’t caught as many cards as he did, he would have been back in his cave in Maryland after Day 2. He openly admits that he did not have the skills and experience of his opponents, which only makes his second-place run more stunning.

Best Story – (tie) Frankie Gay and Kent Senter

Gay’s son, US Army Corporal Pruitt Rainey, was killed in action in Afghanistan last year. Cpl. Rainey was an avid poker player and fan who got his father interested in the game. Before he went into action, Cpl. Rainey made his father promise to go to Las Vegas and play in the Main Event. Senter was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer that had metastasized and caused tumors to grow on his spine. He called his time at the Main Event “a dream come true”. Neither man made the money, but they earned a great number of admirers.

Worst Feature – Jack Links Beef Jerky Wild Card Hand

Did the suits at the four-letter network forget that the whole reason people watch poker is to see the player’s hole cards? I’m sure that the sponsors paid major buckage to have their logo covering the screen whenever we wanted to see hole cards, but aren’t they defeating the purpose of their own show? If Harrah’s and the Bristol Bunch want poker on TV to go back to the “bad old days”, then those same sponsors will dry up and blow away when a test pattern beats them in the ratings.

Best Chad-ism – Anytime he laid into Steve Begleiter

And his former employer, the investment bank Bear Stearns. Although the main <strikethrough>crooks</strikethrough> hedge fund managers at the company were acquitted recently, Begleiter was director of corporate strategy during the collapse. When Begleiter asked Ivey about the hand at the 2003 Main Event where Moneymaker caught a full house to knock him out, Chad responded, “Didn’t you help run Bear Stearns into the ground?” When “Begs” protected his big blind from a steal raise, Chad commented, “He protects his big blind better than Bear Stearns protected its investors.”

Worst Chad-ism – “I believe they are the ‘Ragin’ Cajuns’”

Last year, whenever he mentioned that a player attended a non-US-based university, Chad would say that their mascot was the “Demon Deacons” (the mascot for Wake Forest University in North Carolina). This year, he went with “Ragin’ Cajuns” (the mascot for the University of Louisiana at Lafayette). After more than twenty episodes, the jokes got so tired that it made viewers long for the days of his Henny Youngman-style “ex-wife” bits. Nominees for next year: the Golden Gophers (Minnesota), the Horned Frogs (Texas Christian) and the Javelinas (Texas A&M-Kingsville).

Worst Play – Ivey Folds a Flush

With twenty-four players left and Ivey below the chip average, he leads out with pocket eights (spades and diamonds). Jordan Smith re-raises to a million with ace of diamonds and nine of clubs. Ivey calls and the flop comes with two spades, ten and five, plus the queen of hearts. Both players check the flop; the turn is the queen of spades, giving Ivey four spades. They both check the turn; the river is the ace of spades, filling Ivey’s flush. Does Ivey pounce like the predator he is? No, he checks the river. When Smith shows his hand, Ivey must have misread Smith’s nine of clubs as the nine of spades and mucks the winning hand. In the immortal words of one YouTube commenter, “Haha Ivey, – What a noob.”

Biggest Trend – Youth is Served

With wins by Eastgate, Obrestad and, now, Cada, combined with the longer structures for all major tournaments, the game is undergoing a youth movement the likes of which it has never seen. Not only are these younger players outlasting (if not outplaying) the likes of Brunson, Greenstein and Harrington, they’re even taking on the younger veterans of the game such as Negreanu, Lindgren and Ivey. The last time Las Vegas saw so many winning “twenty-ones” at a table was during the MIT blackjack team’s last card-counting blitz.

Trend that Needs to Die – Costumes

It’s Vegas, it’s the desert and it’s July. It’s not Halloween. I don’t care what ridiculous publicity stunt that Hellmuth has to do to make him look like Jeff Gordon, George S. Patton, or John Belushi from Animal House. His site pays him major buckage to look like a complete tool. You’re willing to look like an idiot for free. Congratulations, now go put on some normal clothes, moron.

Of course, with the end of the 2009 Main Event come the inevitable predictions for next year’s session. Anybody want to bet against Ivey making it to the final table again? I’ll take that action!