JACK MCCLELLAND’S FOUR QUEENS AND Q-4
Four Queens and a Queen and four, these were two of Jack’s most memorable hands. In the first place, all four Queens, in a game of seven card stud Poker. Jack’s late wife, alma had slow-played a starting hand of three rolled-up Queens in the final hand of the 1989 Ladies World Championship of Poker at Binion’s Horseshoe Casino. Her worthy and aggressive opponent, Adrienne Zoia had made two open pair, Jacks and tens. Almaad caught a fourth Queen and had won her gold bracelet! It had been a fairy tale ending to a perfect day!
Her first words had been ‘I had done it just like Johnny Chan!’ She had been referring to a previous viewing of 1988 WSOP finals where Johnny had flopped the nut straight and had trapped another great poker champion, Erik Seidel, to win the title. The same sequence had been described in the movie Rounders. Now for a different way to have accomplished the same thing. A couple of months ago, Jack had been playing gold with his good friend J. C. Pearson.
Jack had been J.C’s golf pigeon for Several years. He normally Played just well enough to win the money! (Jack wondered if J.C had learned that from His brother ‘Puggy’.) J.C. had been telling Jack that the key to winning at limit Holdem poker was learning how play and win with mediocre or bad hands. Now J.C had been a very unorthodox player, but he was also very successful, and had won far more than his share of poker tournaments. So Jack had listened.
Jack had made his first ‘solitary trip (without Alma or his current wife, Elizabeth) to the Heavenly Holdem poker tournament at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles, equipped with these new jewels of wisdom. Over the years, having watched thousands of poker tournaments, Jack had come to see the players falling into three Categories. Group I were the survivors; these master of the short stack could hang on forever with only a few chips.
The would wiggle their way into the money, and then they would claw their way up the payoff ladder, one rung at a time. This group included great poker tournament players such as Ken Flaton, Artie Cobb, Mansour Matloubi, Mike Sexton, and Susie Isaacs. They had always hung around the money Positions late in the tournament, having made the money a high percentage of the time.
Group II were the super aggressive poker players. They had almost a disdain for just trying to get a payday, they just made sure to finish in the money. Late in the poker tournament, as the money approached, they would become more and more aggressive, oftentimes finishing out of the money. But when they did arrive at a final table, they usually had a mountain of chips, and they managed to finish in the top positions.
They used to spend a lot of time at the jewelry store getting their play Poker bracelets and accessories sized and polished. This group included great Champions like Huck Seed, John Duthie, Bonetti, Men ‘The master’ Nguyen, the late Jack Keller, Doyle Brunson, Barbara Enright, and Phil Ivey. Group III, in Jack’s opinion, was the most dangerous group. They could sit patiently for hours, almost never playing a hand, while allowing other players push them around.
A half hour later, they would have shifted gears, appearing to be raising Every Pot, and the next thing you know, you were on your way to the rail, never having known quite what had hit you. This group included the superstars of the Circuit, such as Johnny Chan, Russ Hamilton, T.J.Cloutier, Ted Forrest, berryJohnston, Annie Duke, and Frank. They had also been very successful side game players.
(The ability to switch gears had been an art in the side games, as well as in the poker tournaments.) These players used to divide their break time Between the jewelry shop and conferences with their financial handlers. Somehow or the other, they got their money, and that ‘s how the score was kept in poker. Jack had always been a part of the survivor group. He had developed that style through several years of playing Side-limit side games and poker tournaments.
His theory had been that if one Could put a ‘black mark’ (poker winner) into your player’s log Every day, instead of a ‘red mark’ (loser), then the weeks, months, and years would take Care of themselves. Jack had wanted to make some Changes in his poker tournament game, and see what if would feel like to play more like a group II (super aggressive) player, with hopes of one day aspiring to group III (dangerous) status.
The first time Jack had attempted this approach was at a $200 buy-in limit Holdem poker event that had attracted 201 poker players who had made 258 rebuys, for a prize pool of $91,800. Although Jack’s pocket Aces had cracked twice, he steadily built up his chips, until they had been down to about 40 players. At that point, Jack had about $4,000 in chips, slightly less than the average, which had been roughly $6,000.
Going against his normal style of surviving, he had started to raise a lot of the pots. As his good friend, Dr. Max Stearn had taught him, position was far more important than the strength of one’s starting hand. Each time Jack had been in the late position, his opponents could have expected him to raise, raise, raise, and keeping the pressure on. The next thing he knew, they were at the final table. Jack had been running Second, with about $43,000 in chips, and his good friend of over 20 years, Cheryl Kaufman, had been the leader, with a little over $60,000 in chips.
Now, it would have Been nice to say that he’d caught a rush of good starting hands and won the poker tournament, but that was a different kind of fairy table. Through the hours of the final table, the Best starting hand he had ever picked up had been an unsuited ace and eight. With his normal survivor game, he would have probably finished somewhere Between fourth and seventh. But that night, his right arm Had been possessed by Huck Seed or John "onetti, and he had caught flops like men ‘The master’ Nguyen. What an adrenaline rush it had been!
As they had got down to five, Jack had learned that one of the players, Frank Rite, had been a big fan of Monty Hall, of Let’s make a Deal fame. You see, Frank had wanted to split the easy gaming money up among the active players. (These days, in poker tournaments, having to split the money among the last three, four, or five players is the norm.) However, many years ago, after having Split a small poker tournament,
Alma and John had come home very unsatisfied, and had made an agreement that they would never again make a deal at a poker tournament.Now Jack did realize that this sounded absurd coming from someone who had presided over and fine-tuned ‘the art of the deal’ in poker tournaments for hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet it was his feeling then, as it was presently, that deals were unsatisfying, and had been rather bad for the game of poker.
The keen competitive edge, the thrill, the adrenaline and focus, had been completely undercut. This was ultimately a new millennium, and poker had been becoming popular throughout the world. Television exposure and media interest had been growing on a daily basis. For poker tournaments to have to attain the attention and respect that they merited, deals were required to go the way of the hula-hoop. Having to attract corporate sponsorship, so that the poker players and casinos did not have to bear the Brunt of the expenses, was a must.
It had now been possible to play the game of poker on the Internet and major poker tournaments were now being played online (such as the sit Jack represented and believed in, Ultimatebet.com, which have a $2,000 buy-in, 1 million dollars Prize Pool Guaranteed event on Jan 11, 2003). These sites would be only as successful as their integrity and reputation allowed them to be. The days of deals had been dead.
Getting back to the tournament. They had been down to three players: #heryl Kaufman, Frank Rite and Jack. Jack had the Chip lead with around $100,000 out of the total sum of $230,000. Within the next hour, the Chips flew. Jack had managed to build up to $100,000 in chips, and Jack had been feeling pretty good bout himself. Ten minutes later, after Jack had lost a couple of pots to Frank, and bluffed off $40,000 to #heryl, Jack had been down to $40,000, and had started to mumble to himself about what an idiot he had been.
However, he knew that if he had quit poker playing, he would have Been doomed. Thus he had raised Frank with ten and nine on the Button. Frank reraised and the flop had come down a pair of nines and a two, and bang, Jack had doubled up. Three hands later, Jack had been back in the game. The adrenaline rush had been dizzying. Soon #heryl had busted Frank, and Frank had ended up behind in the third place.
By this time they had been at the $10,000-$20,000 limit. Therefore as tournament director Cheri Dokken had changed the Chips to $5,000 increments, Cheryl and Jack had taken a break and talked about the past twenty years. Her husband, Craig, and Jack had broken into poker together at the Sahara, they had moved up through the ranks, and had been friends, and quite friendly competitors, through the years.
They had congratulated each other, hugged and kissed, but then they had sat down and ‘gone to war’. Wasn’t poker a wonderful game?Now, finally, for Jack’s hand of the week, Jack had raised with the Queen of diamonds and four of diamonds on the Button. #heryl called with an unsuited Jack and seven, and the flop came ten of diamonds, seven of diamonds and four of spades. #heryl had flopped the Better hand with a pair of sevens, but Jack too had had a great flop, with a pair of fours and a flush draw.
Jack had bet $10,000, and #heryl had called; then the Jack of clubs had come off, for #heryl to make two pair, Jack’s and sevens. #heryl had bet $20,000, and Jack had called. Then #heryl had proceeded to bet her last $15,000 in the dark, and just like a night eleven years ago, a beautiful Queen had come up on the final card, having made Jack the winning hand, Queens and fours over #heryl’s Jack’s and sevens!Four Queens and Queen and four, they were two very different ways to have won a poker tournament.
It had not been like winning one’s weight in silver plus 2 million dollars, as Russ Hamilton would have done, still, it had felt pretty good. On that night, angels had been watching over Jack. May everyone’s dreams and also fairy tales come true soon. Shuffle up and deal! Frank's worked, but not nearly as often enough to have made it the Choice of many champions these days. Too many ‘new’ poker players have already Played that way, and many of them Have had to adjust their play, and tighten up, due to this trend.